rolling "Is This Racist?" thread

Why isn't is ROILING DAVE KITSON THREAD?

TROLLING DAVE KITSON, RED

this is a key moment in ilx us-uk relations

nobody fuck this up

You must be a ginger xp

― 龜, Thursday, October 2, 2014 9:40 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Actually I'm a Gilligan.

BUT i do think you should be required by law to get inseminated at random.

Seeing as how people don't pick their sexual partners at random, but look for traits they find attractive, it feels a bit arbitrary to suggest that those who have to seek alternative methods of insemination should be forced to spin a big wheel. that only folks engaging in "traditional" insemination should have any authority over what genes they put inside themselves.

unless you're saying that NO ONE should get to pick their partner in procreation - in which case, good luck with that sci-fi shit

Brave New Spigot

Logan's Cum

rah

dysfallopian

xpost to harbl

yeah for this to be actual medical ~malpractice~ there has to be substantive harm, it may not be enough that an obvious (but totally benign) mistake was made

hence making the case that the "harm" is inherent to being a biracial kid in garbagetown USA

but like if the goal is just to shutter an incompetent sperm bank (and not to recoup losses that basically don't exist) then there are other ways to go about it I'd think

Kody Firesheets
2 months ago

You say Lady Gaga, I say Lady Antebellum. You say Jason Derulo, I say Jason Aldean. You say T-Pain, I say T-Swift You say Ke$ha, I say Kenny. You say Pitbull, I say Paisley. You say Justin Bieber, I say Justin Moore and go grow a pair. 92% of teenagers have turned to Hip Hop and Pop. If you are part of the 8% that still listen to real music, copy and paste this message to another 3 videos. Stop being a idiot and start listening to real music!!! COUNTRY!! thumbs up!!! BTW Brantley Gilbert is one of the best country artists.

This is the worst queen cover I've ever heard.

omg rolling dave kitson might be my fave britisher thread, what a day

xpost to harbl

yeah for this to be actual medical ~malpractice~ there has to be substantive harm, it may not be enough that an obvious (but totally benign) mistake was made

― gbx, Friday, October 3, 2014 7:00 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hence making the case that the "harm" is inherent to being a biracial kid in garbagetown USA

but like if the goal is just to shutter an incompetent sperm bank (and not to recoup losses that basically don't exist) then there are other ways to go about it I'd think

― gbx, Friday, October 3, 2014 7:04 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I agree that the "wrongful birth" cause of action is probably a huge stretch, but there's also a breach of warranty claim, which is sort of interesting. If you go to a sperm bank that gives you the option of choosing donor traits, are you entitled to "get what you paid for"? I think you probably should be. I mean when you physically mate with someone, you have that option, even with racist motivations, so I don't really think sperm banks should function differently. What the appropriate compensation would be I have no fucking idea.

lol HL

it may not be enough that an obvious (but totally benign) mistake was made

I'm not...I don't want to argue at all with the racism call. But impregnating someone with sperm they didn't volunteer to get pregnant by is a lot closer to rape than anyone seems to be acknowledging. It's non-consensual impregnation. It's horrifying.

Imo to make light of that issue is to also condone other ways of taking control of their own fertility away from women.

this is prob glib but i have trouble thinking thru this cos the scenario of "lesbian couple in rural ohio delivers biracial child from sperm bank mixup" is giving me really insane "we live in a shitty david mamet play" vibes

xp Or I mean not explicitly CONDONE them but the logic of it also supports other invasions. Oh, she wanted a baby, she got a baby, she'll be happy once her (natural, feminine) maternal instinct kicks in. Mothers always love their children, and if not they're bad mothers and bad women, and it's their own fault. It's nothing WE did, we just gave her a baby (that her own body nourished and made space for and gave life to).

laurel otm

We support the right of women to choose whose baby they have when they know who the father is, and the checklist of traits in a sperm bank is basically the best proxy we have for that when they never actually meet/know the father. And imo those traits should include anything a woman wants to consider, even if it's race.

No, I think they're two separate problems--like Dan said, it would be best if they won this case for the precedent but weren't rewarded for singling out race as the key argument.

are they really gonna bring the race argument into court cuz that just seems stupid and unnecessary

Probably. The gas costs of traveling to a hair salon in a black neighborhood really add up.

i was really surprised to hear that they were only seeking $50k....?

How do you argue this without race? Like how would you show that it wasn't the donor she wanted? Not being rhetorical - is there other evidence that she got a different donor than she wanted?

