From: no_offline_contact@example.com
On 2026-02-15 4:35 p.m., Adam H. Kerman wrote:
> Rhino wrote:
>> On 2026-02-15 12:53 p.m., Adam H. Kerman wrote:
>>> Rhino wrote:
>>>> On 2026-02-15 2:53 a.m., Adam H. Kerman wrote:
>>>>> Rhino wrote:
>>>>>> On 2026-02-14 9:01 p.m., Adam H. Kerman wrote:
>>>>>>> Rhino wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 2026-02-14 4:30 p.m., Adam H. Kerman wrote:
>
>>>> New medical technologies and techniques have made it possible for
>>>> significantly premature babies to survive now so the question of where
>>>> life begins is not so clear cut any more.
>
>>> That doesn't mean change the common law definition. With the foetus
>>> birthed through a surgical procedure separating it from it's mother, a
>>> separate team handles incubation, if there is some possibility of
>>> survival. There are now two patients to treat and at this point, the
>>> mother is being helped without considering the consequences to the baby.
>
>> Agreed. What's your point?
>
> Without such a law, a birth has occurred with surgical separation from
> the mother. Maybe the premature baby may be artificially brought to term
> with modern medical devices and treatment. I don't agree with you that
> improved technology requires any changes in legal definitions.
>
>> . . .
>
>> Or maybe I do. I'm just remembering the case of a little boy that
>> suffered from hydrocephaly ("water on the brain"). The situation was
>> discovered when he was still in the womb and there was so much water in
>> his brain that his brain was compressed into only 3% of the space
>> normally occupied by a brain. Doctors said he'd be a complete vegetable
>> when he was born and there was only one slim shot for him if they did an
>> in utero procedure that drained much of the water. The parents agreed to
>> the procedure and the boy turned out to be very close to normal even
>> though they hadn't succeeded in improving the volume of the brain very
>> much. Apparently, the doctors/scientists were astounded at the level of
>> "neuro-plasticity" (ability of the brain to rewire itself) this boy showed.
>
> With this law, the mother would not be allowed to abort and required to
> undergo such a procedure, the intended consequence of making foetal life
> "human" and tnerefore superior to the mother's.
>
I've only ever heard of one such case; no epidemic of such cases has
been observed. Isn't it widely conceded that making law on the basis of
edge cases is a bad idea? In any case, the hydrocephalic baby incident
happened in the UK, not the US.
I feel like you're pushing for the sort of abortion laws we have in
Canada where there are apparently no restrictions on abortion at all and
some women apparently just use it as a form of birth control.
Let me emphasize that I DON'T think you're doing that because you want
abortion on demand but rather to prevent injustices like women with
ectopic pregnancies dying because the law was taken to mean they
couldn't be treated for that condition, plus any number of comparable
situations.
My concern is that if you have enough exceptions and they are common
enough - or you find doctors who are willing to fudge the paperwork -
you will soon be at the point of not having any rules against abortion
at all beyond the need for them to be done safely by medical professionals.
>> . . .
>
>>> And now let's talk about the inheritance rights of artificially conceived
>>> embryos. And suing sperm donors for child support while still in
>>> embryonic stage. And the possibility of forcing a woman into surrogacy
>>> since the law has now made the rights of fertilized eggs superior to the
>>> rights of woman.
>
>> I'm not sure what scenarios you are envisioning here. Have there been
>> suits where the sperm donor was successfully sued for child support?
>
> This is the first law of its kind in the United States. Lawsuits are a
> given.
>
>> If so, I think I'm appalled. If a guy goes to a sperm bank and donates some
>> of his swimmers, I assume he's doing so either because of a humanitarian
>> impulse to help someone who can't conceive with their partner or perhaps
>> for some spare change. Making him pay child support seems really wrong
>> to me. I'm assuming that he got only a small honorarium for his
>> "contribution", not a multi-million dollar payout, and I have no reason
>> to assume he was already wealthy.
>
> I believe sperm donors have been sued but I don't know if there have
> been support awards or inheritance rights. We do know that such fathers
> have been tracked down by their spawn wanting to know where they came
> from, which sounds like a horrid invasion of privacy.
>
> What I'm suggesting is that the sperm donor might be sued for child
> support starting the moment of conception and for storage of the
> fertilized egg and implantation procedure.
I think it's obvious that if such a suit succeeds and isn't overturned
on appeal, that sperm banks will hire some top lawyers to draft very
clear contracts for both the donor and the recipient. The donor needs to
to know that he is protected against this sort of ludicrous suit and
recipients need to know that they will NOT have the recourse of filing
such a suit. Privacy can also be protected in such contracts.
I think pre-nuptial agreements would be the obvious prototype. I think
they were regarded with great dubiousness at the beginning but they seem
to be settled law now that say you CAN have the couple draw clear
agreements over what can cause the termination of the marriage and what
each party can expect if a divorce occurs.
Suing the donor for storage of the egg and the implantation should be
preposterous. It would be like you handing a beggar on the street a
dollar and then finding you were obligated to care for him for the rest
of his life. Your giving him something out of charity doesn't obligate
you to care for him beyond that and donating sperm shouldn't obligate
you to care for the eventual user of your sperm or the resulting child.
If a woman wants that, she should find a husband that suits her - or a
sugar daddy!
--
Rhino
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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