Say What!?
Devastated Parents With Son in Coma Sue for His Sperm So They Can Have Grandkid
There is no horror for parents like the thought of losing a child. It could turn even the smartest, most grounded Mom or Dad into a raving lunatic. I can even understand why Jerri and Rufus McGill spent the days while their teenage son Rufus Arthur McGill was in a coma fighting for the right to harvest his sperm. But I can't say I think it was right.
He's their son. Creating a new child that shares some of his DNA isn't going to dial them back to the days before he crashed his mom's car.
Rufus died this week at 19. His death ends his parents' legal battle. It's too late to collect their son's sperm.
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My heart goes out to them. But I hope that in a few weeks, after the funeral, after things start to settle down and they are left to ponder that hole left in their hearts that the McGills realize that collecting their son's sperm was not going to fix this tragedy.
Collecting a dying child's sperm or eggs before death is fairly new, but the McGills aren't the first to try it. I have a sad feeling they won't be the last. Like I said before, parents trying to come to terms with the early loss of a child are not generally rational. You can understand why.
However, reality has to set in at some point. There is no "replacing" a lost child. If there is, we need to rethink the value we put on human life overall. You may love a new baby, you may spend so much time caring for them that you have less time to focus on your loss, but this is not a case where one equals one.
Not to mention, these cases generally involve teenage children whose parents seem to think that their proximity to adulthood makes it obvious that it's somehow fitting to grant them post-mortem parenthood. As if that fulfills an older child lost too soon's point in being on this earth. What does that say about our kids? That we value them as vessels for grandchildren?
What do you think of parents harvesting a dead child's sperm or eggs? Is this something we should encourage?
Image via NatalieMaynor/Flickr
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zombiemommy916
kay
Maevelyn
idk, you still wouldn't get to see them be a parent, they would be leaving their grandchild fatherless and I'm going to assume that the poor kid will feel like a replacement for his lost "dad" because... well he is.
Lilac
AlwaysExpecting
I agree with zombiemommy, I think I would be very interested in doing something like this, God forbid a circumstance like that ever happened.
Yes, it will never replace a lost child, but there is such a thing a making a loss easier. Grandkids are a very important apect to many people's lives, who is anyone to judge a loss parent in how they choose to move forward?
Raechelle Barber
i couldn't say for sure if i would do it. wouldn't it be more disturbing if the parents ran out to found a surrogate to make another son? i don't really see the issue in this. i know my grandparents, who lost their daughter at 10, would have loved to have met her children one day. is it wrong? i don't think so. is it a bit strange? of course. but so is life.
ImaSoulMom
AG1987
I can see why the parents would want a child that is biologically attached to their son, but I think it's wrong to harvest his sperm. These parents know the pain of losing a son - why force a child to grow up without a father when it's unnecessary? I know there are plenty of children growing up without fathers, but I would say a good majority of them expected to grow up WITH their fathers and things happened. There's no way I could bring a child into this world knowing he/she would be fatherless.
FarmersWife
Sharon