Reply to IVF embryo error, custody settlement

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It's an awful situation. But if I had to go with which mom gets custody, I'd choose the birth mom. I'd have a much easier time donating an embryo than being a surrogate (not that I'd choose to do either).[/quote]

One more time:

The decision should be made based upon what’s best for the child, not what’s best for the moms. [/quote]

Aren’t the two connected? There is an existing emotional bond between birth mother and baby that doesn’t exist with the biological mom. [/quote]

Exactly! And we know this because the gestational mother said in a court filing that she’d really like to swap this baby for her own genetic child (who didn’t exist, it turns out).  :roll: [/quote]

Her supposed bond can’t be measured or proven but biological bonds can be. [/quote]

I think we can infer something about her bond with the child from the fact that she was willing to give this baby up when she believed she would be able to swap it for her own genetic child.[/quote]

Right? Her first order of business was to find the parents. What mother needs to find her baby's parents? [/quote]

Where did the parents ever say that. I thought they said they wanted to track down their embryos and their kid’s bio parents? I didn’t see anything about a swap, but maybe I missed it.[/quote]

https://www.foxnews.com/us/florida-couple-sues-fertility-clinic-allegedly-giving-birth-someone-elses-baby

They intended to reunite this baby with the genetic parents when they still had hope that some other women was pregnant with or had given birth to their genetic child. When they learned that had not happened, they decided to keep this baby.[/quote]

It says nowhere that they wanted to swap the child. It says they wanted to identify the bio parents because they felt they felt they had a right to know and would want the same. The fundraiser refers to the birth parents as the baby’s parents. They express fear that the baby “could be taken from them at any moment.”

I have no how idea you could so heartless and cruel as to read into this that the birth parents wanted to trade babies.[/quote]

You didn’t read the article. The birth parents said that they were looking for the biological parents to return the baby in their legal complaint.[/quote]

Regardless of where one stands, I think people on this thread are giving too much credit to whatever each side says. Of course they’re gonna say all the right things! Bio parents won’t say “they can keep the girl, we wanted a boy anyway, and they are paying us a hefty sum at that”. The birth parents won’t say “we’d much rather have our own baby but time is running out so we’ll take the one we ended up with”. [/quote]

I think they are scared of coming forward and challenging a white couple in this country. We have no idea of who these people are and to cast them as sexist because they are south Asian is entirely indecent [/quote]

Scared of challenging a white couple to get their child back? Come on. What planet do you live on? 
Precedent suggests that the white parents would not get their way on this because they are white. 
There is likely another reason they are not coming forward. But yeah we do not know what the reason is. [/quote]

The custody process would take years. Even if the genetic parents win on the merits and the law, the child would be between 3-5 years old and it would be traumatic for the child at that point.  Its too bad the gestational parents werent magnanimous and gave the child back to the genetic parents as soon as they found out who they were. That would have been the right thing to do even if not legally required.[/quote]

I fully agree. How can people not see this? The lawyer for the biological parents said that they want the child but don't think a drawn-out custody battle is in the child's best interest.

There are other cases where the biological parents ultimately won after a lengthy court fight -- and at that point it meant tearing a 3-5 year-old child from the only home they knew.

Let's face it, if the biological parents had in turn given birth to the white couple' baby, the couples would have swapped babies when they were 4 months old. That was the white couple's original intent, as stated in their court filing. (The original assumption was that each woman had been impregnated with the other's embryo in the mix-up.)

When the white couple found out that they did not have their own biological baby out there, they decided to keep baby Shea. I understand how heartbreaking it would be for them to give up the baby! But this situation does not sit well with me.

It seem most people here are sympathetic to the white couple, whose story is being told. [b]The South Asian birth parents are anonymous so people here are speculating that they are underserving parents of their own biological child (They may be 70 years old! They are Indian and don't want a baby girl!). [/b]

In addition, many people can relate to the experience of giving birth to a child -- but none of us can relate to the experience of the biological parents, let alone the child who will be growing up in this situation. [/quote]

But many others here are speculating that they are superior parents who desperately wanted their child but would surely lose. There simply isn't evidence of any of that. [/quote]

Again: this is what the biological parents' lawyer explained, which has been cited in the press and here numerous times.

It's odd that there's a repeated skepticism here that the South Asian biological parents are somehow unfit or lesser qualified to raise their own biological child, [b]presumably[/b] within the culture and religion of their ancestry. It's odd that there is skepticism that the South Asian couple wants a baby, given that they used the services of a fertility clinic.

If there was a photo in the press of a dark-skinned South Asian couple holding up a white blonde baby that the woman birthed in an IVF mix-up, would the common sentiment be that they should keep the baby? Or would there be greater sympathy towards the white biological parents?

There's also some unconscious bias running throughout this thread, which no one will admit. [/quote]

There is no assumption about the biological parents at all. Multiple people have consistently pointed out that there is no information about them, which you apparently concede. The bio parents apparently put up no fight for the child and settled immediately. They have a personal injury lawyer, not a family attorney, representing them in the custody dispute. The California personal injury attorney appears to be mistaken about Florida custody presumptions, which only apply to married parents (and the birth parents are not married). And, of course, the judge approved the settlement.

From these facts, it doesn't seem reasonable to assume that the families did anything other than actually reach a compromise acceptable to both parties. If we had more information about the bio parents, I'm sure we could reach a different conclusion. But since we have no information about them, much less factors influencing their parental fitness, it doesn't seem reasonable to assume that the parents who voluntarily signed away custody are obviously so superior that it justifies taking a baby from the only mom she's ever known. [/quote]

You are ignoring what their attorney said: The South Asian couple wanted the child. They are heartbroken. They did not sign away custody "immediately." It was a difficult decision. They did not think a lengthy custody battle would be in the best interest of the child. (The white couple made clear they would fight.) They therefore settled for visitation.

I can't speak to their likelihood of prevailing on the merits in Florida, as you believe you can (and not everyone agrees with you). But again, even if you are correct, it would be a Pyrrhic victory because of the trauma of taking a child (probably 3 - 5 years old) from the only home they knew.

You refuse to acknowledge this and imply that it would've been easy for the SA to win the case but simply didn't want their baby girl. (Again...based on what? Hmmm.)

There is no point in debating this. The bias is clear.

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