PET PET
  • My Account
  • Subscribe
Become a Friend Donate
  • About Us
    • People
    • Press Office
    • Our History
  • Get Involved
    • Become a Friend of PET
    • Volunteer
    • Campaigns
    • Writing Scheme
    • Partnership and Sponsorship
    • Advertise with Us
  • Donate
    • Become a Friend of PET
  • BioNews
    • News
    • Comment
    • Reviews
    • Elsewhere
    • Topics
    • Glossary
    • Newsletters
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Previous Events
  • Engagement
    • Policy and Projects
      • Resources
    • Education
  • Jobs & Opportunities
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
    • People
    • Press Office
    • Our History
  • Get Involved
    • Become a Friend of PET
    • Volunteer
    • Campaigns
    • Writing Scheme
    • Partnership and Sponsorship
    • Advertise with Us
  • Donate
    • Become a Friend of PET
  • BioNews
    • News
    • Comment
    • Reviews
    • Elsewhere
    • Topics
    • Glossary
    • Newsletters
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Previous Events
  • Engagement
    • Policy and Projects
      • Resources
    • Education
  • Jobs & Opportunities
  • Contact Us
  • My Account
  • Subscribe
  • Privacy Statement
  • Advertising Policy
  • Thanks and Acknowledgements
PETBioNewsCommentThe Ohio sperm mix-up: What's the harm in giving birth to a healthy, beautiful baby girl?

BioNews

The Ohio sperm mix-up: What's the harm in giving birth to a healthy, beautiful baby girl?

Published 7 September 2015 posted in Comment and appears in BioNews 783

Author

Dr Antony Starza-Allen

Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
CC0 1.0
Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.

A claim filed against an Ohio sperm bank for using the wrong sperm donor leading to a woman giving birth to 'a beautiful, obviously mixed race, baby girl' ignited a furore because of race...

A claim filed against an Ohio sperm bank (reported in BioNews 774) for using the wrong sperm donor leading to a woman giving birth to 'a beautiful, obviously mixed race, baby girl' ignited a furore because of race. The case illustrates how references to race can affirm social and historical processes grounded upon contested biological truths and prejudice. It also raises important questions about the extent to which the law should respect reproductive decision-making in assisted conception by making the provision of redress available when things go wrong.

Jennifer Cramblett, a 'white' woman in a same-sex relationship, had ordered sperm from a white donor, but was instead sent sperm from an African-American donor. Two years after the birth of her son, Payton, she sued the clinic under wrongful birth and breach of warranty for a minimum of US $50,000 in damages for her emotional and financial losses. The claim is yet to be heard (if it is) and details of the case are obtained from the claim form and from interviews with the claimants, without evidence from the clinic or other parties.

Although asserting that Cramblett had bonded with the child easily and that the couple 'love her very much', the claim form identifies 'fears, anxieties and uncertainty' about the family's future in an 'all-white environment'. Cramblett did not 'know African Americans' until college, apparently. The claim form attempts to substantiate the 'damage' to Cramblett and her partner by making reference to difficulties over getting a 'decent hair cut', having to travel to a 'black neighbourhood' owing to the child's 'typical' African American hair.

Much of this - and the interviews that followed - made for uncomfortable reading. The assumption that 'race', a socially constructed and contested concept, was in some way both caused by a sperm mix-up and also formed the gist of the damage was troubling (see also Patricia Williams' commentary of the case). First, the claim appears to perpetuate myths about race and apparent social inequality. It implicitly reifies a discredited biological notion of race ('By equating race with "genetic traits", Cramblett is claiming that race is a biological fact', wrote McKnight in The New Yorker) and appears to invoke an understanding of race as being definable by perceivably heritable, physical features (e.g. hair and skin tone) - a view that has in the past and present allowed for populations to be categorised and made out to be 'different'.

Crucially, the claim also sends out an implicit message that this 'difference' is somehow inferior. 'Her claim hinges on the same rationale that led to a lineage of Americans who have been treated as second-class citizen', McKnight continues  — it is an unavoidable conclusion that Cramblett is claiming she is somehow worse off having a non-white child, and awarding compensation would merely reinforce such a view.

Second, the claim also raises questions over the extent to which the courts should indirectly support (rather than actively oppose) undesirable social attitudes, such as preferences for racial sameness — turning a blind eye to the wider problem. Cramblett was apparently concerned about raising her child in a small, predominantly white community, which she described as 'too racially intolerant'.

Perhaps then, the money spent on damages could be better spend on public education to change such views, rather than sending out a message that the status quo in this community is somehow OK. These are just some of the policy arguments that significantly restrict claims for compensation resulting from sperm mix ups.

