There is a fascinating case out of Illinois where DuPage County judge Ronald Sutter has tossed out a lawsuit by Jennifer Cramblett, who sued after a sperm bank mistakenly impregnated her with sperm from an African-American rather than the white donor she selected. The result was a mixed-race baby. The response from the sperm bank was astonishing. They apologized and reportedly refunded only part of the cost to Cramblett and her partner Amanda Zinkon.
Cramblett alleges that the couple chose sperm from donor No. 380, a white man, but they were given sperm from donor No. 330, a black man. An employee simply misread the numbers. After the birth of Payton, the couple wanted to plan a second child and called the sperm bank to ask for another impregnation with the sperm of donor 380. The receptionist asked if she meant that she wanted sperm from No. 330 and asked to confirm that she wanted sperm from an African American. The error then became obvious to both her and the employee.
Cramblett is not saying that they do not love Payton, now 3, who is obviously a beautiful child. However, they insist that the sperm bank violated their agreement, impregnated her with sperm that she did not consent to, and imposed a burden on her and her family. They live in a predominantly white area of Uniontown, Ohio, and she says that there is a feeling of Payton being an “outcast” and that even haircuts are an added burden.
The mistake appears to be due to the use of paper records that allowed the misreading of the numbers — something that sounds remarkably casual and negligent.
Judge Sutter however threw out the lawsuit as lacking legal merit. The sperm bank lawyers prevailed in arguing that the only successful “wrongful birth” cases tend to be babies with severe birth defects. Sutter also rejected the claim of “breach of warranty.” In Sutter’s favor, I was surprised by the limited grounds of the complaint — particularly the absence of the obvious negligence claim. The case can be refiled with a negligence claim. It would seem that negligence is rather obvious. The question will be right to or level of injury or damages. The baby is healthy and the impregnation obviously was successful. What remains is highly controversial in treating a mixed race baby as an injury. Yet, this couple was offered and agree to impregnation with a specific man’s sperm. That raises an array of tort and contract claims that could be made. In the end, however, you are left with the notion of a baby being an injury due to its race.
She sought at least $50,000 in damages.
What do you think? Should a mother be able to recover damages for having a mixed race baby?
Source: Washington Post
Well…..if you are going to start treating children as commodities and unborn children as parts sources, like in an auto chop shop, then getting a commodity other than what you paid for should be reimbursable.
Unpopular opinion?. Sure. However, this seems to be another example of the descent of society into the cesspool of morality.
The child is not at fault and the lesbian parents should tread carefully to not damage the poor child’s self esteem.
Bam Bam is quite right in that it isn’t the mixed race of the child in their small white community that would be the issue. More likely the ostracism will come from the fact that the parents are lesbians and that they seem to also be racists.
They should have adopted and then they would have not been surprised. There are many adoptable children available who would love to have a home.
All bigotry aside, seems a straight forward breach of contract: they contracted for the sperm of one man and got the sperm of another. What to do? They want a second child. Let the sperm bank do the next job, no charge. Parents choose the same donor as the first child. Payton will have a sister/brother, not a half sister/brother, that would be much like her. In explaining it to the children: A mistake was made in that Payton’s father is A-A, but we love her so much that we wanted another child from the same man.
This song is appropriate:
Fat people got no reason
Fat people got no reason
Fat people got no reason
To live
They got little hands
And little eyes
And they walk around
Tellin’ great big lies
They got little noses
And tiny little teeth
They wear platform shoes
On their nasty little feet
Well, I don’t want no fat people
Don’t want no fat people
Don’t want no fat people
Round here
Fat people are just the same
As you and I
(a fool such as i)
All men are brothers
Until the day they die
(it’s a wonderful world)
Fat people got nobody
Fat people got nobody
Fat people got nobody
To love
They got little baby legs
And they stand so low
You got to pick ’em up
Just to say hello
They got little cars
That got beep, beep, beep
They got little voices
Goin’ peep, peep, peep
They got grubby little fingers
And dirty little minds
They’re gonna get you every time
Well, I don’t want no fat people
Don’t want no fat people
Don’t want no fat people
’round here
Songwriters: NEWMAN, RANDY
(with amendments by a skinny dog)
JT left out that the woman told the judge that because of her upbringing, she had a problem dealing with black people. But I guess it would be politically incorrect to suggest that a lesbian could be a racist.
We are told that African Americans are oppressed because of skin color. They didn’t want nor bargain for the skin color of the oppressed. Are we now supposed to forget what we have been told that blacks are oppressed? So goes the double – think of “equality.”
