FATHERING CHILDREN FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE

 St. Joseph and the Child Jesus

From Beyond the Grave

Fathering Children After Death

By
Father John Flynn, LC

ROME,
JUNE 19, 2011 (Zenit.org).- A rash of recent cases involving the
use of frozen sperm to conceive children after the death of the father has
drawn attention this increasingly widespread practice.

One
case was that of Jocelyn and Mark Edwards in New South Wales, Australia. They
were due to sign consent forms to start IVF treatment, but the husband died in
an accident the day prior to the signing, the Sydney Morning Herald reported,
May 24.

The
wife obtained a court order to conserve her husband’s sperm and has now won a
court action that will give her access to it. State laws prohibit this unless
there is express consent for the use of sperm after death, but the NSW Supreme
Court accepted the wife’s testimony that a couple of years ago her husband
declared that if anything were to happen to him she should go ahead and have
his child.

An
article posted June 3 on the Time Magazine Web site commented that it is not
uncommon for soldiers who are being deployed on combat missions to freeze sperm
so that if they die their wives can still have a child.

As
circumstances can differ a great deal questions are being asked about whether
this practice should be allowed. The article referred to a case in Israel where
the parents of a son who died last year want to have a grandchild using their
son’s sperm.

The
son, Ohad Ben-Yaakov, was not married or in a relationship but the parents want
to use a surrogate mother.

Twins

A
similar case was recently reported in Russia. Lamara Kelesheva’s son died of
cancer, but with sperm collected before he started chemotherapy his mother used
surrogate mothers to conceive two sets of twins, Russia Today reported June 7.

According
to a report published by the Russian newspaper Pravda on June 10 five attempts
at conception failed in the two years after her son’s death. Keleseva went
ahead with one last effort and two surrogate mothers were uses simultaneously.
Both became pregnant and the women gave birth to the grandchildren on January
6th and 8th.

The
turmoil created as a result of this led to the breakup of her marriage and
Kelesheva is now engaged in a legal battle to obtain recognition that she is
the mother of these children and her deceased son the father.

The
Moscow Civil Registry Office refused to register the newborns, and she is now
appealing to the Moscow Municipal Court. Russian law limits the recourse to
surrogate mothers to a husband and wife couple.

“All
these exercises in biomechanics ultimately lead to this very ambiguous
situation when you can’t really tell the difference between a son and
grandson,” pro-life activist Andrey Khvesyuk, told Russia Today.

A
different twist on the situation took place in the case of a 57-year-old man,
who can’t be named for legal reasons, who had stored his sperm in 1999 because
of fears that medical treatment could render him infertile.

After
the breakup of the man’s marriage his ex-wife used the money from the divorce
settlement to conceive two children using the man’s sperm, the Telegraph
newspaper reported May 29. She forged his signature on the authorization forms
and the man only found out about it three years later. A daughter and a son were
born in 2001 and 2003 respectively.

Since
the discovery he has spend a large sum of money on legal battles with his
ex-wife and has limited access to his children.

Anonymity

While
the children of deceased fathers will grow up knowing who their father was
there are many children conceived through IVF who are without this information.

Newsweek
looked into this situation in an article dated Feb. 25. In general in the
United States children conceived through sperm donors have no information to
who their father is and in many cases the records of the donors is destroyed.

As
increasing numbers of these children reach maturity they are pressuring to
change this situation. The article recounted the efforts of someone referred to
as Alana S. who has created the organization AnonymousUs.org for children,
families and donors.

Some
countries have legislated to require information to be available about sperm
and ova donors, but the IVF industry in the United States remains largely
unregulated.

Alana
S., who is now 24 years old, said many donor-conceived children regard
themselves as some kind of “freaks of nature.”

Even
in countries where there is legislation the situation is far from perfect. This
was evident in a report published Feb. 10 by an Australian Senate committee
titled, “Donor Conception Practices in Australia.”

The
report stated that there are inconsistent state and territory approaches
regarding the information that donor conceived people may access.

Another
concern is about the risk of donor conceived people inadvertently forming
consanguine relationships due to their lack of access to donor information. Not
only can this increase the risk of serious genetic disease but given the stigma
attached to such relationships it could have significant social consequences,
the report warned.

The
committee received several submissions on the theme of limiting the number of
families a donor assists. According to information from the Victorian
Infertility Counsellors Group it is not unusual for donor conceived people to discover
that they have up to twenty genetic half-siblings.

Inconsistency

Other
submissions commented that there are inconsistent approaches between the states
and territories regarding registration of donors. This means there is no way of
accurately knowing or controlling the number of families a particular donor
assists.

Another
issue relates to a lack of data management that make it difficult to ensure
clinics are complying with any limits on donations. One example given in the
report was about a clinic importing sperm from the U.S. that had been assured
it would only by for use by that clinic. Later it was discovered that sperm
from the same donor had also been imported by a clinic in NSW and used by a number
of families in that state.

Even
though recent changes to laws make it easier for donor children to obtain
information about their father many of those now reaching adulthood are unable
to access the records as a result of past commitments made to donors to
maintain their anonymity.

The
report quoted testimony from Miss Narelle Grech, who explained the personal
impact this has had on her.

“I
cannot begin to describe how dehumanising and powerless I am to know that the
name and details about my biological father and my entire paternal family sit
somewhere in a filing cabinet...with no means to access it,” she said.
“Information about my own family, my roots, my identity, I am told I have no
right to know,” she added.

In
Canada such situations were described as discriminatory and unconstitutional by
British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Elaine Adair.

The
judge ruled in favor of a lawsuit brought by Olivia Pratten, who sought to get
the same rights as adopted children, the Vancouver Sun reported, May 19.

A
child is not something owed to someone, but a gift, the Catechism of the
Catholic Church points out in no. 2378. Neither should a child be considered as
a piece of property, “an idea to which an alleged ‘right to a child’ would
lead,” it pointed out.

Among
the many serious moral objections to IVF is that is has led to children being
treated as commodities, no matter how well-intentioned the original desire for
a child may have been. The consequences of this are now being graphically
played out in the courts and in families.