Bloomberg: Postmortem Sperm Retrieval Is Turning Dead Men Into Fathers

[Cooked Crack]

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The Memorial Day gathering in Kiryat Shmona, like countless others across Israel in early May, begins in the morning at the local military cemetery. Everyone stands in silence as a siren blasts for two minutes. Wreaths are laid, speeches are made, and tears are shed. 

 

Later, about 20 people, young and old, sit around the table in the main room of a public housing apartment in this city near the Lebanese border. They help themselves to pasta, shawarma, cakes, and coffee, and they remember German Rozhkov. 

 

Rozhkov, a Ukrainian immigrant turned soldier, was killed 20 years ago, when he was 25. According to Israeli military authorities and press accounts, he tried to stop two gunmen shooting at motorists at the height of the second Palestinian uprising. Disguised in Israeli army uniforms, the shooters penetrated from Lebanon and opened fire on a main road. Rozhkov, passing by, engaged them in a 30-minute battle. Five Israeli civilians and Rozhkov were slain before the gunmen were killed, too. (The Palestinian Authority hasn’t publicly challenged this account and didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.) 

 

The paraphernalia from Rozhkov’s service forms a shrine in the apartment. His M16 rifle is framed on a wall with pictures of him wearing his green beret. On a desk sit military medals and trophies. Many of the mourners—now leafing through photos, gently mocking their younger selves—knew Rozhkov. They served with him and were his neighbors. His mother, Ludmila, a former teacher in Crimea who lives alone in the apartment, tells the group that their presence is comforting. “An apartment should be filled with children and light,” she says in heavily Russian-accented Hebrew. “Thank you for bringing them.” 

 

One of the children darting among the mourners—sitting on laps and nodding shyly—is 5-year-old Veronica. She never met Rozhkov, of course, but she’s his daughter. Thirty hours after he was killed, his sperm was extracted, preserved in liquid nitrogen, and, 14 years later, used to fertilize the eggs of Irena Akselrod. She didn’t know Rozhkov, but she volunteered to bear and raise his child after meeting Ludmila. “I was moved by her story,” Akselrod says. “She’s alone in Israel, she lost her only son, and had no grandchild.”

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Persuading a judge to grant Ludmila Rozhkov and Akselrod the right to German’s sperm included testimony about his desire for children. But there was no case law covering when a dead man’s sperm could be used to produce offspring. In his ruling, the family court judge wrote: “When the law doesn’t provide an answer, the court must turn to the principles of Jewish heritage. ‘Give me children, or I shall die,’ our mother Rachel cried out. This logic reflects man’s desire to continue through his offspring the physical and spiritual existence of himself, his family, and people. We are told, ‘Be fruitful and multiply.’

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It turned out, though, that the procedure existed. After a man dies, his sperm cells live up to 72 hours and can be retrieved with an incision to the testicle, then frozen. “We checked with legal and medical authorities and went ahead,” Mor says. “Today it is becoming routine.”

 

“Routine” may overstate it. There are a few dozen children like Veronica. But the military practice of postmortem sperm retrieval is now a familiar topic in Israel, even if it’s extremely rare elsewhere. A couple of dozen army families are eager to replicate the experience. Many more beyond the military are interested, too, including the loved ones of victims of disease, accidents, and terrorist attacks.

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In some countries—Germany, Italy, and Sweden, among others—the procedure is banned. In the US, regulations vary by state; the practice is reserved mostly for widows who can attest that their husbands wanted kids this way. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine adopted guidelines that include that stipulation and a one-year waiting period before the sperm can be used. One of the more famous cases occurred in 2014, when New York City police officer Wenjian Liu was killed. His widow, Sanny, had his sperm retrieved and gave birth to a daughter, Angelina, in 2017. A Pentagon spokesperson says the US military doesn’t cover the procedure under its health benefits and declined to say whether the armed forces follow the society’s guidelines.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-07-19/sperm-extraction-technique-turns-dead-men-into-fathers

 

 

The dead breed!

[China]

42 minutes ago, Cooked Crack said:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-07-19/sperm-extraction-technique-turns-dead-men-into-fathers

The dead breed!

 

 

[gbear]

So, do the children have the legal rights to be heirs to their dead father's estate?  Can the the dead father's estate be forced to pay child support? 

[Riggo-toni]

That's where I think things might get messed up. There was a case a few years ago where a couple got divorced and the ex-wife sued to prevent the hubby from having his sperm destroyed, got herself artificially inseminated against his wishes, and then successfully sued him for child support....which is completely effed up if you ask me.

I have no problem with extracting a dead dude's seed, but the dead don't pay no bills.

[Larry]

Can we work the phrase "deadbeat Dads" into here?  

[EmirOfShmo]

All I hear is Mick's voice fading thru the final lyrics of "Start Me Up"...

[Larry]

Recall once reading "rigor mortis" defined as "total corporeal priapism". 

[Fan since a Fetus]

Had a friend who got divorced. His wife wanted his sperm for another child. They were arguing about how they would split finances and he ended up getting $50,000 from her. He’s a push over and generally angry guy, she is pretty wacko, so I am waiting for her to birth his kid and then sue him for child support 

[CousinsCowgirl84]

They are dead. Who cares.