However, while the race angle was the focus of much of the critical commentary around the claim, such perspectives may not entirely capture the essence of the complaint and may even detract from any merits in the claim. Cramblett's treatment was presumably based on promises or reassurances (in some form) made by the clinic in the course of the delivery of its professional, commercial services, which turned out in the end to have been unmet. This strikes a chord of injustice on the level of interpersonal obligations: 'I'm not going to let them get away with not being held accountable', she told NBC News.

Reinforcing this sense of injustice is that from the patient perspective reproductive decisions can be, of course, incredibly important and donor preferences very meaningful. 'Race', or rather skin tone, for example, can represent visual indicators that may be caught up in feelings of identity, resemblance and relatedness, where disruption may have very real and manifest implications in people's lives. Such meanings may be manifestly complex and even totally inaccurate, but they nonetheless remain important to the individuals concerned.

The extent to which this approach can explain the claim in this case is unclear, however, but there is an evident sense that this was a personal decision on Cramblett's part. As Cramblett told the press: 'They took a personal choice, a personal decision and took it on themselves to make that choice for us out of pure negligence'.

Therefore, upon one view the clinic's mix up with sperm represented a significant infringement of Cramblett's reproductive autonomy - a decision made about one's own life choices when having children. Reproductive decisions go to what some consider deeply personal decisions, an essence of which should be guarded from outside interpretation and rationalisation. Indeed in this case, it is one to be made by the patient, and not the clinic.

So is the case about race, or not? Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe is unconvinced by Cramblett's insistence that it isn't about race at all. 'It's hard to decide which is more surreal – the race-obsessed complaint Cramblett filed in Cook County Circuit Court, or her after-the-fact pretence that she isn't making an issue of her daughter's race'.

The case is almost certainly about some notion of 'race', but perhaps much of the negative attention received as a result is perhaps based upon an understanding of race that may contrast with Cramblett's own use of the word (although much of this can be disputed).

Such attention can also be explained by Cramblett's poor media management and the wording of the claim form itself, which portrays the damage as being about 'race', rather than resemblance, for example, with little legal discussion of actionable damage or proper evaluation of the claimant's loss. To avoid characterising the damage as being about the wrong skin tone and racial undertones, the claim form could have pursued a more explicit argument based on reproductive autonomy.

The Cramblett claim demonstrates the need to steer a careful path through claims in this context ostensibly based on 'race' — one that permits a critical approach to the deployment of such concepts, while also safeguarding versions of reproductive autonomy. Perhaps then there is a need for a more appropriate language through which to speak about sperm mix ups, both in the public domain and in the law — although there will undoubtedly remain something lost in translation between the two.

One commentator points out that the legal language of 'warranty' and 'wrongful life' is particularly unfortunate given the subject matter — a child. However, the claim form equally reveals shortcomings in the law itself when it comes to private law claims for compensation following errors in assisted conception services - requirements to prove physical, deleterious losses tend to distort discussions of actionable damage in sperm mix-up claims, where the loss is often entirely intangible and subjective — and could be better expressed as such.

Related Articles

Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
CC0 1.0
Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
News
9 August 2019 • 2 minutes read

US couple launch lawsuit after ancestry test reveals sperm mix-up

by Sarah Gregory

A couple in Ohio is suing a fertility clinic and associated organisations after a genetic test given as a Christmas present revealed a sperm mix-up in their IVF treatment...

Image by Bill Sanderson via the Wellcome Collection, © Wellcome Trust Ltd 1990. Depicts Laocoön and his family (from Greek and Roman mythology) entwined in coils of DNA.
Image by Bill Sanderson via the Wellcome Collection, © Wellcome Trust Ltd 1990. Depicts Laocoön and his family entwined in coils of DNA (based on the figure of Laocoön from Greek and Roman mythology).
News
10 May 2016 • 1 minute read

Woman sues US sperm bank again for sperm mix-up

by Dr Antony Starza-Allen

A woman is suing a sperm bank in the USA for the second time, alleging that it provided sperm from the wrong donor...

Image by Bill Sanderson via the Wellcome Collection, © Wellcome Trust Ltd 1990. Depicts Laocoön and his family (from Greek and Roman mythology) entwined in coils of DNA.
Image by Bill Sanderson via the Wellcome Collection, © Wellcome Trust Ltd 1990. Depicts Laocoön and his family entwined in coils of DNA (based on the figure of Laocoön from Greek and Roman mythology).
News
7 September 2015 • 1 minute read

Sperm mix-up case dismissed

by Dr Antony Starza-Allen

A woman who sued a US sperm bank after she gave birth to a mixed-race child has had her claim rejected by an Illinois court, reports the Chicago Tribune...

