I feel it really is a tough one to call, it all depends I suppose on your view points as to wether the fertalised eggs are a life or not, if you class them as a life from the moment of conception then surely by not allowing these women to try and carry these *babys* is preventing that child from having a life, effectively killing a child wether the ex husband agrees or not, somehow I couldn't see any judge forcing a pregnant woman to have an abortion because he ex partner now doesnt want a child, so surely its the same thing?
If however you don't see it as such then the ex partner would have a right as to say no sorry I dont want a child now, effectively saying we are not together so why should I sleep with you and give you a baby ( hope that makes sense as I can't really find the right way to put it )

My personal feelings on this? totaly confused as to what should or should not happen

I don't really have an opinion on this.

Those men didn't want to be fathers. Maybe they were thinking in the future they didn't want a child turning up on their doorstep introducing themselves as their son/daughter.

I felt desperately sorry for the two women. One of them said that it was her last chance at motherhood. I don't know the circumstances of their backgrounds, but i thought it was unfair of the judge to deny their request and also to turn down any leave to appeal. Would a woman judge have ruled any differently?.

And i think, though not sure that these women were once married to their former partners?, then if that's the case, fair enough, the would be father i think has as much say.

I can see both points of view. He doesn't want to be a father, he doesn't want the responsibility (or more to the point, the CSA chasing him for payments). She wants a child, she can't conceive naturally, she would have raised any child alone and made no demand on the father.

If the judge had gone in the women's favour, what's the guarantee that the implantation process would have worked?.

It's very sad.

Sound to me as fairly straight forward:
These embroys where "created and stored" for a specific reason --> for that couple to possibly have children together at a later point in time.

The embroy in that case would have only been implanted if both of the "parents" wanted this. Now they aren't together anymore the guy doesn't want his ex to have the embroys implanted and actually have "his" children.

Same as if the guy would say give me the embroys and I will have them implanted into a donor mother to have "our" child without the original mother to agree with this.

Ashame the women now can't get pregnant anymore but if you wanted to play on safe you should have frozen the eggs instead of making embroys out of them with the guys sperm. They made a judgement call which apparently was wrong well than you will just have to live with the consiquances of your actions like every adult has to.

On the "can the guys now force woman to have an abortion because they don't want the child".... of course not. If you had unsafe sex got her pregnant thats a totally different case as that actually means you did the deed.

With the embroys the women aren't actually pregnant yet. So that would kinda be comparible to if you had safe sex you put the condom in the bin the girl takes it out goes to a lab and without your concent puts the embroys that are created from that inside her to get pregnant. Sure in that case you can force an abortion I guess but I doubt it happends very often that way

one was married and already had an 18 yr old daughter her husband left her for another woman. The now infertile lady wasnt married but they were engaged and he promised her he would never deprive her of the child but later changed his mind when he also left her for another woman who he now has a son by and even named the child the same name infertile-lady was gonna name her child. she also stated she didnt care if he wanted nothing to do with it she was more then happy to never hear from him again.

as for kids turning up on their parents door 15 years from now many kids are brought up in single parent families with mother's who dont even know who the father is or known the father has walked out and in some cases the mother's meet someone else and they raise the child as their own.(im not forgetting families where the father is the only parent present so please dont pick on that).
And in some cases it's better to not know your father but then im biased dont get me wrong i've met some amazing dad's out there just mine's not one of them lol.

but like you i am also in two minds as to the ruling but i feel for the lady who can never had kids now i dont want kids myself but thats coz i have the choice if i didnt i'd prolly want them real bad.

(Edited by bipolar 02/10/2003 16:12)

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by bipolar
but i feel for the lady who can never had kids now

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Who can never have kids of her own. She can still have children a lot of parents before these kinda threatments got around adopted. Sure would be nicer to have one of your own flesh and blood......

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left her for another woman who he now has a son by and even named the child the same name infertile-lady was gonna name her child.

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Uhmm he must have liked the name a lot...

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she also stated she didnt care if he wanted nothing to do with it she was more then happy to never hear from him again.

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Yeah but the kid will eventually wonder who his real dad is I guess. So than the kid would still end up on his doorstep sometime.... which I guess not everyone would be too happy with. As however you put it you would feel some responsibility towards this kid atleast if it's a person with a heart.

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by Chambler
(quotes)
Who can never have kids of her own. She can still have children a lot of parents before these kinda threatments got around adopted. Sure would be nicer to have one of your own flesh and blood......

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but having an adopted child you will always be faced with the thing of telling them they're adopted would you rather tell a child they're father didnt want them or tell them you've been lying to them all their lives and you aint their parents. also adopting a child as a single parent is a long and hard process.

Kinda depends on your definition of "parents" really.
If you say that the parents are the people that actually put your on this earth than that would be the nice people at the lab if you been "created" using IVF treatment.

Parents are the people that raise you etc etc. They might not be your biological parents but in that sense they are still your parents. Sure for a single parent it's very hard get through the adoption proces but not impossible (although it is possibly in this case).

Still doesn't make it any less unethical to implant the embryo without the concent of the father and therefor I'm very happy that the judge ruled as he did as that could have given a nasty precident (means the father has no say in the matter at all)

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by Chambler

Still doesn't make it any less unethical to implant the embryo without the concent of the father and therefor I'm very happy that the judge ruled as he did as that could have given a nasty precident (means the father has no say in the matter at all)

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But in these cases as far as I am aware the eggs have been fertalised , therefore at the moment of "conception" because thats what it boils done to wether inside or outside the womb , he had agreed, I would agree with you if the woman now wanted to use the mans sperm to produce a baby , but depending on your view point a baby already has been concived, you could look at it as the judge ruling on not wether the couple can concieve a baby but wether that baby has a right to live ?

