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Woman pregnant with wrong sperm plans lawsuit [racial mixup]
WTNH-TV ^ | July 9, 2004 | News Channel 8

Posted on 07/10/2004 7:51:28 AM PDT by LurkedLongEnough

(Trumbull-WTNH, July 9, 2004 6:00 PM) _ It was the moment a Trumbull woman had dreamed about most of her life, but that dream has turned into a nightmare because of a medical mistake. She was impregnated with the wrong sperm.

For years Laura Howard and her fiance wanted to have a baby. She had been through the insemination process twice before. Each time it failed. In May she went to a Bridgeport fertility clinic to try again. This time she got pregnant, but she claims it's with the wrong man's sperm.

"I was just distraught and in shock."

It should be a happy time for 40-year-old Laura Howard of Trumbull. After five years of trying to have a child with her fiance, she is two months pregnant.

Instead, she is a lawyer's office with friends by her side for support. Howard claims something went terribly wrong with the insemination process at the Infertility Institute in Bridgeport and she's planning on suing her doctor.

"I had the procedure done and was told immediately following that the wrong sperm specimen was supplied. It was not that of my partner's."

And there was another shock for the African American couple. Howard says the sperm belonged to a white man.

According to Howard, fertility specialist Dr. Anthony Santomauro immediately tried to convince her to terminate the pregnancy, But Howard is keeping it. She feels it may be her last chance at motherhood.

"The race is unimportant and I want this child to be happy and I want this child to grow and feel complete and whole."

News Channel 8 tried to reach Dr. Santomauro for comment but he was not in today.

Laura Howard says the whole mixup is right there in her medical file.

"It says the site tech had advised the doctor that sperm sample given was the wrong sperm sample for the patient."

Howard worries about the medical history of the man she calls the unwitting donor. But because of privacy laws Howard says Dr. Santomauro has refused to release his health records so she plans on filing a lawsuit.

"I do not have a clue of their background. Does he have hepatitis? Does he have HIV?

Despite the troubling situation Laura is determined to move forward.

"I will go through with my pregnancy and I will have my child. And I will be a happy mother on my delivery day. But I really would like to know and need to know what I and this child are facing health-wise for the future."

The Department of Public Health says Dr. Anthony Santomauro has no complaints or actions on file against him.

Howard says they don't want or need to know the name of the man who's sperm was used. They just want his medical history. In order to obtain those records Howard's lawyer, Bruce Jacobs, told us they are planning to file a lawsuit next week.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: Connecticut
KEYWORDS: ivf
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To: cyborg

For 30 years, the libs have waged war against the US, and one of the ways has been through the DNA arguments (on soooooo many issues): "We're this way, those people are that way -- because of DNA. Accept us. We can't help ourselves, our lives are horrid. We are victims." And then you look at WHICH communities abortion has been pushed the hardest by the sisterhood arm of the Liberal Party. So, this leaves a number of children and babies open for adoption. And which "community" cannot biologically have their own? Hetero couples are hoping to simply have at least party of their own gene pool, a known, be some kind of synergistic bond to the baby. Understandable, really. I have also seen, over the past 10 years, more and more gay/lesbian couples going for fertility clinics, as opposed to adoptions, and for many of the same reasons as straights. The DNA issues.


61 posted on 07/10/2004 10:43:58 AM PDT by Alia
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To: Alia

It makes more sense for gay/lesbian couples to go to private fertility clinics. None of the barriers/red tape/controversey of adoption. Besides, most gay/lesbian families still adopt and are foster parents.


62 posted on 07/10/2004 10:47:41 AM PDT by cyborg (the NYT is slipping down the hypotenuse of relevancy)
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To: Criminal Number 18F
When one posts a news article from some third-tier town, could one at least identify the state and city the source is from?

Odd request from someone who doesn't put a state flag on his profile.

America happens in third-tier towns -- as well as all of the other "tiers". Wait, what is a "tier"?

63 posted on 07/10/2004 11:57:11 AM PDT by LurkedLongEnough (Bush '04 --- in a F'n landslide.)
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To: LurkedLongEnough

This brings up another interesting point about artificial insemination I hadn't thought about before.

Gays now agree/allege that homosexuality is genetic (only a few years ago it was claimed to be a affirmative life choice--but that was before aids and they needed an excuse, but I digress).

Suppose a woman finds out her artificially insemenated child is gay. Can she sue the medics? If they notify her beforehand, are they committing some kind of illegal abuse of civil rights law on discrimination?

World keeps getting weirder when we can't leave it alone like we found it.


64 posted on 07/10/2004 12:04:13 PM PDT by wildbill
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To: WKB; cyborg; Xenalyte
It DOES to God.

I think it's likely that God doesn't care about 90% of the stuff that His self-appointed spokesmen say is So Important.

65 posted on 07/10/2004 4:25:28 PM PDT by Oztrich Boy (/"Despise not the jester. Often he is the only one speaking the truth")
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To: Oztrich Boy

Perhaps... and there is no shortage of those who claim to speak for God either.


