White Lesbian Mother Sues Sperm Bank After She Gives Birth To Mixed-Race Baby

[big_dog]

A white lesbian mother is suing a Chicago sperm bank after she claims she was mistakenly sent a black man's sperm and gave birth to a mixed-race daughter. Jennifer Cramblett, 36, claims the mistake has caused her stress and anguish because her family is racist and she lives in a small, all-white Uniontown in northeast Ohio.

In a lawsuit filed this week in Cook County, Illinois, Ms Cramblett says Midwest Sperm Bank sent her several vials of a black man's sperm by mistake because the clinic keeps paper records and accidentally transposed numbers on her order. The couple had specifically chosen a white donor to be the father of their child.


The lawsuit says the clinic later sent Ms Cramblett an apology note and a refund for the six vials - though charged her for the vials of the correct semen she received. Ms Cramblett she has 'limited cultural competency relative to African-Americans' and worries that her daughter Payton will not be accepted in her hometown of Uniontown.

'Jennifer lives each day with fears, anxieties and uncertainty about her future and Payton's future,' according to the lawsuit.
Ms Cramblett, the assistant manager of an AT&T store, said she and her partner Amanda Zinkon love their daughter, who is now two years old, but say they must now consider moving to a more diverse community.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2776489/White-lesbian-mother-sues-sperm-bank-gave-birth-mixed-race-baby-sent-black-man-s-sperm.html#ixzz3EvSYlGJX

[JI7]

1. so they accept gays but not blacks ?

is she going to give the baby up for adoption ?

[whathehell]

2. I had the same reaction..

Maybe she should move.

[Kalidurga]

3. her family is racist

and she is suing the clinic? Say what?

[Scootaloo]

6. Well...

She bought a product from the clinic. The clinic screwed up and sent her the wrong product, which she had no way to know until the child was born. The woman's logic is kind of stupid, but really, she has no way to know anything about her child's father, who is clearly not the man the clinic represented him as being, and that is most absolutely a liability on the part of the clinic.

[Kalidurga]

18. I think the clinic is liable no matter what her family ideology is...

no doubt. Her logic though

[Scootaloo]

19. Pretty much that, yeah

[uppityperson]

4. The daughter is 2, the article is strange. She didn't notice until she ordered more sperm?

and now it is a problem?

Here is another article that expresses some of what I am feeling. Rather wtf.
http://globalgrind.com/2014/10/01/lesbian-couple-suing-sperm-bank-black-donor-details


And this article
http://uptownmagazine.com/2014/10/ohio-white-mom-jennifer-cramblett-births-black-baby-sues-sperm-bank/2/

The couple expressed concerns of raising Payton in their all-white community where residents still hold to negative stereotypes of people of color. Cramblett says she didn’t even know any black people until going to college at University of Akron and that her hometown is too “racially intolerant.” She expressed that she must travel to a black neighborhood where she is not overtly welcomed just to get her daughter’s hair cut, and that she is stressed at the thought of her daughter going to an all-white school. For the sake of her family’s wellbeing, Cramblett’s therapists have advised that she move to a more racially diverse community. The sperm bank has sent Cramblett an apology and a refund for the vials of incorrect sperm.

This is indeed very complex, and every parent has the right to prefer children of his or her own race. But it seems that if one truly wanted children, and such a mistake did occur, the parent wouldn’t be distraught to this degree. Parenting comes with the responsibility of protecting your children’s physical, mental and emotional beings at all costs. In the case of Cramblett, if raising her biracial daughter in an all-white community is a potential threat to the child’s social and psychological health, the obvious solution seems to move to a more tolerant community. It’s also particularly interesting that the suing couple is lesbian and has probably experienced their own counts of intolerance. One would think their experiences would make them that much more accepting of their bi-racial daughter, but I guess not. It’s a tough situation to judge, though. What would you do?

[KittyWampus]

8. I'd think the couple deserve a cash settlement that allowed them to move to another community

and paid bills for a couple of years or until couple found new jobs.

It isn't all that easy to just pick up and move in this economy.

BUT- a poster just below you points out that the sperm bank might not even have known the race of donor. Even the donor might not have known (it's possible, maybe no probable).

