If the red headed kid was born because the sperm bank screwed up - they could sue and most likely would receive compensation. They did not get what they contracted for - which was not “a child that looks a certain way” but WAS “insemination from a specific vial of sperm.”
If I hire a contractor to redo my bathroom and I specify a certain tile - and when the tile gets laid a different tile gets laid, I can sue. Now, before I sue, the contractor might give me some way to make me whole - maybe he rips out the tile and puts in the right tile. But maybe doing that takes another month - so I still sue because now I got the tile I wanted, but I didn’t get the bathroom in the amount of time given in the contract.
In this case, half the genetic material belongs to one of the Moms and the little girl is a human being - ripping out the tile and starting over isn’t a solution I’d go for either - I’d be living with the tile I got. But I WOULD sue the contractor for giving me the wrong tile.
(I just redid my bathroom and spent four hours looking at tile. I spent hours reviewing the contract and drawings to make sure I was getting what I wanted. We visited four granite fabricators over a week to pick granite. I then lived without a master bathroom - sharing a bathroom with my two teenagers - for six weeks. Yeah, if I got the wrong tile, we’d look for compensation. We did get the “wrong” light fixtures - the ones I picked out were not longer being made - to get new light fixtures involved a signed change order on the contract so we all agreed in writing that what was on the original contract was no longer valid - which protected my contractor from me coming back with “the light fixtures are wrong.” And they paid the difference for the new more expensive fixtures because they should have checked on availability before we spec’d them. Frankly, I think sperm donation needs at least as much contractual oversight and opportunity for compensation through the courts as a new bathroom)
Oh, and the argument “other people don’t even get granite countertops and have to live with that tile, you should be happy with the privilege you have” really wouldn’t hold water when I sued. That argument doesn’t even come up if you take that sort of thing to court.
IANAL and neither, I assume, are you. My assumption is that the eventual court case will involve straight forward application of the law. She may or may not be “deserving” of damages; is that really something the court considers? Isn’t this really just contract law? (I don’t know the answer)
Wait, what? Do we get blamed for what people around us believe? Should we uproot ourselves and move elsewhere because most people around us have different values than we do?
I live in a country that can be generously described as “not very open to homosexuality”. I, and many in my family, on the other hand, have been very tolerant as far as I can remember. It is one thing to raise my child here, and instill in her my own values of tolerance, it is another to make my hypothetical gay child live in a place where she’ll be discriminated, mocked, rejected. We can, luckily, move elsewhere if that was ever the case. How many people can?
It is the same case for this couple.
I am a complete and utter mutt with a white husband. If we were to choose insemination and I choose a white or mixed donor and they send me an Asian one and I end up with an Asian-looking kid you bet your ass I’d sue. And Asians here are actually pretty well-respected.
The funny thing is that when we were having fertility issue we discussed adoption and any adopted child would have been much darker-skinned than me, and I was fine with that.
So we are all to blame for the sins of our towns? After all we can all move and find our perfect spot under the sun.
Where’s the tolerant to racial differences, tolerant to homosexuality, tree-hugging, Atheist community? I wanna start packing.
No. We should compensate people for having been given the wrong sperm due to a shoddy system of communication.
I can’t recall which morning news I was watching, but the lawyer they had on reporting about this case said that the $50,000 thing was a bit of a red herring. She said it was the minimum amount that had to be sought to bring a lawsuit in whatever court system they’re bringing the lawsuit in. That it was simply a number slapped on the paperwork, and that any actual settlement amount would be determined by the judge if the judge ruled in the plaintiff’s favor.
So I guess you have just devolved to nonsensical histrionics now? You are conflating, combining, and misrepresenting several arguments and issues here.
Two lesbians can and should complain if they get the wrong sperm. The complain should be based on that fact; not based on damages stemming from having a biracial kid.
Two women cannot get pregnant, thus the idea that a lesbian couple with a same race child would be treated differently from a lesbian couple with a biracial child on the basis that the latter child is clearly “not theirs” makes no sense given ANY child is not both of theirs biologically speaking. Furthermore, it actually FACTUAL INACCURATE in this case as the kid is actually the biological offspring of one of the parents.
A couple who is using a husband’s sperm is not analogous to using a sperm donor, and even if it were, if the basis for complaint were predicated on race, then I would feel pretty much the same way.
How exactly is pointing out obviously racial prejudices pulling the race card? The woman herself claims the town she lives in is not just racist, but SO racist she can’t even raise a half Black kid there without major problems. Nobody INJECTED race into this story, it was alleged in the lawsuit, and permeates the entire complaint. That’s without even delving into her own words and behavior.
What the fuck is “the racist card”, and how is it being used unfairly?
