I ignored the rest of your post because your train left the track at the first sentence. They’re responsible for addressing the problems they caused with their error and you’ve acknowledged that. I’ve already explained the problems her daughter faces so there’s no point repeating it.
The amount of money awarded is a jury decision but it’s simple math to quantify her financial standard of living and compare her current house and neighborhood metrics to a similar one with a more diverse mix of race. Add to that court costs.
Wait, I’m confused. The daughter isn’t suing the sperm bank for damages. The daughter isn’t the one who has said her life is suboptimal because of her “wrongful” parent. It’s the mother who is saying she has been damaged by all of this. Will she be able to find a psychiatrist who will testify that parents who raise children of a different race are psychologically damaged?
And if that little girl is living under such abusive, psychologically damaging circumstances, perhaps child and family services should be called so she can be placed in a more pigmented home.
Yeah! And when Jennifer is through milking the company dry, little Payton should go after them for fucking up HER life. Because not only does she have to grow up the only brown person in a family of racists, she will forever know that her mother considers her existence “wrongful”. Talk about double whammy. That kind of pain has gotta be worth at least…half a million, maybe? Maybe she can then afford to do the whole Michael Jackson thing and transform herself into the little towhead her mother always dreamed of having.
I’m curious. If Jennifer wins the lawsuit, gets awarded $50K, and doesn’t move her ass or Payton’s anywhere because Granny’s sick and OH NOES WE CAN’T LEAVE GRANNY!! does Jennifer suddenly become a horrible mother? Inquiring minds want to know.
The town is virtually all white. If they throw a parade for every day for the rest of her life she will still be the only black kid in the neighborhood and at school.
It’s not a lottery. She will recover damages stemming from the sperm banks mistake which again, you acknowledged. The women was entitled to breed with the person she chose. It’s as simple as that.
Are you contending that towns that lack diversity are by their nature full of racists? More to the point, are you admitting the sperm bank is not at fault for the compostion of the town?
What is this supposed to mean?
Probably, but that is far from a given based on the damages for which she is seeking redress.
Based on some of the arguments presented here, the authorities should be immediately called if she loses and is unable to move. The child is apparently living in a den of racists who are making her life a living hell with their well-meaning but uncomfortable questions.
At any rate, if she currently doesn’t have the means to get out of town when doing so is critical to her daughter’s well-being, she’s got bigger problems than having a negro child. Hopefully the cost of suing hasn’t set her back so much that she can no longer afford to take her toddler to a black salon for a haircut. Because things will really get dire then.
A town doesn’t need to be full of out-and-out racists for it to be difficult growing up as the only black kid there. Is anyone disputing that that would be difficult?
If the couple do get money to move and then decide not to move then obviously they should pay the money back (possibly with interest). I suspect that would be part of the settlement.
FWIW I know one town in England where there are a significant number of lesbians (Hebden Bridge) and being gay parents there wouldn’t be so difficult. It is still a very white area indeed so I could foresee problems with living there if you’re not white. It’s harder to think of an area that’s both racially mixed and generally tolerant when it comes to gay people; some areas of London are like this, but they tend to be more expensive areas. And obviously I’m aware that this case is in the US, not England, but all I mean is that it’s possible to not encounter enormous problems for being gay despite the area not being a great place to be black.
BTW, there are sperm banks in the US, yes; look into it more deeply, and sperm banks that actually have a significant number of donors that can be accepted at a clinic under the law where you’re living is much, much smaller. Home insemination is different, of course, but that’s not as common these days. (No stats - I just know lots of lesbian parents).
Difficult as compared to what? Growing up as the only kid raised by a couple lesbians who are apparently are too broke to move on their own dime? I would say any difficulty imparted by being a darker shade of pale is marginal. I don’t care what the town’s makeup looks like.
This is about adoption, but its as close as you’ll get in a study to this situation - although this situation is as far as I know, unique.
Warning, you need to pull free the foster care stuff when reading this - and a lot of this study is about kids coming from foster care. Foster care kids are a whole different demographic than kids placed at birth - or even before a year. Age at adoption obviously has a big impact here as well (we were told the magic age is six months - six months is pretty much indistinguishable from birth - sometime around there, babies attach and outcomes start to change). And the way its written it can be difficult to pull out - there is a summary of the studies used to compile this at the end. I only skimmed it myself and its long.
Standing alone, no. But that’s a minor point of (possible) fact raised in the complaint, not the cause of action itself. This is basically a wrongful birth case, which are pretty well established in law.* Now, as far as I am aware this particular fact pattern is unique, but the underlying law is not.
wrongful birth suits are usually based on medical malpractice by obstetricians or other maternity-related medical practitioners. Hospital/physician whoever fails to identify a birth defect and parents rely on that failure in choosing to carry child to term. Then kid has birth defect and parents sue hospital/physician for additional cost of raising child with birth defect. I think your objection to this whole thing is treating a mixed-race child as defective, but that’s not really what’s going on. They are trying to expand the definition of wrongful birth beyond birth defects is all.
