A Chicago judge has thrown out a lawsuit filed by a woman suing a sperm bank for giving her the wrong sperm.
Jennifer Cramblett of Uniontown, Ohio, says she had requested sperm from a White man, but was accidentally impregnated with sperm from a Black donor when she was artificially inseminated in 2011. Upon realizing the error, the bank issued a partial refund and an apology to Cramblett and her wife Amanda.
Cramblett sued the Midwest Sperm Bank LLC for “wrongful birth” in late 2014.
“How could they make a mistake that was so personal?” Cramblett told The Associated Press. “They took a personal choice, a personal decision and took it on themselves to make that choice for us out of pure negligence.”
The 36-year-old and her partner say they love their biracial daughter, 3-year-old daughter Payton, but fear that she would grow up feeling like an “outcast” in their predominantly White neighborhood.
“Getting a young daughter’s hair cut is not particularly stressful for most mothers, but to Jennifer it is not a routine matter, because Payton has hair typical of an African-American girl,” read the lawsuit. “To get a decent cut, Jennifer must travel to a Black neighborhood, far from where she lives, where she is obviously different in appearance, and not overtly welcome.”
Not overtly welcome? We’re still using that coded language?
The lawsuit adds that Cramblett and her wife moved to “Uniontown from racially diverse Akron, because the schools were better and to be closer to family.”
According to The Chicago Tribune, judge Ronald Sutter threw out the lawsuit because “wrongful birth” cases usually involve children born with birth defects that parents should have been forewarned about. He suggested that Cramblett file a “negligence claim” instead.