I was thinking thst if It was a legal issue and not agency policy, it might fall under the law about babies being born in wedlock legally assumed to be fathered by the husband unless a contrary affidavit is filed. In this case, even though the biological mother is not actually the one giving birth, it MIGHT be argued that the husband of the biological mother could be assumed the legal father. It would be a huge reach, but a really savvy and persuasive lawyer might at least get a hearing on it. Being how emotional this process is for all involved, I'm thinking this may be a safeguard about that even being a possibility.


This whole thing reminds me of Elle debating with Warner in Callahan's class about sperm donor's rights. LOL

I wouldn't think so. Technically, all parental rights would be with the couple/woman giving birth to the child. Biological or not, the legal mother would be the one who gave birth, unless it was a surrogate in which case the surrogacy agreement would spell out who has a legal claim to the child.

A little trivia (from last month) for those who don't play Ken Jennings' Tuesday Trivia:

The world's largest sperm bank has just announced it will no longer accept donations from men with what easily apparent physical characteristic?

Red hair. Ka-ching. Good think that doesn't apply to women (or Clariol red). :D

When I had my hysterectomy in 1998, I was told my husband would have had to sign off on the procedure had I still been married. Since when does a husband know more about the medical needs of a woman than her doctor?

DaffyKD

Would opinions change if this was about spousal consent for tubectomy and vesectomy?

For me they would not. But I figure you knew that already.

:) I didn't know that already. Did I miss a post somewhere?

This is incredibly improbable, but, I suppose the agency could be freaked about something like this happening: Woman agrees to donate her eggs. Goes through the stim cycle, has a bunch 'o eggs harvested, something goes unrealistically awry and woman dies. Husband still wants to have a child with said woman and only way to do it is to get back those eggs before they are fertilized with some other guy's swimmers.

Chances of that happening? Probably one in a gazillion. But there has been enough weirdo litigation over egg donation/embryo donation/sperm donation/conception after one party's death, etc., that the thought might have occurred to someone.

Not to be morbid!! But, that's the scenario that I thought of when you said your husband had to sign off.

On another note, you are awesome for doing this. We didn't need an egg donor, but I know many women who did, and it is a true blessing that there are women who will act as donors.

Nope. There's a difference between a spouse being UPSET and feeling betrayed about those kind of decisions and having a LEGAL say in those decisions.

Thanks for this. I have started praying for the future couple (person) and their baby!:D

:mad:

Here's another theory to throw into the pot. When a woman starts taking all those hormones, there is a load of emotions that come with them and not all are pleasant. Sometimes a husband has to have a thick skin to tolerate the mood swings. Perhaps the agency is protecting themselves in the case where this can lead to divorce?

Another interesting point, if a man goes to a urologist for fertility testing, if he's married, his wife's name is the primary one on HIS file.

OH YEAH TRUE STORY. (One of my sisters is driving everyone nuts, for this reason.)

FWIW - I had to sign off on my now ex-husband's vasectomy.

Cinderella (second daughter) is in the process of filling out her egg donation paperwork - she's through the first approval step.