Man in coma made father without consent.
ROME – Prominent Italian gynecologist Severino Antinori will artificially inseminate a woman with the sperm of her comatose husband, in a first in Italy that has drawn Vatican criticism, press reports said on Wednesday.
“I decided to act because … there’s a woman who wants to become a mother to overcome the immense sadness” brought about by the brain cancer that put her husband in a coma, Antinori told the leading Italian daily Corriere della Sera.
Antinori is well known in Italy for controversially helping post-menopausal women to bear children, earning himself the nickname of “the grandmother’s obstetrician”.
The in vitro fertilisation of the woman will be the first in Italy using the sperm of a man in a coma, Corriere said.
Antinori, who extracted the sperm on Tuesday, told reporters he would carry out the procedure in about a month.
The daily La Repubblica reported that the couple live in Vigevano, northern Italy, and that the husband is 35 and the wife is 32.
The couple had decided to have a child when the husband developed brain cancer a month ago, the report said.
Antinori said he is protected by a court decree authorising the extraction of the sperm as well as a law on assisted procreation.
But a Vatican prelate blasted the plan as “illegal”.
“The consent of both parents is needed for an act of procreation. In this case the husband is treated merely as a receptacle of cells,” Monsignor Elio Sgreccia, the president emeritus of the Pontifical Academy for Life, told Corriere.
Johnny, what ARE you doing? Are you masturbating? You NAUGHTY little boy.
No mum, I am not masturbating, I am simply ‘extracting some sperm’!!!
Comment by Vince — Tue 24th February 2009 @ 7:21 am
My body, My choice – for men.
YEAH RIGHT.
Life’s a bitch and then you die.
Comment by Skeptik — Tue 24th February 2009 @ 12:37 pm
no… life’s a bitch, then you meet one, then she screws you in more ways than one, and you pay for it for at least 18 years!
Comment by Scott — Thu 26th February 2009 @ 8:45 am
Would engaging in reproductive acts with one’s comatose wife be considered acceptable? Of course not. Yet it’s ok for this man to be RAPED FOR HIS SPERM while unconscious in order to satisfy a woman’s reproductive wishes.
This man will be in no position to provide anything of a father’s role beyond having his sperm stolen. I suppose the woman and “her” child will be supported through some benefit funded from taxes paid by her fellow citizens. And the only father role for the child will be provided by various boyfriends who will visit the mother, probably while her husband still lies in a coma. Those men are likely to achieve little bonding with the child and some may abuse the child.
Women’s sense of entitlement to satisfy their reproductive instincts now seems to exist in the absence of any expectations that they take reasonable steps to ensure the resulting children will have two parents or a family unit to grow up in or that they can be provided for economically. In contrast, men now have no right to satisfy their reproductive instincts, even when they have entered a marriage contract, except insofar as women grant them specific permission to do so on any one occasion. Any such permission can then be retrospectively removed at will under various legal grounds that have been conveniently provided for women to do so. And after conception men have no say in whether the foetus is aborted or allowed to live. That’s how things are now. Is that ok? As Skeptic so succinctly says, tick tick tick…
Comment by Hans Laven — Fri 24th April 2009 @ 12:06 pm
Thanks for the props Hans.
I agree with you.
NZ have NO reproductive rights whatsoever.
She can abort against your wishes – YOU AS A MAN HAVE NO SAY IN THE MATTER.
She can bring the baby to full term against your wishes AND make you pay 19 years of child ‘support’ or as others aptly call it child tax – YOU AS A MAN HAVE NO SAY IN THE MATTER..
She can have the baby without declaringit yours on the birth certificate and keep you out of the picture – YOU AS A MAN HAVE NO SAY IN THE MATTER.
And even more draconian than that because the feminists and thier sycophants in NZ have brought about law that it’s illigal to get a paternity test (God’s knows why!) and even if you do get one done it won’t be accepted because (catch 22 – it’s illegal under NZ law) yes, you guessed it – YOU AS A MAN HAVE NO SAY IN THE MATTER.
The upshot of this is that any man in NZ who co-creates a pregnancy with a woman is screwed royal.
The thing which will short circuit this is the male pill which as it’s on trial in several countries is close to being available unless NZs politicians outlaw that too, in which case, yes you guessed it – YOU AS A MAN HAVE NO SAY IN THE MATTER.
tick….tick….tick……
Comment by Skeptik — Fri 24th April 2009 @ 8:27 pm
Sorry should have said in the first sentence – “NZ men have NO reproductive rights whatsoever”.
Comment by Skeptik — Fri 24th April 2009 @ 8:28 pm