Image by Bill Sanderson via the Wellcome Collection, © Wellcome Trust Ltd 1990. Depicts Laocoön and his family (from Greek and Roman mythology) entwined in coils of DNA.
Image by Bill Sanderson via the Wellcome Collection, © Wellcome Trust Ltd 1990. Depicts Laocoön and his family entwined in coils of DNA (based on the figure of Laocoön from Greek and Roman mythology).
News
14 August 2015 • 1 minute read

Texas sperm bank sued for giving sperm to man's ex-girlfriend

by Ruth Retassie

A court case has begun involving a man's claim against a US fertility clinic and his ex-girlfriend, who allegedly procured vials of his sperm without his permission to conceive a child...

Image by Bill Sanderson via the Wellcome Collection, © Wellcome Trust Ltd 1990. Depicts Laocoön and his family (from Greek and Roman mythology) entwined in coils of DNA.
Image by Bill Sanderson via the Wellcome Collection, © Wellcome Trust Ltd 1990. Depicts Laocoön and his family entwined in coils of DNA (based on the figure of Laocoön from Greek and Roman mythology).
News
13 April 2015 • 2 minutes read

Couple to sue US sperm bank that did not verify donor information

by Nina Chohan

A Canadian couple has filed a lawsuit against US-based sperm bank, Xytex, after they discovered that the sperm used to conceive their child was provided by a 'college drop out' with a criminal record and a history of schizophrenia...

Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
CC0 1.0
Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
News
3 October 2014 • 2 minutes read

Ohio woman sues fertility clinic after daughter born from 'wrong sperm'

by Chee Hoe Low

A woman is suing a sperm bank in Ohio, USA, after she became pregnant with sperm from the wrong donor...

Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
CC0 1.0
Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
News
14 July 2014 • 2 minutes read

HFEA: More than 1,600 fertility clinic mistakes in three years

by Chee Hoe Low

Hundreds of adverse events occur in UK fertility clinics each year, according to a report from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority...

PET BioNews
Comment
15 November 2012 • 3 minutes read

Is it a harm to be born with different skin colour to your parents?

by Professor Sally Sheldon

The Northern Ireland Court of Appeal last month ruled on the case of A and B brought by twins born with different skin colour to their parents and to each other. Upon their birth, it had been discovered that their mother had been mistakenly inseminated with sperm from a 'Caucasian (Cape-coloured)' donor...

Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
CC0 1.0
Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
News
6 December 2010 • 2 minutes read

Northern Ireland judge dismisses claim brought by children after IVF 'mix-up'

by Dr Antony Starza-Allen

Northern Ireland's High Court of Justice has rejected a claim for damages brought by two children born as a result of IVF treatment provided to their mother which resulted in them being of different skin colour than intended...

Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
CC0 1.0
Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
News
9 June 2009 • 1 minute read

Judge reveals twins' mix-up clinic

by BioNews

Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, head of the Family Division of the UK's High Court, has made a statement about the case of a white woman who gave birth to mixed-race twins after a mistake at an IVF clinic earlier this year. Dame Butler-Sloss has been examining the legal issues raised by...

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

« Trust women to decide the right time to have a family

Data-Label The UK's Leading Supplier Of Medical Labels & Asset Labels

RetiringDentist.co.uk The UK's Leading M&A Company.
easyfundraising
amazon

This month in BioNews

  • Recent
4 July 2022 • 4 minutes read

Widening the debate about direct-to-consumer genetic testing and donor conception

4 July 2022 • 3 minutes read

Join PET and Genomics England to celebrate the 200th birthday of Gregor Mendel

27 June 2022 • 4 minutes read

Thirty years of PET: our 'Fertility, Genomics and Embryo Research' report

27 June 2022 • 5 minutes read

Children's rights and donor conception: What next?

20 June 2022 • 4 minutes read

The problems with lifting donor anonymity earlier

Subscribe to BioNews and other PET updates for free.

Subscribe
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube
  • RSS
Wellcome
Website redevelopment supported by Wellcome.

Website by Impact Media Impact Media

  • Privacy Statement
  • Advertising Policy
  • Thanks and Acknowledgements

© 1992 - 2022 Progress Educational Trust. All rights reserved.

Limited company registered in England and Wales no 07405980 • Registered charity no 1139856

Subscribe to BioNews and other PET updates for free.

Subscribe
PET PET

PET is an independent charity that improves choices for people affected by infertility and genetic conditions.

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube
  • RSS
Wellcome
Website redevelopment supported by Wellcome.

Navigation

  • About Us
  • Get Involved
  • Donate
  • BioNews
  • Events
  • Engagement
  • Jobs & Opportunities
  • Contact Us

BioNews

  • News
  • Comment
  • Reviews
  • Elsewhere
  • Topics
  • Glossary
  • Newsletters

Other

  • My Account
  • Subscribe

Website by Impact Media Impact Media

  • Privacy Statement
  • Advertising Policy
  • Thanks and Acknowledgements

© 1992 - 2022 Progress Educational Trust. All rights reserved.

Limited company registered in England and Wales no 07405980 • Registered charity no 1139856