66 posted on 07/10/2004 4:26:17 PM PDT by cyborg
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To: Oztrich Boy

I think it's likely that God doesn't care about 90% of the stuff that His self-appointed spokesmen say is So Important.



I wasn't appointed I was called.


67 posted on 07/10/2004 4:33:54 PM PDT by WKB (3!~ It may be above my pay grade but it's not above my pray grade)
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To: WKB

Hopefully that freeper wasn't talking about you. Still babies are nice and children are a blessings. Could have been worse. She could have had an abortion.


68 posted on 07/10/2004 4:36:37 PM PDT by cyborg
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To: cyborg

She could have had an abortion.



AMEN


69 posted on 07/10/2004 4:38:52 PM PDT by WKB (3!~ It may be above my pay grade but it's not above my pray grade)
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To: WKB

According to Howard, fertility specialist Dr. Anthony Santomauro immediately tried to convince her to terminate the pregnancy, But Howard is keeping it. She feels it may be her last chance at motherhood.

** I'd love to meet the doctor and ask him if it's so terrible having a white father that the baby needed to be aborted. Talk about using abortion to cover up one's mistakes! I'm not religious or churchgoing but I do know God's hand when I see it. That's all I have to say about that ;-)


70 posted on 07/10/2004 4:44:02 PM PDT by cyborg
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To: SaveTheChief
I would wager that this couple will either A) never get married, or B) marry and eventually divorce within five years.

Given that the odds of this being true in the general population are about 75% I will be curious to know who takes the other side of this bet.

71 posted on 07/10/2004 5:09:50 PM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: SaveTheChief

And you'd base this wager on what? Looks like random guesswork to me.


72 posted on 07/10/2004 5:35:27 PM PDT by Melas
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To: TASMANIANRED
Ta-Ray-sa is African/American

African - Yes
American - Doubtful

73 posted on 07/10/2004 5:41:12 PM PDT by reg45
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To: Melas
I would base this wager on the fact that most people I know who have had successful marriages didn't purposefully and repeatedly try to have a baby out of wedlock. Most successful married people I know didn't have a five-year engagement in which they tried to bring a child into the world without first solidifying their own relationship.

But then again, most people I know are people of faith who believe in God and the rules and principles he set forward for all mankind.

74 posted on 07/10/2004 5:54:20 PM PDT by SaveTheChief
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To: SaveTheChief
But then again, most people I know are people of faith who believe in God and the rules and principles he set forward for all mankind.

Ah, I don't believe in gods, and yet my 13 year marriage is suprisingly solid.

75 posted on 07/10/2004 10:04:43 PM PDT by Melas
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To: LurkedLongEnough

My first thought was to question whether it was truly a mixup or if someone else besides the fiance had gotten "there."


76 posted on 07/11/2004 7:04:50 AM PDT by jammer
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To: LurkedLongEnough

Would you mind telling me whos brain?

77 posted on 07/11/2004 7:34:48 AM PDT by csvset
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To: cyborg
I absolutely agree with your adoption proposal. 5 years and no kid. 40 years old is a dangerous time to give birth anyhow and we have thousands of kids that need a home.

As an adopted kid I am so very happy my parents wanted a kid and not an ego trip. They wanted they saw they adopted. Thank you, Mom and Dad, I love you.

And thank God this unmarried woman with her lawyer is not my mother.
78 posted on 07/11/2004 1:19:10 PM PDT by Troubled (I can only please one person a day. Today is not your day and tomarrow isn't looking good either.)
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To: LurkedLongEnough

Sad that she and her "fiance" decided that it wasn't worth it to bring a child into the world with two loving, MARRIED parents. It's a shame that they are unwilling to solidify their bond before trying to have kids.

At least she refused an abortion.


79 posted on 07/11/2004 2:12:24 PM PDT by Rubber_Duckie_27
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To: LurkedLongEnough

Just tell us where the bloody thing is from, is all. It has nothing to do with state identity, and everything to do with information and clarity.

In a press stylebook I once had, cities were broken down into: Ones that can go without further specifics because they are big and well known: Chicago, New York, Tokyo. Ones that need no further specifics for YOUR readership because they are familiar names to them: Mishawaka, Kalamazoo, Cupertino, Stamford (if your paper is in Indianapolis, Detroit, San Jose, and Hartford respectively). And ones that need explanation to bloody everyone because they are smallish, or are subject to confusion: Trumbull is a fine example of the first, Springfield of the second. (Springfield, MA? Springfield, IL? TX? or one of the others?)

As far as my profile is concerned, I took the flag off when I went overseas. I am back; this week I am in MA where I am domiciled, next week in WI, and I'm trying to buy in FL and get out of this Godforsaken (literally, although who forsook whom is the reverse, probably) state.

Anyway... all I'm axing ya, is consider the guy who has never heard of the town in the story, and ID the home of the story's source... I saw another story someone posted from the "Patriot-Ledger." How many FReepers know that is from a Boston urban suburb? (Answer: all of them, if the poster tells 'em).

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F -- citizen of the US and the world, but sick of Massachusetts


80 posted on 07/11/2004 10:31:48 PM PDT by Criminal Number 18F
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