Babies from the deceased

[sadie1263]

The Virginia teenager who had been in critical condition since a car accident in October died Thursday, ending his parents’ legal battle to collect his sperm so they could have grandchildren in the future.

The Roanoke Times reported that the parents of Rufus Arthur McGill, 19, will be unable to harvest the sperm because of timing. It would reportedly take days to get to obtain a court order and there’s a 36-hour window to collect the sperm.

'There is very strong agreement in bioethics that one's reproductive rights include the right not to procreate.' - Laurence McCullough from Baylor College of Medicine

McGill was on life support at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital.
The parents, Jerri and Rufus McGill can make the decision to end life support, but they could not legally collect their son's sperm. He's an adult, and they were no longer considered his legal guardians. Rufus McGill II has one full brother, who lives with his father in North Carolina, and two half-siblings.

It was an issue that placed the McGills at a crossroads, where health and family law intersect with the ethical implications of starting new life without a person's expressed consent. And while post-mortem collection of semen isn't unheard of, the permutations of what happens to the child after gestation does raise red flags, ethicists said at the time.

McGill has been listed in critical condition since Oct. 14, when he crashed his mother's 2005 Cadillac near Boones Mill in Franklin County. The wreck involved six people and killed Hannah M. Long, a 15-year-old Liberty High School student. Rufus McGill II was airlifted to the hospital.
Divorced, but still on amicable terms, the pair, both 40, agreed that keeping alive the possibility of grandchildren through their son was a positive thing. They even found a University of Virginia Medical Center urologist willing to perform the procedure, they said.

Thomas Hafemeister, a University of Virginia law professor who researches bioethics and the law, said at the time the issue isn't crystal clear, that anything having to do with reproduction produces its own parallel questions.

If Rufus McGill II were a minor, the situation would be less convoluted, Hafemeister earlier said.

Laurence McCullough, the associate director of medicine at the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the Baylor College of Medicine, said in an email that the McGills did not have ethical legal standing to make their request.

"If his wishes regarding having children cannot be reliably identified, the matter is concluded and the parents' request should be refused," McCullough said. "There is very strong agreement in bioethics that one's reproductive rights include the right not to procreate."


Read more: www.foxnews.com/us/2012/11/08/critically-injured-virginia-teen-dies-before-parents-can-harvest-sperm/?test=latestnews#ixzz2Be1zGUum

[sadie1263]

What are your thoughts on this? I can understand them wanting to keep a part of their son.......but is this going too far?

[Deleted]

It sounds obscene.

I'm not quite sure what they intended to do with the sperm. Find a surrogate and brong the child up themelves?

I really don't understand this craving to pass on genes. It is of course nature's trick, but we really shopuld grow out of it

[toby]

Sadie posted.;-What are your thoughts on this? I can understand them wanting to keep a part of their son.......but is this going too far?

Toby comments.:- Thousands of innocent foetus's are aborted daily, why not consider giving a child the right to life ?

[sadie1263]

By the same token....that are a lot of unwanted children, homeless children that need homes and love......instead of bringing more into this world.....what if we focused more on them?

I think some of the cases are bringing some legal conundrums.........babies born well after a person is deceased and claims on either their estate or death benefits from the gov't..........

[Hunny]

I agree with the legal conclusion here, that if he isn't there to say okay to this then it's not okay.

[Deleted]

Nov 8, 2012 17:38:32 GMT toby said:

Sadie posted.;-What are your thoughts on this? I can understand them wanting to keep a part of their son.......but is this going too far?

Toby comments.:- Thousands of innocent foetus's are aborted daily, why not consider giving a child the right to life ?

What child, though?

I don't know what the parent proposed to do with the sperm but if it involved IVF, it might well have involved creating multiple embryos, some of which would never be allowed to survive.

[Synonym]

Consent should be required before using a person's parts to procreate while the person is still alive. Though once they are dead I do not quite see it as against their rights as rights are for the living.

[Hunny]

Nov 9, 2012 1:53:03 GMT Synonym said:

Consent should be required before using a person's parts to procreate while the person is still alive. Though once they are dead I do not quite see it as against their rights as rights are for the living.

Oh gosh no. That's why necrophelia is against the law (It is against the law, isnt it? )

[toby]

Skylark posted.:-don't know what the parent proposed to do with the sperm but if it involved IVF, it might well have involved creating multiple embryos, some of which would never be allowed to survive

Toby comments.:- Embryos can be deep frozen, this is routinely done.

[toby]

Syn posted.;-Though once they are dead I do not quite see it as against their rights as rights are for the living.

Toby comments.:- They cannot complain, can they. If they had made some sort of statement whilst in life authorising somebody to proceed on their behalf after they died, then that would be enough.

[toby]

Hunny posted.:-Oh gosh no. That's why necrophelia is against the law (It is against the law, isnt it?

Toby comments.:- There are very few Laws covering Necrophilia, the usual laws cvering people, fade away upon death.
I suppose ,'causing a breach of the peace', could be applied but offhand I cannot think of any others.

I remember during my schooldays another boy whose Father was an Undertaker told us they had been burgled and his Father was very angry that his collection of gold teeth in a shoebox had been stolen.
The gold used to pay the Family annual Holidays.