Mom gets ok to harvest dead son's sperm

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30115186/

A judge just ruled in the mother's favor.  What do you think?

My personal opinion:  I think the mother is grieving, and she's gone about dealing with this grief in all the wrong ways.  The article doesn't say, but I'm betting that sometime in the past, mother and son had a conversation about him wanting children in the future.  I'm guessing that she doesn't get that he probably meant that he wanted to be alive when the children were created.  I'm betting that he probably wanted some kind of say in who the mother was as well.

My parents know that I want children some day.  But I never dreamed that I might have to sit down with them and spell out the fact that I meant that I'd want to be alive when this happened.

The wife version has been done already so that would creep me out less.  Unless, they'd been trying/planning to have kids and hadn't so the implication this would be something he'd have wanted.

But from the mom, just a thing I can't get over.  I guess to each their own but I couldn't imagine ever harvesting from my husband or son if something tragic happened to one of them.  You can't replace 1 person with another and if she does ever get a surrogate I really do feel bad for the issues that kid could have.  For some of us it's hard enough getting explained (at least when I was a kid and got tormented for it) that you're adopted..... but having to hear you're only there because Daddy died and gram harvested his sperm to make them... yikes.

Original Post by kathygator:

No the spawn is all haunted and creepy because it was conceived from sperm from a dead man.....or...a baby born a zombie.

Yikes.

Ok, now it's starting to sound cool...a zombie baby eating Gerber liquified braaaaaiiiinnnnssss...

Original Post by drea99:

If this was his wife, would you all feel differently?

(full disclosure: I havent decided how I feel about it yet, at first, I though mom was planning on carrrying the baby... immediate yuck... but ...the more I think about it, there is some precedent for it and really the likelihood of conception is pretty low.  When mom gets a little more straight in the head, she may rethink it-- or it might be the best thing she ever did.  I think the law is probably pretty clear that the harvesting itself is not prohibited, but the use thereof might be-- but we will have to see how it all plays out.  If you are worried about egg harvesting, dont be.  We dont have the true technology as of yet to reliably use immature ova and proceed to conception.  Not to mention the "readily available and accessible sperm" factor vs the "is it the right time can we get to them very invasive and probably bad from oh being dead egg" factor)

I still feel ick, but a little less ick. 

Who will pay child support?

I assume it would be the same as any other artificial insemination-- the father is really not considered to exist.  there are very few cases that find differently and those are far and few between.

Mom should be on the hook.

You mean mom of the dead dad right?

It is not uncommon here at the army post with the guys going to Iraq to have sperm stored. They have been doing it just in case if that is what their wives want.

I have two grown sons and one went to iraq and I just can't get what this mom is doing.  It is just wrong, but it is a sign of the times, everything goes.

Someone asked who with carry it- that is the least of the issue, you can alway pay someone to do that. College girls are donating eggs to pay for their college so if she has the money it's not an issue.

I didn't notice a dad mentioned for the man killed so I'm guessing it was a single mom. I would be so beside myself I wouldn't even have been able to think for something like this. 

Why did it have to be a biological (sp) child? why not just adopt a child that needs a home. 

Gee, will this led to parents of teens killed saying -Mmm, my child was going to get married and have a family so let me go ahead and do it for them. Wrong is wrong.

hmmm...this might be a slightly dumb question, but how does one collect the sperm from a dead man's body?  I mean, honestly--do you go in there with a pair of tweezers or something?  And who will the mother give the sperm to?  Will she give it to a surrogate mother & donate one of her own eggs to produce a child?  Give it to a female relative?  Put an add out on Craig's list to find an egg donor?  Maybe have a test-tube baby? 

Lord, this entire story is bizarre!