Harvesting sperm from almost dead man raises legal and ethical issues

On September 9, 2007, 23 year old Daniel Christy was involved in a motorcycle accident and became brain dead. Because both Christy and his fiancée, Amy Kruse, planned to have children, she wanted to carry out this plan after his death. However, when Christy’s parents requested the hospital to harvest their dying son’s sperm to give to Kruse, they ran into a myriad of impediments. The University Hospital’s ethical issues subcommittee could not agree on whether to allow the procedure. According to one clinical ethicist, retrieving sperm from a dying man is rarely justified because his posthumous reproduction desires are often unknown.

The Christys obtained a court order to allow collection of their son’s sperm; but, even then their battle was not over. Because the hospital was seldom faced with a need of removing sperm from dead or dying patients, it had not established a clear procedure for such occurrences. While the hospital would retrieve the sperm, it would not store it, thus requiring the Christys to find a permanent storage facility before performing the procedure. After many futile attempts in locating such a facility on short notice, the Christys were finally successful. The hospital staff collected the sperm, turned off the respirator and Daniel Christy died shortly thereafter.

See Jennifer Hemmingsen, Racing against time, man’s sperm harvested before he dies, gazetteonline.com, Sept. 15, 2007.

Special thanks to Graham Smith (lawyer, Austin, Texas) for bringing this article to my attention.