I remember being rather young the first time I heard of artificial insemination - Kirstie Alley used it to explain her sudden pregnancy in the movie "Look Who's Talking." What's that I asked.
That's when a doctor implants someone's sperm into a woman who wants to get pregnant but can't for some reason... was the answer I was given.
Ah, I thought... So now men aren't even needed to get pregnant any more. So much for that argument... I laughed and didn't really think about it again for quite a while.
Then, years later, the topic of artificial insemination and invitro fertilization started to become more prevalent. They made their way into comedic acts and sitcoms, drama and regularly scheduled programming - and the whole time I thought to myself... Pretty soon, someone's going to sue over that sperm...
A couple of years later an idiot thought it might be a good idea to go driving with a cup of steaming coffee on her lap - and won millions for her stupidity. This only affirmed my belief that someday we were going to sue the sperm.
Then genetic engineering came about in class a couple of years ago, and I was laughed at for asking the question "Who's accountable for the donated sperm and embryos?" when the subject of stem cell research was brought up. That question was never fully answered for me...
Well, apparently someone does have to be held accountable... because the day has finally come when someone has decided to sue for receiving faulty sperm:
Brittany Donovan, now 13 years old, was born with fragile X syndrome, a genetic disorder causing mental impairment and carried on the X chromosome. She is now suing the sperm bank, Idant Laboratories of New York, under a product liability law more commonly associated with manufacturing defects, such as faulty car brakes.
So, my first reaction to reading this article is to laugh... please allow me a moment to do so now...
...
...
People laughed at me when I said that someone, somewhere would sue for being conceived via artificial insemination. Laughed at me as if the new American Dream - blame others for your flaws and make millions suing - wouldn't spill over into the artificial insemination business.
So here's my major problem with this suit:
SPERM should be subject to the same product liability laws as car brakes, according to a US judge who has given a teenager with severe learning disabilities the go-ahead to sue the sperm bank that provided her with a biological father...
...Donovan does not have to show that Idant was negligent, only that the sperm it provided was unsafe and caused injury. "It doesn't matter how much care was taken," says Daniel Thistle, the lawyer representing Donovan, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Genetic tests have revealed that she inherited the disorder from her biological father.
WAIT She's 13 years old!? Did they even have a means to screen for this type of genetic disease back then? According to the National Fragile X Foundation's web site, research is still ongoing into this disorder... One such study has been ongoing since 1997 - only one year after Brittany was born!
And on top of all that - Fragile X can appear almost out of the blue:
Most genes have a very low rate of mutation. The majority of individuals who inherit a disease have at least one parent who is a carrier for that disease since new mutations are rare.
In contrast, once the FMR1 gene changes from stable (standard) to unstable (premutation), it has a high probability of mutating from one generation to the next. Thus, there can be a family with no history of fragile X syndrome in which it suddenly appears in a number of offspring.
Then, of course, there's a whole other mess about what would be happening right now if Brittany's mother had received sperm from a different donor. Would the girl we know as Brittany even exist? I can't even wrap my head around that whole cycle right now. Is this a case of a teenager being ungrateful for having been brought into existence - or of a mother who's pissed off that she didn't give birth to the designer child she was hoping for?
Do people not understand that we still have very limited knowledge of human genetics? Seriously...
What are the ramifications of allowing something like this to go to court? Can children who lose the genetic lottery begin suing their parents? Should mothers of inseminated children be allowed to sue for losing a game of genetic roulette? Can we begin suing surrogate mothers? Where will it end?
And to those of you out in the world who laughed at me when I asked who was accountable for sperm, or laughed at me when I said people were going to be suing for being born...
HA! Never doubt the power of stupid people in large numbers...
Wow. I just watched the price of sperm go up as I read that. That sucks. We only have about $10,000 saved up for IUIs, and it looks like we waited about a month too long to inseminate! But maybe we have time....if the girl is successful with her lawsuit, though, banks will see their liability insurance increase drastically, which will raise the per-swimmer cost dramatically.
"Never go with a hippy to a second location."
~Jack Donaghy
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
"Per swimmer cost"?
I've never heard "swimmer" used so seriously before!
Well, for all those out there who would be grateful to have a child, I hope the cost doesn't go up. An...
So true :(
Another thing I'm wondering about is what exactly are couples paying for when they go in for artificial insemination? Are they paying for the sperm, or for the procedure?
I always thought that they were paying for the procedure itself - not buying the sperm. I can't seem to find anything the differentiates what the payment is actually for; but if you aren't buying the sperm, then how is it considered a product and subject to the product liability laws?
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"when you have nothing else to say, "Fwonk" is always the perfect thing."
"yeah well, fwonk"
--Devon
Fanaile Essence
Sperm samples range from $275 to $700 a shot, as it were. You have to pay for both the samples and the procedure.
"Never go with a hippy to a second location."
~Jack Donaghy
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
Okay, so I guess I can kind of understand why couples who do this would want a little more of a guarantee that what they're buying is quality sperm...
But I am still confused by the product liability law that covers manufacturer defects. I could almost understand if the sperm bank had mishandled it and caused damage. But according to the article, Brittany doesn't have to prove that they were careless, just that the sperm was faulty...
Can we really classify sperm as a manufactured good?
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"when you have nothing else to say, "Fwonk" is always the perfect thing."
"yeah well, fwonk"
--Devon
Fanaile Essence
Well, it is made, just not by a machine...
~C
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"Never go with a hippy to a second location."
