That’s because wrongful birth is the legal term you use for this. IANAL, but my understanding is that this - legally - is wrongful birth and not malpractice. Though the lawyer could throw all sorts of legal mumbo jumbo on the wall to see what happens.
I agree that wrongful birth is one of the most offensive terms we have ever come up with. But that really isn’t the fault of these parents either.
I will admit this makes me almost look forward to the day you and your white fiancee have a child and he goes out with the child and comes home and you enter into a rant here about the well meaning and yet highly uncomfortable comments he will get from complete strangers. Maybe he will be stopped by homeland security trying to board a plane. Maybe someone will comment to him about what a charitable person he is taking in a poor black child (we actually got the “save from the heathen” line once). We also got “how will you talk to him, he won’t speak English” (he was less than a year old, language aquisition hadn’t happened, and speaking Korean isn’t a genetic trait). The comments when he was a baby were more amusing - it was when he got old enough to understand the context - that we apparently took him in out of charity - that it became offensive and perhaps dangerous.
If the kid were white, people wouldn’t make comments on the mismatched race. Two lesbians walking around with a white kid - it is assumed by strangers - as has been mentioned previously in this thread by the child of such a couple - that the two lesbians are friends or sisters - not a romantic couple.
The lawyer is already doing that, which is why the case is offending people. If they chose not to exploit racist bogeymen to convince people of the mother’s suffering, there would be little to talk about here.
Hahaha. This makes you look rather small and petty, doesn’t it? You’d really wish this on me and a man you don’t even know, just to score some points in a thread? I thought you were a better person than that, but maybe I’ve gotten you confused with someone more rational.
I deal with “uncomfortable comments” all the time. And I wish that was the worst that I’ve had to deal with. If my SO came home with stories about strangers, I would empathize just we as always empathize with each other. But it is for more likely that I will be the one dealing with the assumption that I’m our kid’s nanny. Do you understand this? (No, probably not, because you can only see this through your own biased biracial child=black paradigm.)
Because of my phenotype, I’m fully prepared to handle a kid that passes for white. I can’t pass for white, so if I have a “white” child, I’ll be in the same position as the sperm bank lady. And so motherfucking what. Stranger’s comments will not get in the way of me living a normal life and if my SO acts like ignorant comments at the grocery store or bank are enough to fuck up his shit, then yeah, I will be telling him to get over it. Just like society tells me to get the fuck over it.
I have no patience to be lectured about anti-black racism by a upper middle class white woman today, sorry. Please take a seat until you remember you aren’t the expert in this.
Not to speak for you, but almost every black person already goes through shit like this with regard to themselves. So you lecturing a black person on this issue is kind of…strange.
It does make me look small and petty, but it also makes me hopeful that some day you’ll realize that all these things you think aren’t a big deal are actually a big deal. While I am admitting being small and petty, you’ve been implying my own experiences raising a child of a different race aren’t important. As far as I know, I’m the only person in the thread with a similar experience - a white person raising a minority child. I may not be an expert on being black - but I’ve gone through that.
Just want to point out that you’re mis-quoting; I never said this.
It’s been pointed out in this thread that the $50,000 was a number chosen only to file suit in the appropriate courts by meeting the minimum threshold. The actual damages will be determined later.
I am mixed. My mother was dark skinned, my father was white with blue eyes and freckled face. I lived this every day for years. I am now married to a Scandinavian, and I go through this shit every day. It was much worse when my daughter was very blonde and blue-eyed. She still doesn’t look a lot like me, and I am still asked if I am her nanny, and I live in a place that is full of people of all shades, colors and nationalities.
I was more prepared for this. I bet a white person who never dealt with this shit would be shocked. I don’t blame them. I bet there’s a lot of stuff I am not shocked enough about. She is doing what she has to do, and that includes filing a lawsuit which contains language that may be offensive, but I won’t wold that against her.
Thanks for linking that photo. Based on that, I can only conclude that the couple are out of their fucking minds. I’m not even convinced that the sperm donor actually was black.
What are you talking about? That child looks like she’s part black to me, especially the hair.
The mother in question - like me - is not black. And the child in question - like mine - presents as a minority (in this case definitely bi racial, in mine - definitely Asian - both “easier” to get through life than being dark skinned black from what I understand - but as I said very early - as a white person I can never get racism - but as a white person with a minority child, I come closer than a lot of other white people. And while I don’t get racism, or the black experience - I also think it is fair to say that black people have no clue what its like to be a white person raising a minority child.
There is another thing we are not talking about here, perhaps because we don’t want to believe the world to be this nasty - but we know it is. The assumption people make looking at this woman with her daughter is that she had sex with a black man. And while all right thinking people believe that to be a non issue - the reality is the world is not filled with right thinking people and there are a lot of people whose racial buttons that REALLY pushes. And because people will question my right to talk about this being a white girl without a clue - I briefly - in my twenties after my divorced - dated a black man and received those comments when we went out together - in cosmopolitan and liberal Minneapolis. And they were nasty. (And we didn’t break up for that reason, we broke up when he got serious with the woman he married) She may be doing this for her daughter - there may also be part of what is going on is completely personal.