This is part of the legal trouble that happens when courts buy into the notion of racial equality. If races are truly equal, then it doesn’t really matter whether the child is white or black. I fully support the idea that races have equal standing before the law, but to pretend that races are all equal leads to these kinds of problems where a judge just doesn’t see the issue. A healthy child is born, so what’s the problem?
Uniontown is close enough to Akron & canton, that haircuts should not be a big deal. It would help to note that the case was tried in Illinois, as noted above. having grown up in lily white suburb of Cleveland, people some how managed as fairly dark skinned often kinky haired Italians, Greeks, Lebanese, etc. I think the plaintiff protests too much and is a racist herself. I’d hate to be the kid.
You have to be somewhat extraordinary to be gay and raise a child. There would need to be an extraordinary degree of understanding and inner strength to represent to the child. These two are lacking those parenting skills as well as others, most likely. Poor kid.
breach of contract. she should be able to give the baby back to the sperm bank. damages for pain & suffering arising from pregnancy and loss of employment income during this period
Well said, Tinear.
I think that because the accidental father is black, it brings up a lot of unfortunate issues that obscure the fact that this woman didn’t get what she paid for. The reality is that people prefer to have their own biological child. That is the number 1 preference. And if they cannot have their own child, the next choice is to have one who is similar to them, only better. A woman who goes to a sperm bank will usually select a donor of her same ethnicity, hair and eye color, etc, but typically with excellent educational and professional credentials, on the assumption that these achievements indicate a high I.Q. That is why sperm banks are located adjacent to top universities, such as Berkeley and Harvard. You don’t see sperm banks next to the plumbers’ union or at the midgets convention. So, for example, a Chinese-American female who chooses a donor who is described as a tall, good looking Asian MIT student will not be happy if the child she gives birth to is the son of a white bus driver. That’s just the way it is. You can assail her as racist or elitist or whatever, but the question becomes one of damages for negligence. The jury is going to feel uncomfortable placing a value on the woman getting a bi-racial child instead of a white one. Hopefully they will be able to ignore the political aspects and consider how they would feel in the same circumstances. Having a black child does raise problems that probably would not be present if the child were half Asian or Hispanic. Some years ago an organization of black social workers tried to get a law passed in CA forbidding whites from adopting black children. The law failed, but it did bring out some of the political and social hostilities that these parents may face from blacks. To assume that there only problem will be with white racists is naive. A fair number of blacks also oppose white parents raising black children.
An interesting tale
The science geek
http://www.thesciencegeek.org
I believe that, although the Plaintiff and her partner may live in Ohio, the case is in DuPage County Illinois, which, I take it, is the state where the sperm bank is located.
A reach for $$$$ …. which appears to be justified
I like BamBam’s comment.
There is more than a hint of irony that the complaint is from a person of a different victim group. Perhaps, following the humor in the irony, I would add to @bitchindog’s lawsuit that the couple denied her a male parent.
It’s really petty simple. The couple should receive any monies paid to the sperm bank company and punitive damages as the court may decide reflects the degree of irresponsibility in the process of fulfilling its contractual responsibilities in order to deter such flagrant errors in the future. So then we can dispose of all of the self-aggrandization, pontification, posturing – see @bitchindog. I might add that the stuff about discomfort in the neighborhood and the haircut issue sound like a lawyer inserting his/her two bits. Many divorces have become ballistic with a few disparaging remarks inserted by the lawyer. I might add, although somewhat tangential, that lawyers learn lots of words, but damn little wisdom. I think they also take the same secret GOD course that doctors take.
Let’s just be honest here. If there were any legitimate interest in shielding this poor, unfortunate baby from being labeled as an outcast in her small, provincial white town, these two lesbian mommies would have thought about that before their trip to the sperm bank to pick up the turkey baster filled with some stranger’s deposit. Her hair will cause her to be considered an outcast in this small town? How about having two lesbian mommies? Poor child. She drew the short straw on this one.
I can see the negligence claim but when the plaintiffs make statements such as “even haircuts are an added burden” I suspect they will likely not sit well with potential jurors. What kind of “loving parent” says things like that? It sounds akin to telling the child, “Sorry, but you are defective because your hair is too much of a burden for us…we wanted our money back so we sued. By the way, we love you.”
The parents should consider how in a dozen years or so when the child discovers this lawsuit how shattering this will be to Payton.
I think that the kid should sue the mother and partner for adopting her and request the court to give her to a set of parents who want an African American child. The child should sue for defamation as well. The mother is too fat and needs to lose weight and the child should have an alternative claim in the petition to demand that she loose a hundred pounds.
Too many kids in America do not have daddies. The adoptive parents a a-holes in the first degree.