Or maybe you have a hard time understanding a VERY simple argument. Her complaint alleged damages due to the fact that the sperm bank gave her a Black guy’s sperm. Not because it was the wrong sperm, but rather that he is Black. Additionally, she is alleging harm because her kid is half Black. Her complaint didn’t have to include ANY of that. She would have probably been in the same position legally speaking just arguing basic negligence. Rather, SHE decided that the race of her child was pertinent and deleterious.
Which is completely their own doing. This lady knowingly moved to this racist town. Even if you want to make the fact that she lives there now a consideration for damages, it doesn’t mean it should grant her any sympathy. I have said repeatedly she can and should make that argument if she can demonstrate actual damages, but I highly doubt she can.
Yes, you should. Are you really this fucking dense? If you live in a town that literally makes it impossible for a group of people who make of 14% or so of this country to thrive, then you should fucking move. If the people in your town make it impossible for a biracial child to grow up without being abused and denigrated, then you should move. You should move even if you “only first met a Black person when you went to college”. You should move even if you would never Black people differently. You live in a toxic environment, and there is almost no way to avoid being poisoned by it.
Note that this is a ridiculously low bar, and the fact that you are incredulous to the notion that you probably shouldn’t voluntarily live in a town that apparently can’t afford people basic human rights is pretty sickening.
More importantly, why should the sperm bank be blamed for the town this woman lives in? You can live around whomever you want, but you accept the consequences for that decision. If she lacked the compassion and empathy to the degree that she moves to the town she describes in the complaint, then I really don’t have any sympathy for her.
See this is where the issue breaks down for most minorities and where the sympathy ends. You can choose to ignore the burden the society you live in places on homosexuals because you are not gay. The blitheful indifference you can choose to exhibit isn’t afford to others in the cross hairs. That is a conscious decision YOU made to look the other way. Why should anyone think you are especially worthy of consideration when you were unwilling to provide that for others? The very reason pervasive discrimination still flourishes today is because people like you look the other way. If your moral compass is so guided by egoism that you don’t consider the role of discrimination plays until in affects you, then I have NO sympathy for you when it does.
And if you sued alleging you were damaged because you ended up with an Asian looking kid, then I would say you are acting like a racist ass. This is really NOT that difficult a concept despite people wanting to make a million excuses. If you think your biological child has damaged you solely because of their skin color, you are acting like a racist. If you allege wrongful birth because you kid is the “wrong” race, you are acting like a racist. Is this really that hard to grasp, or are have we just decided anything short of lynching is no longer racist?
My husband and I are listed as potential adoptive parents in the public system. You know what we had to do as part of the homestudy? Go through EVERY type of child and on a scale of one to five, determine what we could or could not accept. No, we can’t accept a Down’s child. No, we can’t accept a child with a history of sexual abuse. No, we can’t accept a child with FAS. For us, yes, we would accept a child of any race, but that question is on the list for a reason. Why? Because some people determine that they are not able to deal with different sorts of adversity or challenge based on their support systems, their lifestyle, and the communities they live in. Is this racist? Absolutely not.
These two women live in a community where they do not have the support systems in place to raise a bi-racial child. Their families are intolerant of the whole situation. In addition to the royal screw up at the lab itself, the child was born in to an unsupportive community. Of course the women love their child, and because of that love, they are also experiencing costs above and beyond that which they expected (moving, etc.) to provide their bi-racial child with a happy life. Certainly they should be compensated for having to do this because of a mistake at the lab.
And you still didn’t answer the question about a straight white couple using a sperm donor because of the husband’s male factor infertility.
There are many good reasons to live where I live. And while gay people are not respected, or afforded many rights I think they deserve, we have not have to date one single case of hate crime against a gay person. No Mathew Shepherd or any of the other cases in the US. Why are you living in the US. Why do you live in a country where people of color routinely complain about their status? Why do you raise your children there?
I am doing my part by publicly and vocally defending gay people. I leave no room for doubt in my interactions with people (whenever appropriate) that I do not condone discrimination of any type. That doesn’t mean that I am going to uproot myself and my family to go live in some utopian place that probably has other problems I haven’t contemplated. This does not mean that should my daughter come out I would not support her moving elsewhere she’s more comfortable living. She’s biracial and bicultural, so she’ll find other problems wherever she goes anyway.
Did I say I look the other way. Is your country and community free of sin? What are you doing there?
I would like my hypothetical child to look like my husband and I. If I pay for it I better damn well get what I paid for. And if you think that makes me a racist, well, considering your reasoning above I will consider the source and move on.
That is not the question. We are not talking about preferences but rather post facto assumed qualitative differences. If you are saying you were injured because your kid is Black, then I think you are acting like a racist.