I admit I dunno how these places really work but I would assume they picked a specific donor and that not getting that donor's sperm is all that matters

Not being rhetorical - is there other evidence that she got a different donor than she wanted?

from the chicago tribune article

After searching through pages of comprehensive histories for their top three donors, the lawsuit claims, Cramblett and her domestic partner, Amanda Zinkon, chose donor No. 380, who was also white. Their doctor in Ohio received vials from donor No. 330, who is African-American, the lawsuit said.

Cramblett, 36, learned of the mistake in April 2012, when she was pregnant and ordering more vials so that the couple could have another child with sperm from the same donor, according to the lawsuit. The sperm bank delivered vials from the correct donor in August 2011, but Cramblett later requested more vials, according to the suit.

Ah yeah, that seems kind of obvious now. Brainfart.

I agree that if I were her lawyer, the last thing I'd probably want to do is come into court saying "My client doesn't want a black child."

has anyone thought that maybe the plaintiff here had really bad handwriting and her 8 looked like a 3

that did cross my mind

yes, I have thought this

the plaintiff still has a case, obviously

most certainly. this seems like something that might need a little more verification, for sure.

BTW, it doesn't actually say she's seeking $50k, just that damages "exceed $50k" and are "to be determined at trial." There's a formality in many states that you have to plead that your damages exceed a certain amount in order to be in one court vs another.

Kind of also wonder if they could have just called this an ordinary negligence tort. The "wrongful birth" claim is usually for situations where the doctor fails to inform about or prevent some very severe deformity/disability that would or might have caused the parents to abort -- obviously using that theory here has some pretty disgusting implications, and I can't imagine it flies.

i am just not seeing how heinous it is. i mean if you had wanted one white person's sperm but were accidentally given another white person's sperm, and--importantly--you found out about it (in a way other than the child having some genetic defect, or it not being your husband's when you wanted your husband's), there would be a breach of the clinic's duty to give people what they asked for. but no damages. i do not practice in the area of medical malpractice and do not want to. also i'm going outside to contemplate this not on the internet.

― flatizza (harbl), Thursday, October 2, 2014 6:22 PM (Yesterday)

i think your tongue is at least partially in cheek, but basically i agree with in orbit. women who can conceive without medical help have agency to choose their partners and choose, to a certain extent, what the child they carry will look like. they can do that in racially suspect ways, but they have that ability. a woman who goes to a sperm bank to conceive should have that same choice. for that reason i think she has a very strong case, though awarding her additional damages for whatever race-related distress she's experienced seems like a bad idea and unnecessary

the added flip tho is that her argument locates racism not in herself but in her community. couldn't the clinic argue that, ok, you're happy and you love your healthy child, but you live in a place with deep prejudice, how is that our problem? move!

man, what a case. can imagine dick wolf skipping around in his heavily-draped sitting room, barking at assisants, unable to contain his excitement

Law & Order: So Damned Racist

what kevin said is what I meant above, def not that there should be additional damages for the "harm" of having a black child, just that we can't really delegitimize the woman's choice because it was race-based.

Can sperm banks screen for carriers of genetic conditions, either automatically or on request? Even if they don't, what if you picked someone from a background that was less likely to be, say, a cystic fibrosis or sickle cell carrier because you knew you were one, and then your baby was born with a condition that would kill her? It's not just how the offspring LOOKS.

They screen all this stuff during IVF so I assume the answer is yes.

yeah exactly. i wonder whether the donor would even have to consent to that -- i'd imagine not, they probably get their compensation regardless, and it's up to the woman whose sperm she chooses, right? xp

I feel like so many things are horrible in this case: the baby's bi-racialness, the hair comments, the mother's quotes, the framing in the press. But the underlying issues re fertility and choice are bedrock serious.

Before anyone jumps on it, sorry, I should have said "making the baby's bi-racialness THE ISSUE" not that it is literally horrible.

can they make some kind of argument that they wanted the child to look like both parents bc they weren't necessarily going to tell the kid that there was a donor? that kinda bridges imo a legitimate concern about the way the baby looks while eliding the racist town nonsense?

...

At some point, the kid is going to look at her lesbian parents and figure out that a donor was involved somewhere

I mean maybe they were gonna try for "we slapped our vaginas together and PRESTO instant baby" but somehow I doubt it

http://illiterateinfant.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/baby-ikea.jpg