Earlier this week, Carole, who writes an excellent blog called Fertility Lab Insider, had an interesting post called The Ethical Debate: Reproduction After Death where "[she] had the opportunity to work with a hospital ethics committee on a case in which a mother of a teenager wanted to retrieve sperm from her brain dead son."
"In the committee, as on the list-serve, opinions largely adhered to the same two perspectives : individual rights versus the greater good. In the committee case, the boy had suffered a traumatic injury and had agreed to be an organ donor on his drivers license. The mother asked for sperm retrieval to occur at the same time as organ donation. Sperm can be surgically retrieved from the testicles."
All I have to say is EWWWWW.....CREEPY! The article doesn't say what the mother was planning on doing with the specimen...but my mind can certainly jump to a few conclusions.
Twinks - if you ever read this someday, I don't think you'll ever have to worry about Dad or me wanting to retrieve / freeze your eggs or sperm!
This topic reminded me of two cases I had read about previously over the past few years.
In one case, a wealthy business man who froze sperm before divorcing his first wife. His second wife, who was much younger, and this man talked about having children, but he died before they could conceive. The second wife felt the sperm was part of his estate and sued to gain custody of the sample so she could perform IVF and have his child. I don't remember the outcome, but the first wife was most concerned about how additional children conceived using this man's sperm would affect the inheritances of her children from their first marriage.
Another case, which was the saddest of all to me, was a call I heard on a radio show right before Christmas. This 38-year-old guy was diagnosed with advanced brain cancer and only given a few more months to live. His wife, who was also 38, and her family were pressuring him to get her pregnant before he died. He explained that his wife felt her biological clock was ticking and by the time she met another man she wanted to have children with, she would have been to old to have children. He didn't think it was ethically right to bring his children into the world without him as the father - never mind the way he probably felt with advanced brain cancer. In this case, I don't think there is a "good answer".
What do you think?
4 comments:
Hmm...very odd indeed. Although I agree with you on the ewww/creepy factor, I also think it's hard to judge someone's actions who has lost a child. As weird as it may seem, who knows what she's thinking and maybe it's not so weird afterall? I dunno - definitely an odd situation though.
These are all difficult and why they are called moral issues. There are always two sides and no one is wrong. It's a matter of who is less wrong and hat's very subjective. Good topic! Hey how are last few weeks before the big day!
I don't know, people get so attached to DNA. I can't see wanting to do this with my children's eggs or sperm, but since the technology exists it is sure to be taken to its farthest limits by some . . . I remember signing a waiver at CCRM that if both me and my husband died then our embryos would be discarded. I guess it is to prevent families from fighting over the embryos. There are so many crazy scenarios.
You certainly got me thinking!
Post a Comment