Judge OK’s Collection of Dead Son’s Sperm
April 9, 2009 by Kelly Townsend
Filed under Weird News
After the tragic loss of her 21-year-old son, Marissa Evans still wanted a grandchild and it seems she found a way. On Tuesday, Travis County Probate Judge Guy Herman granted permission for the sperm of Nikolas Colton Evans to be collected post mortem.
Image: sxc.hu
Nikolas died on Sunday after being punched and falling during an assault on Sixth Street in Austin on March 27. “I want him to live on,” Evans told the Stateman. “I want to keep a piece of him.”
His mother plans to have a surrogate mother impregnated with her dead son’s sperm.
Though I had never heard of something like this being done before, the newspaper says:
“Dr. Elizabeth Houser, a urologist for the Urology Team in Austin, said she is familiar with a case in which a man’s sperm was collected 30 hours after his death and stored for 15 months before a woman was inseminated.”
I’m sure that Marissa Evans is grieving tremendously and my condolences go out to her and her family. And though the advances in technology and amazing, I think that collecting the sperm from someone who is dead is just…well, weird.
There’s a point of ethics too. This child will grow up not knowing the biological father or mother (most likely). And though Evans may make a wonderful grandparent, who will explain to the child how he was conceived?
What do you think? Weigh in below in the comments and let us know. Should a mother be able to petition the court to approve the collection of her dead son’s sperm?
ive heard about something like this happening before, and i thought it was very unusual and cool, but i also felt sorry for the child. i mean, honestly, the grandmother isn’t really thinking ahead; i don’t think she realizes that one day this child will want to know why his parents aren’t there and what happened to them… and no matter what she tells him, he’ll eventually find out and that’s going to be really hard to live with.
Wierd is an understatement in today’s dealings as far as geneology is concerned. Stem cell’s , clones, octuplets to women on medicaid. This instance sounds just about normal in today’s news. *yawn* rolls over and waits for the news story of the three headed monster who just gave madonna a set of twins.