CLEVELAND (AP) — An Ohio woman and her partner have sued a Chicago-area sperm bank after she became pregnant with sperm donated by a black man instead of a white man as she’d intended.
Jennifer Cramblett was five months pregnant and happy with her life in April 2012. She and her partner had married months earlier in New York, and within days of their nuptials she had become pregnant with donor sperm at a fertility clinic in Canton.
Cramblett, 36, and her partner, Amanda Zinkon, 29, were so elated that they called Midwest Sperm Bank LLC outside Chicago to reserve sperm from the same donor in the hope that Zinkon would someday also have a child.
But that’s when Cramblett received some disturbing news, says a lawsuit filed Monday against Midwest Sperm Bank in Cook County, Illinois. She learned from an employee at the sperm bank that she had been inseminated with sperm from No. 330, a black donor, and not No. 380, a white donor she and Zinkon, who are white, had chosen.
“How could they make a mistake that was so personal?” Cramblett said during a telephone interview on Wednesday.
According to the lawsuit, her excitement about the pending birth was replaced with “anger, disappointment and fear.”
“They took a personal choice, a personal decision and took it on themselves to make that choice for us out of pure negligence,” Cramblett said.
Telephone calls to Midwest Sperm Bank were not returned on Wednesday. It’s unclear who the sperm bank’s attorney is.
Cramblett said she and Zinkon love their 2-year-old daughter, Payton, very much and wouldn’t change anything about her. But they are concerned about raising her in the predominantly white community where they live.
The lawsuit said they had moved from Akron to Uniontown for better schools and to be closer to Cramblett’s family. She said that as a lesbian she has felt the sting of prejudice but doesn’t know what it’s like to be mistreated because of her skin color.
The lawsuit says Cramblett also is worried about how Payton will be treated in her “all-white, and often unconsciously insensitive family.”
Therapists have recommended that Cramblett, Zinkon and Payton move to a more a racially diverse community with good schools, the lawsuit said.
Cramblett said she decided to sue to prevent the sperm bank from making the same mistake again. The lawsuit says the sperm bank has no electronic record-keeping and no quality controls that would have prevented it from sending the wrong sperm to fertility clinics.
The lawsuit seeks a minimum of $50,000 in damages. Cramblett’s attorney, Tim Misny, said some of the compensation would pay for ongoing counseling.
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It would be interesting to see the actual contract, the bank might be covered for this, who knows. But if the bank violated the contract, they should and will pay.
I’m also thinking when the child is older, she will find out that her parents sued because they wanted an all white baby. Don’t think she will be too pleased about that.
If they did not want a half-black baby, they should have put it up for adoption when it was born. And at 5 months pregnant, abortion might have still been an option if they were that worried about it.
As to her insensitive family, I’m sure as a lesbian couple they already hear a lot of nonsense from them. I’d ignore them. If they are that bad, who needs them as family.
“But that’s when Cramblett received some disturbing news, says a lawsuit filed Monday against Midwest Sperm Bank in Cook County, Illinois. She learned from an employee at the sperm bank that she had been inseminated with sperm from No. 330, a black donor, and not No. 380, a white donor she and Zinkon, who are white, had chosen.”
I’m afraid I can’t get the brain-snatching scene from “Young Frankenstein” out of my mind.
I hope this language is slightly exaggerated for the sake of the lawsuit. $50,000 would go a long way toward setting up a college fund for the girl.
As far as the predominantly white community and insensitive family are concerned, what an opportunity this is for them!
This is so tragic in so many ways. Most women who carry a child for 9 months have bonded with that child way before they know what it looks like or is and apparently they do love he, but I feel so sorry for that child.
Of course I recognize my own biases and viewpoints, but I question whether this article really rises to the level of ‘news’.
Is there some subtle implication I am missing here?