Yes, by claiming the child’s quadroonish appearance is a cause for mental anguish and necessitates expensive actions on their part that wouldn’t be indicated otherwise for two unmarried lesbians openly raising a child together. You can’t make this stuff up.
Maybe this is a legal question. At what point does the mother’s own choices matter here? She chose to keep the baby rather than giving it up for adoption. I’m not saying adoption would have been an easy choice, of course. But she made the decision to raise this baby when she could have given her up.
Secondly, if wrongful birth is based on the failure to identify defects, and then this failure leads to a child being born that would have otherwise been terminated, I’m not seeing how this would apply to this case. The mother was informed of the screw up while pregnant. Perhaps she discovered this late-term? If not, this just seems like one more choice the mother has made that has led to consequences she wants the sperm bank responsible to pay for.
some people are upset with this lady because they think she has a problem with her kid’s race … ok, I understand that but …
the sperm bank did make a mistake … and not a minimal one … so for these same people I ask … why do you all think the sperm bank shouldn’t be held accountable and sued ? … or correct me if I’m wrong, if some are ok with her suing ?
I haven’t seen the filing, but you could make a case that this little girl, who was never intended to be bi-racial, will see an average of $100 a week less in pay - depending on her educational attainment, but across all levels of education. (2012 figures)
Would that strike you as a better basis for suit, or would you say that is societal and its what she has to deal with for being born black (or slightly black)?
It isn’t likely that the sperm bank will be around in 30 years when she realizes that their mistake may have cost her hundreds of thousands of dollars in income over her life.
Of course, it could be argued that without the mistake, it wouldn’t be her life - (which is why they call it wrongful birth or wrongful life when the suit is brought by the child - I should have never been born. And quite frankly - THIS little girl was never intended to exist - a different child was. This is possibly the most obvious case of “wrong birth” if not “wrongful birth” possible.)
Apparently, I’m less Machiavellian than others. I think there is wrong way and a right way to go about these things, and I believe the mother has totally done the former in pursuit of the almighty dollar.
If it was impossible for her to make a case for compensation that didn’t involve her portraying her child’s pigment as a costly and psychologically damaging blight, then she should chosen to suck it up for the love of her child. If she wanted to show America she was unfit to parent this girl, she did a great job showing that by suing the way she has.
The fact that race figures so much into her complaint suggests she wouldn’t have been able to make a strong case for pain and suffering if the donor had been white. But that’s a charitable guess on my part. If it *was *possible for her to make a case for breach of contract without bringing in race–and yet she chose to make a racially tinged argument anyway–this only underscores that her complaint really is about race. Not about simply having the wrong donor. This implication opens up a huge can of ugly worms.
It makes me wonder how truly committed progressives are to the concept of “their is no such thing as biological races”. In this discussion, we’ve been calling the kid black as if she was straight out of Africa. As if it’s a given that her “white identity” is completely obliterated by black blood, no matter how slight that blood might be. As if its a given the child will be mistaken for an adoptee, not born from the person who is her biological parent and shares half her DNA. And all this is wrong and insulting. The girl looks as much like her mom as any other child. Her Euro ancestry is obvious in her features. If the girl wanted to call herself white, she could.
We shouldn’t be letting racist baggage bias our perceptions and see problems where there are objectively none.
I assume that the fact race is a big part of her suit is purely strategy suggested by counsel. That’s one of the things you are paying for when hiring a lawyer.
It’s preposterous to hold the sperm bank for the legacy of 400 years of black oppression. Awarding damages because of the girl’s potentially impacted earning power 20 years from now is…crazy. Just like awarding damages because someone might one day call her a nig is crazy too. CRAZY. There is no other way to put it. For all we know, this little girl could be the next Vanessa Williams, Halle Berry, or Oprah. They’ve dealt with their share of racism too, but they are rolling in dough.
What is the earning power of a kid raised by a lesbian couple? How happy are they compared to other kids? If kids raised in gay households suffer more than other kids, does this mean gay parents should leave reproduction up to more qualified straights? I’m just wondering why we must perform calculus for biracial kids born to whites, while ignoring costs associated with more unconventional family arrangements.
You can’t cry over a child that never existed except in your fantasies. We’re not talking about a designer gadget that can be ordered according to a list of specs. If the mother was that unsatisfied with the product that came out of her vagina, she should have given her up. Not keep it and then complain about its hair.
I’m the white biological father of a mixed race child in a majority black area, my son takes after me more than his mother. I still get the “is that your son?” question all the damn time, but also bizarrely people identify my son as white or foreign. My wife once took someone to task over that, she said so he is white well then what is that girl over there? Black they said, and she pointed out that she had the same skin tone as my son.
I think people just latch onto whatever stands out about a person, which is different according to circumstances.