Although my heart goes out to these women, I have to agree with Chambler that to go ahead with these children would be wrong without the consent of the fathers.
These embryos were created and stored in the hope of creating a family. That is now not going to happen and as Chambler pointed out, the principal is the same as if the women wanted the embryos destroyed and the men wanted them implanted into a donor.
The creation of a child should always be a jointly-made decision.

Although the women said that they would waive their right to child support, I am aware of cases where the CSA has overruled any private maintenance agreements if they felt it necessary, so if either woman was to end up on benefits, the fathers would liable to support the children that they didn't want. This happens far too often as it is, without giving it legal precedant.

I do not believe that it opens the door to men being able to force women to have an abortion, as usually men have a choice at the point of conception and if they don't want to risk a pregnancy, they can take precautions to prevent one.
This case has highly unusual circumstances that would not apply in other cases.
Getting someone pregnant and changing your mind - too bad. Refusing to be used as a retroactive sperm donor is another matter entirely.

Infertility is heartbreaking when people really want children and a case like this will be highly emotional, but I believe that the ruling was correct.

(Edited by Kate 02/10/2003 23:25)

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by Sange
but depending on your view point a baby already has been concived, you could look at it as the judge ruling on not wether the couple can concieve a baby but wether that baby has a right to live ?

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In these cases a lot of eggs are taken from the woman and multiple embroys are made out of those to ensure that atleast the chances of one of those embroys actually turning into a baby are a lot higher than if you only had one. In this proces they'll keep on trying by implanting embroys until one actually "kicks off" and starts to grow within the female body. The other embroys are not used (or used in stemcell research for example although that might not be allowed anymore as they have a certain set of stemcells they now do research on). If you would see the embroy as the baby than in your case they should also try all the other ones too as they would than also have a right to "live". So seeing the embroy as a human life would not really work too well in this case.

Just so we don't actually get the wrong view on what this embroy actually is: An egg which absorbed the sperm and which if frozen. It's not the "embroy" distinctable as little "human" that you see in an echophoto.

So the embroys as it's frozen isn't actually "alive" until it's actually implanted and it's kickstarted and even than until a good few weeks in it's not seen by law as "alive".

If you would say the embroy is alive that would mean you would kill 20 "baby's" to end up with one. Which would make IVF illegal (as if that would be everyone's definition of embroys that would be morally unjust).

I totaly agree with you Chamb, but as I said depending on peoples view points, most pro life people I believe would state that the moment the sperm is introduced to the egg and starts to divide you have effectively created a life. Thats why as I said at the start of this conversation my views are ... well confused to say the least

Well, while the issue in general is a sticky one, but I cant see why this specific one ever made it to court.

What isnt made much of is that at the original stage of agreement for this process to take place both parties signed an agreement under which either had the right to withdraw consent... case closed as far as Im concerned.

The woman now states thats she didnt really think about it at the time, as im sure she expected them to live happilly ever after. Well, as harsh as it sounds, I thats unfortunate, but tough.

What is the point of signing any contract if in the end if you dont like what it says you just go to court and challenge its legality?

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by Wobag


What is the point of signing any contract if in the end if you dont like what it says you just go to court and challenge its legality?

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Something that happens everyday of the year in divorce and CSA cases though

I know

It just goes to show that most people, even the pure of heart will basically sign anything if it benefits them at the time. *cough*loans*cough*

I just wonder how many people would think twice if every contact had "THIS IS NOT WORTH THE PAPER ITS WRITTEN ON" in bold across the top.

(Edited by Wobag 04/10/2003 14:07)

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by bipolar
but having an adopted child you will always be faced with the thing of telling them they're adopted would you rather tell a child they're father didnt want them or tell them you've been lying to them all their lives and you aint their parents. also adopting a child as a single parent is a long and hard process.

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When I heard about this I wasn't sure what to think...the case of the woman who is now infertile due to chaemo was sad. However the solution to me would seem to be adoption/fostering.

Yes as Bipolar says it can create problems *but* that isn't the case every time. Kids aren't just adopted because their fathers didn't want them and not every adopted kid is told that their adoptive parents are their natural parents until it's all revealed at 16/17. Thats a very broad generalisation.

There are a vast number of reasons why kids could need a home - their parents could both have died(natural causes, violence, drink, drugs, accidents, illness); their parents may not be fit to raise them(drugs, drink, abuse) or the enviroment they are growing up in may not be safe(how many orphans are their in Iraq just now dodging mines and bullets??).

Also not telling a child they're adopted is the choice that adoptive parents make and they must live with the consequences. Telling a child they're adopted may make them feel less a part of the family than if they thought they were with their natural patrents but not telling them may create problems in the future. Dealing with problems like these is part of being a parent though.

My brother is talking about adopting his wifes daughter from a previous relationship. The girls father commited suicide when she was 2 and my brother has been her 'dad' since then. She knows that he's not her real dad and they sit down as a family and talk about her real dad and she seems quite happy at the moment...whether that will change as she gets older remains to be seen but I'm sure they'll deal with it as it happens.

If someone is *so* desperate to be a parent then why don't they look at this as the logical method of becoming one and give a home to a child who really needs one instead of trying to create a new life that one partner didn't want in the first place.