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No Cash for Kid Born from Dead Man’s Sperm
A mom who opted to have her husband’s sperm collected post-mortem won’t be getting any financial help from the government to raise her.
Gabriela Vernoff’s husband died in an accident in 1995, but she had his sperm extracted and frozen so she could have their baby four years later, in 1999. Now, ten years later, she’s been told she cannot collect Social Security benefits on the dead man’s child because she wasn’t a dependent during his life.
Vernoff first applied for benefits to help cover the costs of raising daughter Brandalynn in 1999, and she’s been working her way through the courts ever since. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said this week that it didn’t matter that Gabriela was married to Brandalynn’s father at the time of his death.
There was no baby, and no expectation that there would be one (in other words, she wasn’t pregnant).
Although I feel for Gabriela Vernoff for having lost her husband, I’ve never been a fan of postmortem sperm removal. It doesn’t seem fair to the man – that’s his sperm, his child out there. Granted, his life was cut short unexpectedly (this isn’t like the recent cases of men who banked sperm to undergo cancer treatments only to die and then have someone try to take his sperm to make a baby), and he did not have the chance to decide whether he wanted kids. Then again, he didn’t have the chance to decide he DIDN’T want kids if someone went in and took his sperm.
All that aside, Gabriela Vernoff did this with full knowledge that she was going to be a single mom. It sounds cruel to bring it up, but the fact is, her husband was deceased. Anyone who opts to harvest a dead man’s sperm – even his surviving widow – has to step away from the pure emotion and think “can I support this child on my solo income?” If you can’t, you don’t make the baby – it’s that simple.
Should the Social Security Administration (you and I and our tax dollars) be expected to step in here?
Image: eHow
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2 Comments
Madeline Morgan commented on May 18 10 at 12:20 pmDavid Archuleta is definitely one of the best singer in American Idol.,..
Kara commented on Jun 10 11 at 3:23 pmSSA- Death Benifits are calculated based on the amount of money the dead parent made in life. Not just tax dollars. If the Father consented to saving the sperm then that is one thing, to take it after he dies with out consent, entirely another. If I choose to have eggs saved for my husband to use with a surrogate because he wants to still continue with out plans, I would hope that years of hard work on my part would help to pay to raise our child. However I have the ability to think ahead not only for my eggs but to protect my husband legally with a will and life insurance. It shouldn’t really be a matter of public opinion or a matter of the writers opinion. It is a personal and private matter between a husband and wife, with their final wishes. I feel that how the above article was written was actually RUDE! The other 2 writers on this same subject weren’t rude at all!
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