So is clinic responsible for running DNA analysis? Was it included in the info the couple was given? Has the clinic accepted the mistake was theirs?

I am not so quick to condemn the couple.

[rocktivity]

13. Give them enough to buy a tanning bed, too

So they'll fit into a more diverse community better. They're suing because they can't be white parents anymore? And what happens if their new community doesn't like lesbians?


rocktivity

[Scootaloo]

21. Uptown magazine seems to be misrepresenting the mother quite a bit

One would think their experiences would make them that much more accepting of their bi-racial daughter,

Nowhere is there any indication that either mother does not "accept" thir daughter. Quite hte opposite in fact, their concern seems to revolve around bringing the girl up in an environment that may very well be toxic to the girl. The need to go acros town for a haircut, beucause presumably closer hair places don't know what to do with a black girl's hair. The attitude the child will likely receive from schoolmates. The whole mess. it seems that the mothers are very concerned for their daughter, and are looking for a way to get her out of a potentially bad environment and into a better one.

There's absolutely nothing to imply they dislike their child in any way.

[rocktivity]

5. "limited cultural competency relative to African-Americans"

But a "limited cultural competency relative to homosexuals" is okay?

Well, if that's not grounds for putting her up for adoption, I don't know what is. If she REALLY loves her, maybe that's for the best. A lesbian mother and a black father? The kid is doomed, I tells ya!

P.S. The sperm bank may not be at fault -- the sperm could have come from a white-looking male with dormant black genes.


rocktivity

[JimDandy]

9. She ordered a specific vial of sperm.

They sent her the wrong vials because someone in their office got the vial number wrong. The sperm bank is at fault.

As to dormant genes, don't sperm banks do DNA testing? If so, even a person who looks white but has black ancestry should have that marker in their DNA, right?

[rocktivity]

11. I don't think there's a racial purity DNA test.

And to hear this from a lesbian is extra appalling, since it wasn't that long ago that she wouldn't have been allowed within ten miles of a sperm bank:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1827138


rocktivity

P.S. By the way, it took them two years to figure out that there was something "wrong" with their daughter's hair?

[JimDandy]

15. Apparently the new autosomal tests

can identify ethnicity up to 6-8 generations back from the test subject.

[rocktivity]

17. Well, that takes us back into "one drop" territory, doesn't it?

It all depends on HOW black the donor was!

The one-drop rule is a sociological and legal principle...that any person with even one ancestor of sub-Saharan-African ancestry ("one drop" of African blood) is considered to be black (Negro in historical terms)...It was...adopted as law...in Tennessee in 1910 and in Virginia under the Racial Integrity Act of 1924 (following the passage of similar laws in several other states)...

Given the intense interest in ethnicity, genetic genealogists and other scientists have studied population groups...(and) summarized United States population figures this way:

58 percent of African Americans have at least 12.5% European ancestry (equivalent of one great-grandparent);
19.6 percent of African Americans have at least 25% European ancestry (equivalent of one grandparent);
1 percent of African Americans have at least 50% European ancestry (equivalent of one parent); and
5 percent of African Americans have at least 12.5% Native American ancestry (equivalent to one great-grandparent)...

In 2002, Mark D. Shriver, a molecular anthropologist at Penn State University, published results of a study regarding the racial admixture of Americans who identified as white or black...

Among those who self-identified as white:
The average was 0.7% black ancestry, which is the equivalent of having 1 black and 127 white ancestors among one's 128 5×great-grandparents

Shriver estimates that 70% of white Americans have no African ancestors (in part because of the greatly increased immigration from Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries).

Among the 30% who do have African ancestry, Shriver estimates their black racial admixture is 2.3%; the equivalent of having had 3 black ancestors among their 128 5×great-grandparents.[19]

Among those who self-identified as black:
The average was 18% white ancestry, the equivalent of having 22 white ancestors among their 128 5×great-grandparents. About 10% have more than 50% white ancestry.

(link)


rocktivity

[Nuclear Unicorn]

7. She sounds like she's money-chasing while scape-goating her community

at her daughter's emotional expense.