~Jack Donaghy
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
Oh wow....Thats all i have to say...
he Lord made me hard to handel...GOOD LUCK!
interesting...and enlightening, but also a little crazy discussion.
“You cannot wean away an addict from the drug. It is not possible for me to walk away from Ranjha. If it is our destiny to be together then who, other than God, can change it?”
she's a spaceman, no walker, dreamer...maybe
The websites or materials put out by patient's advocates organizations (like the National Fragile X Foundation) are not a place to find unbiased information about diseases or disorders. The quote you posted from that site is theoretically correct, because a genetic mutation has to originally come from a random mutation in someone's genes, but for all practical purposes is incorrect. Almost everyone today with Fragile X syndrome acquired it from at least one parent. So in this case, the 13 year-old inherited from her biological father.
Whether the sperm bank was able to screen for the disorder at that time is another question. I did a paper on Fragile X Syndrome for one of my classes and one of my sources was a book published in the late 1980s. I haven't found a source that says when screening for the disorder became available, but my guess is that they could screen for it when the sperm was chosen for this girl's mother. Probably the man who donated the sperm has a milder form of the disorder with milder cognitive deficits, so that he probably comes off like someone with a high functioning form of autism. With him being unaware of being a carrier, its stands to reason that a sperm bank in the early to mid nineties wasn't scrupulously screening every batch of sperm and so this carrier sperm was distributed.
And this whole things about using weird product laws to justify legal claims about biological materials--its not new. Just google Diamond v. Chakrabarty (1980). If I remember the case correctly, Chakrabarty was the head scientist of a research group that built a new cell line from Mr. Diamond's liver cells. Mr. Diamond was never really told why he was asked back to the hospital so many times after he thought his cancer had been cured. Turns out they had used the cell line for some very lucrative research. When Mr. Diamond found out, he sued, hoping to obtain part of the profits because they used part of his body. The Supreme Court sided with the scientists, citing patent law, I think. You should look it up, I can't quite remember.
Common sense is as rare as genius. ~Emerson
It's just another example of selfishness; this child clearly had this idea planted in her head without thought to the consequences to others. If her lawsuit is successful, sperm donation and related activities may become so much more expensive that no on will be able to afford it. To take away the only opportunity some couples or singles may ever have to be able to have children biologically related to them?
Adoption is wonderful, but for some it is just not the same as going through the rites of pregnancy and having the joy of seeing your own eyes reflected in your child. We all have equal rights to seek happiness and it is simply unfair to take one opportunity away out of the selfishness and anger of one individual.
What next, suing my father because I have his temper and my mother because I inherited her weight management problems?
Hi Engkatiemarie, it has been a long time since I have seen you post here.
And I agree with the selfishness comment. The attorney who filed this suit should be held resonsible for the costs to all parties, the courts and pay some punitive damages as well.
Jack,
It has been an interesting couple of years. I graduate from college (b.s. in mech eng) and have moved to Minnesota. I now work at a nuclear power plant as a components engineer. It's really fun and I love the job. I get to troubleshoot all day!
I have missed ProU and I'm thinking about helping Naomi do some fundraising so we can afford scholarships in the fall. Got any good ideas?
Kate
Last time ProgU needed money they just asked and I think quite a few people responded. I know I did.
I would suggest trying to find sponsors but it seems like so many of the bloggers here are so against any sort of capitalism that it would turn off anybody who had any money that was made in the capitalist system.
Maybe rather than the current point system which is basically based on volume, scholarships should be awarded on more of a qualitive basis which included points for originality, insight, progressive value, presentation, etc. The current system encourages people to post on the same controversial subjects (gay marriage, legalize drugs, religion) over and over because these topics generate a lot of hits and therefore a lot of points in the competition. They also encourage people to post some very trivial blogs that have little value. A qualitative system with judges would probably encourage a much better quality of blogging. I might pay for the opportunity to be a judge. There are a few other older bloggers here who while I often butt heads with them, I have a lot of respect for and believe would also make good judges and since they are in the workforce they might have a bit of money.
Congrats on your job. I hope you are not trouble shooting anything very serious at that nuclear plant.
Finding sponsors is actually a big fundraising idea behind the scenes right now.
As far as the point system goes, while trivial, poor quality blogs seem to get quite a few initial hits to them, the better quality ones end up with the most read points because people are more inclined to comment to them, rather than click them, roll their eyes, and forget about them. Comments move blogs up to the top of the recent activity list, which tends to be read more.
Each judge can also move a blog s/he feels is exceptional quality to the home page, where it also more likely to be read, simply because it is on the front page. I know on my own blogs, the difference in read points between the blogs featured and those that weren't goes into the thousands on some of them. [example Homeless kids (2380) and Male breast cancer (1590), v. Prank feet (347)].
And then, if your blogs give off the feeling of wanting to come back for more, more and more people will add you to their buddy list, so they can readily read and comment on your blog. Generating more read points.
And originality does get you read points. For all my blogs on vaccinations and breastfeeding, my blog with the most read points is about vaginoplasties.
The winners of previous contests really is the only proof I have that the current system works. While I may not agree with the views of every winner, the writing quality in general is not lacking.
"What a crazy random happenstance!"
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
Read my Blog!
The last time we asked for money, we barely scraped by with our goal, and most of those donating money were related to the staff. It seems we have too many poor college students for that to be a real viable option. Though, I continue to promote the use of GoodSearch, as whatever we raise during the past year (through September) will be mailed to us in December. If enough people use it for the next 2 1/2 months, that might be enough to fund at least one scholarship....
~C
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