Mom harvests son's sperm

I cannot understand why anyone would want to tell anyone else how much or little of a connection they should have with their deceased children. You feel that wanting to see his child born is too much, would you be okay if she retained a photograph of him? Suppose she went through his personal effects and took a picture of him from those things, without his consent, framed it and then had it by her bedside for several decades? Would you want it taken away from her because you have deemed it unhealthy oor because it was not a consensual gift?

(I don't know where you were raised, but having a pictures of a deceased child right where you can see it first thing every morning is not normal where I am from, so, therefore, it is wrong and must be stopped.)

Let's be clear about this, he will never be harmed by the existence of that child. he will never know about it, he is dead. He has zero interest in this decision going forward and he cannot be harmed by it, emotionally or otherwise, no matter what.

So, why is it that you want to intervene on a private family decision to tell a grief stricken mother than she should settle for less of a connection to her son than she wants? Because she's being selfish? To whom? You have not refuted my position that existing in difficult circumstances is better than not existing, so surely her decision to have the child is better for the child than the alternative. She will have to care for that child, which is not all personal gain, so there will be some selflessness involved in that.

Who made us the anti-selfishness police in the first place? It's your holier than though disregard for her wishes that I object to, as you have demonstrated no harm to anyone other that your own sensibilities in this.

It seems to me that if anyone anywhere finds a wayt top make themselves happy, and the only effect of their action is that I am a little weirded out by it, I need to learn to deal with that. That is *my* problem, not theirs. For example, to share, I find homosexuals making out in front of me to be a little strange and uncomfortable. Where I am from, it is pretty unusual (or at least it once was). Despite my personal squeamishness, I understand that it is not my place to foist my discomfort onto them in an effort to limit their happiness. I certainly believe that we are better off now that those interlopers who established "rukles" prohibiting such things are gone.

In the past they used the same arguments you do now. They claimed that their concern was really altruistic, and that homosexuality was itself evidence of mental instability. By limiting it, they were expressing concern for their mental health and were, in fact, helping them be happier people.

They were wrongs, as you are now. Unless you can demonstrate a concrete harm to someone, you should not try to piss on someone else's way of finding happiness. You have suggested that maybe there is a possible way that your opinion could be better for her or for the child, but as I noted, those lines of thought seem less than study on further inspection. In the case of the mother who's rationality you express (I think pretextual) concern with, she seems rational and has been able to convince disinterested third-parties that her request is not crazy. As for the child, well, you give them no chance to exist at all (and suggest pretty clearly that they are better off not existing rather than being born into this situation) and are silent about why anyone should prefer to let the sperm rot away rather than use it.

So? Clearly she knows him better than you, and is it so unbelievable to think that they he would want his mother to be happy, even if that happiness was secured by the posthumous use of his sperm to sire a grandchild? Doo you think he'd really begrudge his mother that?

People do object to having children for a variety of reasons, but mostly it is because they do not want the responsibility. On rare occasion you get those who feel that the world is a veil of tears or who fear genetic defects and who do not want children on principle, but that does not seem to be the case here. As he will never have any personal responsibility for those children, and since having them will bring his mother some happiness, I have to imagine that the odds are reasonably good that he'd consent. His position is even better though, as he will never even have awareness of, let alone responsibility for, such a child. Awareness alone might have created a sense of an obligation, and that might have formed the basis of some objection...but that's not an even issue. This is not a "personal and intimate decision" for him because he is dead. You keep putting yourself in his shoes, but forgetting that he is dead. He has no thoughts or feelings about his potential children one way or another. You imagine him to be suffering some emotional distress based on this occurring without his consent and it being an intimate decision, but it suggests that you are not fully considering the state of his being dead. This is a personal and intimate decision for the various members of his family, who should have a say, and presumably they had a right to be heard in court.

Now, it is possible that you believe he "lives on" in a sense beyond death, and that he is aware and has the same bad feelings about this child being born that he would have were he still alive. A lot of people feel that way, but it's clearly an unproven position and requires a belief in the supernatural. I see no reason why the mother's current happiness should be limited based on privately held superstition with which she may not agree, as even if she agrees that his would is watching she clearly does not agree that he would object. In such a case you have two morally equivalent and equally untestable beliefs about the state of the world and its metaphysics, and I see no reason why yours should trump hers.

Given all of this, other than the fact that you personally do not like it, what harm do you really see in this? If your personal dislike is the motivating factor, why should your dislike be foisted on her like it's her problem?

What are you so quick to tell her that what makes her happy is *wrong* when your only evidence for that position seems to be that it would not make you happy *if* (a) you were the son in question and (b) you were dead but still fully cognizant of the world of the living.

Why is this principle limited to procreative decisions? Why should you not foist your thoughts on normalcy on everyone in every circumstance where you find their behavior strange and unsettling? What is the limiting principle here? I do not know if you are very religious, but suppose you were deeply and passionately religious. Why not foist your beliefs on others when their religious practices cause you emotional discomfort? What seems to set procreation apart is jjust that you find it especially emotionally significant, so what is the difference other than the fact that history has shown that, with religion, that path leads to great trouble? (But when it comes to matters of children, you feel that she should abide by your personal wishes and not her own, because that won't cause trouble?)

