[martin_fierro]

Discuss.

Kathleen Smith and her son Benton in Austin,Texas. Fifteen-month-old Benton is the spitting image of his father, a US soldier who died in Iraq two years before his son was born. Smith had her soldier-husband's baby posthumously, using semen he had frozen before he was deployed.(AFP/Stephane Delfour-Given)

[Red Badger]

Cammie overalls, I like that..........

[DogandPonyShow]

This seems weird to me.

[Slapshot68]

This seems a bit creepy.

[Taggart_D]

"It's very uncommon. And I don't think it's a good thing, or that it will become more common," he said.

"The problem is regret -- regret is high for those women," he said. "What happens when she meets someone else?"

"The other question is ethical: the guy hadn't planned to die so he didn't say you could use his sperm," the doctor said

This is unbelievable....is it their business to decide? Why are they so quick to challenge something like this?

[Slapshot68]

This seems a bit creepy.

[Fairview]

Ordinarily I’m opposed to women having children alone, but this case is a little different. For one thing, the guy banked his sperm before leaving for Iraq, so clearly this is something he wanted—he wanted to leave a legacy, wanted an heir. It’s no different really than if he had the child before he went to Iraq and died.

[Fishtalk]

It seems to me that in this case her bigger concern was the fact that her “time” was running out.

I think children need a mother and a father. This sort of thing, however noble the intent, just doesn’t seem the way to go.

I will acknowledge, however, that mileages may vary. I’ll even acknowledge, as difficult as it may be to believe, that I might be wrong.

[Lurking in Kansas]

Plus the child will be eligible for survivoring child’s benefits from Social Security for the next 18 years.

[newzjunkey]

She's committed a perverse act. This son will never know his father and, in fact, will grow up without one not because his dad died in Iraq after conception but because she deliberately created this child through unnatural means.

I pity the boy and wish him all the best.

[RedRightReturn]

Would such a child, one conceived posthumously, receive survivor benefits?

[jdietz]

I have mixed feelings about this.

I understand the wanting to remember her husband and wanting a child. But two questions;

1) Will the military have to provide survivors benefits?

2) Is the child eligible for Social Security survivors benefits?

[rightwingfop]

I have a sincere question for any parent who questions this womans decision and motivation. Why and when did you decide to have a baby? Were there not other parents who were more appropriate than you to procreate? Did you think you were doing your child a favor by giving birth to him or her in less than perfect circumstances?

I don’t have children so I have never had to seriously ask myself these questions and I am not baiting anyone here. I honestly don’t understand the attitude in this or other similar cases that this woman is being selfish. I cannot think of one child who was born into ideal circumstances. Parents do the best they can with what they have and perhaps that is where children learn their most important lessons about loving and family.

Of course it would be great if this little boy’s daddy were still alive, but should he not have been born because the circumstances weren’t perfect? Is non-existence better than a less than perfect life?

Unless I am totally wrong here, most children are conceived and born for ultimately selfish reasons.

Help me out!

[ErnBatavia]

Cryobank, one of the biggest sperm banks in California.

Off subject, but the best friend of a gal I worked with was employed by Cryobank, and she'd feed me some of their promotional trinkets...nifty stuff, such as ink pens that looked like test tubes, complete with little spermy snow-globe kind of attachments.

I still use their little alarm clock; the second hand is a swimming "seed"...