But why is it the mistake of the lab that she lives in a shitty area? You keep bringing this up as if she had no choice in the matter. She MOVED there by choice. The town is no more toxic because she has a biracial kid. It affects her now, but that is not something the sperm bank has control over or should compensate her for. The law should also not hold private parties culpable for societal discrimination that exists largely because of the voluntary decisions.
Courts have ruled on similar issues. In Palmore v. Sidoti, the SC said the following:
The above case is about child custody, but the issue is similar. The law should not give weight to people’s racism, real or imagined.
What question? I think I was pretty clear that if a such a couple sued for the same reasons, I would feel the same way.
Wow. Do you expect some sort of medal because there haven’t been hate crimes against a group you acknowledge is not respected or afford many rights? Do you actually think about what you post?
Geez. Why would I even bother addressing this nonsense?
She should’ve known the place was racist before she moved there? That doesn’t seem reasonable. And since her family also lives there I’d assumed she grew up there.
Of course it is. It’s far more toxic for her child.
Each person of color I’ve spoken to in the US has been affronted at some point or other because of their color. Why do you live there? Or is it just you who gets to decide who can live where?
And just to make it clear: Each country/town/village will have its own problems of discrimination against one group or other. Should we blame the parents of an African albino child (from a backward village with anti-albino idiots) who decides to move out of their village when they have a kid but not before, regardless of how they personally felt about the matter before they had a kid?
Living in a place where people of color didn’t feel particularly welcome was not of her making. Now she has a kid that will be personally affected by this, as a good parent she wants to move her child somewhere where she’ll be more confortable, and have people who look like her. I applaud her for this.
Are you honestly contending that she didn’t? The fact that her family, who lives there, wants her to suppress her homosexuality wasn’t a clue that this town wasn’t exactly open minded?
Which is likely true, but not relevant to the point I was making.
I don’t understand the whole notion some people seem to have that since the town is intolerant regarding certain groups, and the woman was okay living there before she knew her child was biracial, that she was somehow endorsing the intolerance. Or that made her partially culpable for the impact of the lab’s royal fuck-up. Or something.
Decent people aren’t obligated to move to more tolerant places. I don’t get that logic at all or how the beliefs of her neighbors are a factor at all in her sharing “blame” for a mistake she had nothing to do with. Her duty as a decent person is to stand up to bigotry when she sees it and to raise her child with decent values. She wasn’t endorsing the values of her neighbors before she decided she needed to move. Moving, especially away from your roots and support systems, is a big deal. Hence the suit.
If she lived in an area ill-equipped to deal with certain disabilities, and negligence by the hospital caused that disability in her child, would we point out that she knew that her area couldn’t support such a disability, so quit bitching? “You knew you lived in an intolerant town, so suck it up” makes no sense to me when she is specifically in the situation where she needs to deal with it only because the company forced her into it by not complying with what she contracted them to do.
And no, I don’t think race is analogous to a disability save for one thing as it relates to this situation: it created an expense that the person would not otherwise have had to bear as a result of a company’s shitty service.
If it’s racist to complain that you got something other that what you specifically chose from a set of explicit options, then it’s racist to make that choice, and racist to even offer that choice.
So if it’s inherently racist to complain that you were given the wrong colour sperm, the clinics shouldn’t offer a choice. It should be pot luck. Does that sound like a great idea?
Again, I don’t think anyone believes the woman doesn’t have a valid complaint. I too would be upset if I specified a donor of a certain phenotype and got something else. Most everyone would. The company acknowledged its error by giving her refund. The cost of IVF is nothing to sneeze at, so there’s no need for us to act as though she hasn’t received any compensation.
What gets me and others is the manner by which she’s seeking restitution. She’s suing for wrongful birth, not malpractice. To accept her arguments for pain and suffering, we must believe she has a valid reason for assigning $50,000 worth value to her daughter’s skin color and hair texture.
You be the judge. Are we really supposed to the mother has a valid reason to feel so traumatized, inconvenienced , and discriminated against because of her child’s departure from expected appearance, to the extent that we’re supposed to see her daughter as “wrongfully” born? At what point does this become less about righting a wrong, and more about validating racist hangups and fears?
So we’re not even talking about out-and-out hostility. She’s complaining about “uncomfortable situations”. But how many of these situations are created by her own self-consciousness versus people truly being ignorant and insensitive? Furthermore, how many these situations would still be uncomfortable if the kid was white? Two lesbians walking around with a kid is going to raise some questions regardless. Are they seriously expecting us to believe her daughter’s darker than alabaster skin and curly hair is the source of all attention?
