Sperm harvesting and post-mortem fatherhood

Bioethics. 1995 Oct;9(5):380-98. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8519.1995.tb00313.x.

Abstract

The motives and consequences of harvesting sperm from brain dead males for the purpose of effecting post mortem fatherhood are examined. I argue that sperm harvesting and post mortem fatherhood raise no harms of a magnitude that would justify forbidding the practice outright. Dead men are not obviously harmed by the practice; children need not be harmed by this kind of birth; and the practice enlarges rather than diminishes the reproductive choices of surviving partners. Certain ethical and legal issues nevertheless require attention. As a matter of consistency with other harvesting protocols, there ought to be a mechanism for respecting the wishes of men who when alive do not wish to become fathers post mortem. Mechanisms governing entitlement to harvest and use sperm will also be required. I note that the law is unlikely to recognize the paternity of children born from harvested sperm, though there may be reasons to recognize that paternity in some instances.

Publication types

  • Case Reports

MeSH terms

  • Advance Directives
  • Brain Death
  • Cadaver*
  • Death*
  • Fathers*
  • Homosexuality
  • Humans
  • Jurisprudence
  • Men
  • Mothers
  • Motivation
  • Parent-Child Relations*
  • Presumed Consent
  • Reproductive Techniques, Assisted*
  • Single Person
  • Social Change
  • Spermatozoa*
  • Spouses
  • Third-Party Consent
  • Tissue Donors*