You’re still doing that thing that monstro and I pointed out. You know, lecturing us about anti-black racism as if we can’t possibly conceive what it is all about. Stop it. It’s crazy. We know lots of white people think all kinds of evil things about black people and anyone associated with black people, because we live as black people.
Maybe the possibility that people might think she had sex with a black man is agonizingly horrid to her. (Since she’s an openly lesbian lesbian, one would think her skin would be a lot thicker than this, but okay.) Maybe her friends and family have given her flak because they too think the idea of her having sex with a black guy is shameful. (Even though, you’d think they would know her being coupled with a woman makes it obvious she isn’t into black men.) I fully acknowledge this. What I’m not getting is why a 3rd party is responsible for these ridiculous hangups.
Not that it hasn’t already been said -
but if we imagine a second woman who also didn’t get the correct donation because the clinic’s process was shoddy and they sued too, but in this case wrong & right samples came from men of the same race, the clinic should be on the line for both families. They screwed up, they pay. But the idea that the clinic should cough up more to the family where the vials came from men of different races is somewhere between laughable and disgusting.
And you are still doing the thing that I pointed out - you are assuming that as a white person having something to do with a black person - in this case my boyfriend - I haven’t had my own experience of racism - unique to your experience as a black woman.
Maybe that thought isn’t at all horrid to her, but having her daughter hear those comments from other people is.
I’ve been bothered by something this whole discussion, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. But now you’ve dislodged something in my brain and I think I know what it is.
Shouldn’t what constitutes “harm” be consistent from person to person? If another white woman mistakenly got a black guy’s sperm from the same bank, but she lives in Oakland, CA and has a more racially tolerant family/social network, would she also be entitled to a pay-out?
Or what about a black woman who receives a white guy’s sperm. She had plans to move to Zimbabwe, but now she feels it would be irresponsible to do so with a kid who could pass as white. Should she be entitled to damages too? What if she was all set to be a Zimbabwean tribal elder? Should she get compensated for losing out on that?
McDonald’s super hot coffee burns everyone just the same. The lady who received her pay-out after having her genitals severely burned didn’t get more money than anyone else would have gotten (in theory). The damages didn’t hinge on the feelings of the community with regard to burned vaginas or her ruined dreams of being a porn star.
If I go on Judge Judy and I sue a friend for damaging my car, Judge Judy is going to ask for a bill so she can calculate how much I’m out of pocket. If I tell her that I’m suing because my damaged car unfairly stigmatizes me in my community and I want the defendent to pay for the nicer clothing I have to wear to feel better about myself, I’d expect Judge Judy to laugh at me. I know I should hang my head low for admitting that I sometimes watch Judge Judy, and I know the two situations aren’t completely analogous. But it sums up why I think this has WTF written all over it.
Most things depend on their effect, not on the actual action. The measure of harm to a victim depends on the victim.
What might be an easy way to think of it: say an employment lawsuit garners lost wages. Whose wages determine what has been “lost”? The plaintiff’s wages. Someone making minimum wage and someone making a million dollars a week have different lost wages.
Another scenario just played out in my head.
A white woman meets a guy. He looks white. She asks if he’s white anyway–because she’s a white supremacist and racial purity matters to her. He tells her that he’s as white as snow. Satisfied by this answer, she has sex with him. Nine months later, she births a brown baby. Turns out the man was doing the Imitation of Life thing and lied about having a black mother.
Is she entitled to $50,000 in damages from him?
My brother in law was injured in a motorcycle accident and got a settlement. It was based on years worth of income lost. Since he had cancer at the time, the lawyer didn’t disclose there was a good chance that lost income from him wouldn’t be the normal actuarial tables. Not Judge Judy, but an actual court of law.
When I divorced my first husband, the settlement I got was not based on some standard formula - it was based on our circumstances, including choices he made in the months leading up to the divorce that left me with a financial burden. (There are standard formulas for things like child support and alimony - but even they are based on circumstances - a six figure a year lawyer will pay more in child support than a guy who is the assistant manager at McDonalds.) Again, not Judge Judy, but an actual court.
I’ve been involved in dozens of cases at work - every decision and settlement has had circumstances factored in.
In my experience, circumstances count for a lot when you go in front of a judge and jury.
But the court will be asked to judge whether this woman has been harmed by having a black kid rather than a white kid who never existed. It’s like asking you whether you would be better off with a white son versus the Asian son that you have.
Do you really think you’d be able to show that?
I don’t think I’d be able to show that my life would be better as a white person. Or a man. Or any other “privileged” identity.
Now that everyone has seen how cute the little girl is, the mother may get a ton of donations. Donations that might end up amounting to more than $50,000. She may also get offers of friendship and support from the black community in the area. Do you think any of that will be factored into the assessment of whether her life has been damaged? Do you think it should matter?