I live out in the Midwestern redneck sticks and we have so many mixed race families it's positively mundane. I can't believe Cook County could be the hotbed of racism she describes.

[Blue_Tires]

23. +1

While I agree she probably has a legit grievance, her legal argument is pretty cynical racial trolling...

[MoonchildCA]

27. I just saw her on TV.

She's asking for $50,000, so she and her partner can relocate and her daughter can have a better life.
I think that is perfectly reasonable amount.

[Solomon]

10. What an interesting legal case.

I believe she's entitled to some serious legal damages unless the company can show that the donor looked and claim ed to be white but was not. Not every white person is as pure as the driven snow.

[JimDandy]

16. They did not deliver the vial of sperm she ordered.

The number on the vial did not match the numbered vial she purchased. This is a case of a business poviding the wrong product to a customer. I think she wins based on that, especially since the courts have established that sperm and eggs are simply products.

[MADem]

28. We just don't know enough to accuse.

Maybe there were pictures or descriptions of the donors? Maybe the mothers wanted their kids to look like both parents and made their choice of sperm donor hoping for physical characteristics that would make the family appear, visibly, more connected?

I don't think it's fair to assume that there is a "racist" component to this issue even though there are "racial" considerations that have been acknowledged.

The bottom line is that the sperm bank used the wrong doggone jar. I agree with your assessment.

I hope the mothers put some of that settlement money aside for the little one's college fund!

[MADem]

29. They used the wrong jar, is what happened.

They pulled the wrong vial out of the fridge, in essence. It wasn't that a donor lied, they picked a donor and the bank delivered the wrong vial.

The couple ordered number 5 from the menu, and got number 8 instead, in essence.


I wanted the beef with broccoli, not the Kung Pow chicken!!!!

[JustAnotherGen]

12. That's crazy

In so many ways.

[Catherine Vincent]

14. Poor kid

[dilby]

20. Here is the deal, she paid for a product and recieved something she can't send back.

Granted she loves her daughter to pieces but it's not what she ordered and she should be compensated. Furthermore it insures this company will not make mistakes in the future. We are not talking about a person who ordered a burger and got steak, this is a woman who brought life into this world and is now completely responsible for that life. Her sexual orientation has nothing to do with the story and for people to make the comments that a lesbian is complaining about a black baby is terrible. You should go look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself are you really progressive. This is a case of someone who had a life changing moment and did not receive the product they ordered.

[Xyzse]

22. Bottom line to me here is that the sperm bank messed up and gave the wrong product.

I can see too many sides in this, and all of it is just sad. It also opens a whole can of worms, as soon as one gets to the mother's reproductive rights.

-It does not mean that they do not love their daughter.
-I feel bad for the kid, especially if she is in such an environment that has prejudices such as that.
-It can be construed as a violation of their reproductive rights, as one could ask the question of how one would feel if they find out that they carried the baby of someone they do not like or want.

This can happen to any body.

I mean, parents would go to a sperm bank go through a selection picking attributes that they want.
They pick everything from race, possible inheritable diseases, purported IQ of the donor, education levels and so forth, building a profile before even going through the process.

I don't feel like being outraged towards them, people could consider them shallow, but I can also see how they would feel violated by such a personal matter.

So I have very mixed feelings about this, and so I would just go with the sperm bank having given them the wrong product should be liable for it.

[rocktivity]

24. They deserve a refund for services not rendered, then -- nothing more

Last edited Thu Oct 29, 2020, 02:30 PM - Edit history (13)

The sperm was the defective product, not the human being it helped to produce. If anyone owes child support, it's the sperm bank.

But if being "forced" to become "more diverse" is causing Payton's parents so much "pain and suffering," then adoption, not compensation, is the solution. That way, Payton's parents could remain in their beloved racist -- but not homophobic -- environment while Payton could live "relieved" of the "social consequences" of having both white AND homosexual parents.


rocktivity

[Autumn]

25. Very loving parents. I hope their lawsuit teaches the clinic that

they need to be more aware and make some changes.

[rocktivity]

30. Maybe this couple can offer them some advice

or perhaps they should move to Canada:

rocktivity

[KamaAina]

31. So it's their fault that her family and town are racist.