Father wins case against fertility clinic

The Boston Globe ^ | 1/31/2004 | Thanassis Cambanis

[Radix]

In one of the first legal cases in Massachusetts involving the largely unregulated field of fertility treatment, a Middlesex County jury awarded more than $100,000 yesterday to a Dennis man who said that a Boston fertility clinic impregnated his estranged wife without his permission and should pay his share of child support for his now 7-year-old daughter.

[Radix]

Too interesting not to post. There are a lot of ramifications to this decision.

[cyborg]

IVF clinics are more trouble than they're worth IMHO.

[VeniVidiVici]

Any bets the wife hasn't held a job in over 9 years?

[Ukiapah Heep]

It's hard to believe a liberal court actually supported the constitution, and especially in the case of a male plaintiff! Somebody there must be asleep at the switch.

[FITZ]

"It certainly does not send a good message to a child to have a parent saying that he needs to receive damages because the child was born," he said.

Poor kid. Most likely she will know how her life began and that her father despised her so much from the start.

[FITZ]

I can't imagine how mixed up some of these kids are going to be --- knowing they were conceived in a test tube --- no passion, no love between their "parents". At least an adopted kid can realize that they were conceived in at least a spark of passion or attraction --- something natural but maybe the timing of that was off and their mother was unable to provide for them.

Being a frozen embryo your father wanted discarded ----- that's so cold and impassionate.

[xJones]

She might also wonder about her two other siblings still in the freezer.

[Wumpus Hunter]

"Poor kid"

My thoughts too, but I certainly can't blame the father for being pissed. They weren't married anymore, so why should he have to pay her squat?

[cyborg]

I agree with you...I think the worst thing in the world for a child to know is that a parent didn't want them. Also, there are already MILLIONS of frozen embryos going to waste. They only last about five years. IVF treatments aren't cheap and most clinics are just out to take women's money.

[xJones]

Buzz! Correction:

Gladu said he believed that the two embryos remaining at the clinic would be donated to another couple or discarded

It's possible that both remaining embryos were used in the mother's last attempt, since three were used during the son's successful implantation.

[FITZ]

I have adopted cousins ---- they knew their mothers loved them enough to want them in homes where they could be raised with two stable parents. That seems a lot better than all this IVF stuff.

[FITZ]

Yes --- that's where it does get complicated --- did the mother do this for spite? for money? for control? Most of this IVF stuff is wrong on many levels. The mother isn't even the mother.

[cyborg]

and cheaper than IVF

[ZOOKER]

Does the anonymous donor who contributed the eggs get to cash in too?

[cyborg]

That's the biggest joke of all the young lady is hardly a 'donor' as they get a donation of about $7000 per egg

[mlmr]

No, they were both implanted also. They became selectively reduced (aborted)