Perhaps your argument comes down to your belief that the son would object, but it is presumptuous to assume that in light of the fact that she is saying he would not. I cannot shake the feeling, again, that the real crux of your argument is that you want her to do what you want, her happiness be damned, and that relying on claims of hypothetical and unproven harms to her, the children and the son are mere pretexts. As I notes that makes your argument as selfish as you claim her position is, because you are the only one you actually care about.

I can concede that if you wanted there to always be a competency hearing before collecting sperm in this sort of procedure, I have no issue with that. Once the mother is shown to be of sound mind, though, I do not see that you have offered a sound reason to deny her this.

 

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Inbreeding, you idiot.

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(as long as the mother is the surrogate)

 

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Indeed.
Especially in addition to Tiassa's point about other organ/body part donation.

 

Bells: You are right in part. I am not really annmnoyred at your position so much as annoyed in general at people (newpaper editors included) who take the time to publically post their disapproval of the way this woman is handling a private tragedy. Combine that with the now 30 hours I have been awake and you get my rant. Public disapproval abd finger wagging is the standard method by which most social norms are developed and enforced, all without legal action being taken, so I do not see public statements regarding private condiuct by non-public figures as being quite as ineffectual as you do. In effect, though, I find the newspaper postings far more offensive than your posting, but only because I assume the mother and children will never see it.

You still have stated no justification I see as valid for finding any ethical problems with her position, and I think there is an ethical concern with your own. I think that difference of opinion largely that comes down to my belief that victimless actions that make an individual happy (or, in this case, grant that individual life itself) might as well be encouraged, versus your belief that the dead have rights that outlive them . I am not sure why they would unless one believes in an afterlife (as at least that would lead to some notion of the continuity of one's individual desires). Since I do not recognize the rights of inanimate objects, the decision for me is more focussed on mother's happiness/childrens' existence one side of the scale versus nothing on the other.

In any event, if I have personally offended you, I was wrong to do so, and I apologize without reservation.

 

I think you have me confused with someone else. You're preaching to the choir. All I said was that I think for her it's more than just wanting to be a grandmother. I don't have a problem with what she did. I still think it's morbid, but we all do morbid things. I'm not judging her choice as right or wrong. I probably wouldn't do it, but I also don't wear make-up or flip-flops that doesn't mean that doing those things is wrong.

 

I thought that dead people couldn't ejaculate?

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This and That

Yes and no. I think I see what you're getting at. I don't see the relevance.

• • • ​

No. There are psychological explanations. I'm not as up on grief in general, but the broader aspect is that she's letting grief get the best of her. It is compelling unhealthy and self-perpetuating considerations.

Psychologically, she may be protecting herself against an abstract acknowledgement by perpetuating her grief. This is the concern. If she is rationalizing in her expressed reasons, she will successfully sublimate her deeper fear if she goes forward and a surrogate bears a child for her.

And it is possible to create a reasonable semblance of happiness, but such issues have a way of causing or inflaming behavioral inconsistencies. One might illustrate by suggesting that it would be better, if one had to wake up weeping in the middle of the night, it would be better to know why.

And that's the danger, the heart of the concern about morbidity. Yes, there is something of an ick factor, I suppose, but that's abstract to me.

Doesn't even get into the issue of a mother taking her son's reproductive decisions into her own hands. I don't know where to start with that.

 

So if a person can harvest a dead son's sperm, I suppose they could do the same with a dead daughter's eggs. They could find surrogate after surrogate and have grandchild after grandchild.
Might come in handy if there is a will that says the estate goes to any children and the guardian controls the money.
People can sell bull sperm, what about human sperm?

 

Gee, in that case, we should stop having sex, or having vaginal births, because we wouldn't want to tell our children about that, either!!!!!!!!!!!

OH GOD THOSE POOR KIDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Roman,
Vaginal birth, sex are all natural acts. This is artificial insemination for the sole purpose of therapeutic procreation, not pleasure.

 

So's rape and murder.

 

what about doing math?

 

It's a disaster

In truth, I don't know. I don't understand the argument, even having experienced the curious contrast of being an adopted child and meeting my first blood relative (my daughter) when I was twenty-nine.

On the one hand, the woman has said that it would "help her heart" to raise a child. But that puts us right back to the prior discussion, which never really made a whole lot of sense. Some people are really hung up on the idea that the only children good enough for them to raise is their own genetic offspring.

And now we have someone presuming to make reproductive decisions for a dead man in order to raise one of her own.

She's had blood offspring before, too. It's not like this is her only chance, so even if I shrug and arbitrarily say, "It makes sense that someone should want an offspring with their eyes, &c.", it doesn't apply.

There is much more going on here than the superficial, such as precedent, ick factor, and the exploitation of children as baubles for pride. This whole issue treads into the psychology of grief and sex roles at least. Her identity is heavily invested in motherhood; her grief is manifesting itself in those terms.

One might easily assert that this is her basic right, and presently I would agree. However, it's psychologically unhealthy, and will place some extraordinary burdens on the child, not the least of which are replacing a dead father and assuaging a grandmother's grief. It's really hard for some people to look at the situation and say, "You want another child, this time with at least two big strikes against him; that's fair."

Having children should be about children, not the grown-ups who raise them.

 

There's evidence that some primates, birds, and I think dogs can do math. Or at least know bigger vs. smaller. I know for sure Alex the Parrot could, by all tests, count.

 

Like that dog that was on Oprah. She could add, subtract, multiply, and divide. She was amazing.

 

Its her business, let her be.