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Mother gets grandchild from dead son

rynner2

rynner2

Gone But Not Forgotten
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Mother wins a grandchild from tomb of soldier son
David Sharrock in Ramat Gan

Rachel Cohen was praying at her son’s grave when a call on her mobile phone brought news that she had been awaiting for four years. An Israeli court had cleared the way for her to become a grandmother.
The legal decision is unprecedented because her son, Keivin, who was shot dead by a sniper in Gaza in 2002, never knew the woman who will become the mother of his child. She was selected by a family charity and Private Cohen’s family.

A sample of the 20-year-old soldier’s sperm was taken after his death. His parents, who left Iran for Israel when Keivin was 5, petitioned a family court in Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv, “to fulfil his desire to start a family” even though Private Cohen had never made an official request for such a judicial step.

Mrs Cohen said that she was acting as her son would have wished. “Every time I go to his grave and touch his cold tombstone I tell myself how wonderful it would be to hold a warm child in my arms instead,” she said. “For Keivin it was his soul’s desire to have children.”

Mrs Cohen said that she was guided in her decision by her dead son. “An hour after being told he had been killed I took his picture and started talking to him. I asked him, ‘Where are all the children you wanted?’ then looked at the picture and heard him saying, ‘Mum, it’s not too late. There is something you can take from me’.

“Then it came to me — ‘Your sperm, that’s what you want me to take from you’. Right there, I asked the officers who came to visit to make sure his sperm be kept.”

The family was assisted in its campaign by New Family, an Israeli NGO that described the ruling as a dramatic development for those who wish to make a “biological will”. A year later the family approached the medical sperm bank seeking permission to use it for insemination. When the request was turned down New Family began a legal action that concluded successfully for the family this week. There was a problem for a while in that the Attorney-General said that the only person who could ask permission for this was a spouse. Private Cohen wasn’t married and he had not prepared a biological will, but the family had testimony, including video recordings, in which he expressed his desire to have children.

Irit Rosenblum, of New Family, said: “The parents felt it was their mission to fulfil his wish. They had to go through psychological tests and then the next hurdle was to find a mother. It took a year and a half but we found one.

“There is a legally drafted contract between the mother and Keivin’s parents guaranteeing that their only responsibility is to be the grandparents of the child when he or she is born.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... 54,00.html
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well, picture the scene. Officers visit the home of the bereaved mother, she's crying, holding a photograph of her beloved son. They offer their condolences and she says "Make sure his sperm is alright"


or should that be are alright?


forget the grammar, it's all wrong.
 
It seems the act of an obsessive mother to me.

And what are they going to tell the kid when he gets old enough?
 
placeholder said:
well, picture the scene. Officers visit the home of the bereaved mother, she's crying, holding a photograph of her beloved son. They offer their condolences and she says "Make sure his sperm is alright"


or should that be are alright?


forget the grammar, it's all wrong.
Click to expand...

It should be "all right." 8)

As for the family 'harvesting' sperm from a dead son so granny can fulfill her neurotic need for a grandchild...words fail me.
 
Leaferne said:
As for the family 'harvesting' sperm from a dead son so granny can fulfill her neurotic need for a grandchild...words fail me.
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She sounds... not right. I'm guessing her first wish was for a suit of human skin, so to get rid of this creepy woman, they let her have her second choice. Euuughh!

On the other hand, if you look on this as a heart-warming tale of a young woman trying to have a baby, who is finally able to conceive thanks to the generosity of a recently bereaved mother, who donates the sperm of her fallen son, then it doesn't sound half so sick!
 
it's probably a jewish thing.

as it happens, i'm currently reading Just Play Dead - the narrator is jewish, and several times goes into the importance of having kids.

aftr all, there is a lot of begating in the bible!
 
Peripart said:
Leaferne said:
As for the family 'harvesting' sperm from a dead son so granny can fulfill her neurotic need for a grandchild...words fail me.
Click to expand...
She sounds... not right. I'm guessing her first wish was for a suit of human skin, so to get rid of this creepy woman, they let her have her second choice. Euuughh!

On the other hand, if you look on this as a heart-warming tale of a young woman trying to have a baby, who is finally able to conceive thanks to the generosity of a recently bereaved mother, who donates the sperm of her fallen son, then it doesn't sound half so sick!
Click to expand...

If the young woman wanted a baby so badly...well, it's not as if sperm from the living is in short supply. ;) Is the young soldier's family going to insist on having a relationship with the baby?

EDIT: sorry, just reread the original post and yes, they're going to insist on it. That just makes the whole thing even squickier. Holy overbearing grandparents, Batman.
 
I suspect it `is` a jewish thing....

...They stress the importance of being successful and having lots of kids, dont they?

Shes just bolstering the numbers to make up for all those who have to drop out because they cannot afford to be jews.
 
I would do what this mother did in a heartbeat. No question about it.
 
jandzmom said:
I would do what this mother did in a heartbeat. No question about it.
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as placeholder suggests, sperm harvesting would not be the first thing to occur to me when informed of the death of a son.

(spookily, the truth about food is currently going on about sperm... :shock: )
 
rynner said:
jandzmom said:
I would do what this mother did in a heartbeat. No question about it.
Click to expand...
as placeholder suggests, sperm harvesting would not be the first thing to occur to me when informed of the death of a son.

(spookily, the truth about food is currently going on about sperm... :shock: )
Click to expand...

I will donate my usable organs upon death, I would do the same with my husband and children.

If I was told of my son's death, I would immediately ask if his organs could be or were donated, and if he had no children, I would ask them to harvest and store his sperm. While the organs are harvested, the sperm could be as well.


On a side note, glad to see you back, Rynner. Hope you're recovering well.
 
It should be "all right."
Click to expand...

Thanks Leaferne! god, i love grammar. :lol:


harvesting organs - yes, they're terribly useful and needed.
harvesting sperm - why? it's a tragedy when a parent dies young so why create children of an already deceased parent? It seems unfair on the child and, well, creepy. plus how would the deceased feel about it?

Maybe if he had a girlfriend/wife and they were trying to get pregnant before he died...i remember reading about a similar case but it's still a bit weird.
 
Its creepy and I dont think good for the kids.

(says she who takes a dim view of reproduction anyway.)
 
another version:
Mother wins dead son sperm case

The lawyer of an Israeli couple who won the right to use their dead son's sperm to inseminate a woman he never met says the case is a boost for family rights.
Irit Rosenblum told the BBC the landmark ruling meant family lines could continue even without the written consent of the male prior to death.

The dead man, soldier Keivin Cohen, was killed in the Gaza Strip in 2002.

A court ruled in favour of his parents who had the sperm extracted after his death, although he had not left a will.

"The drama is international, that mankind is able to continue after [a man's] death and his family can raise a new generation while he is no longer here," Ms Rosenblum said.

Volunteers

The Cohen family took legal action after the hospital where their son's sperm was stored refused to release it, saying only a spouse could make such a request.

Although Mr Cohen, 20, was single and had left no written expression of his desire to become a father, his family claimed that had long been his wish.

The Cohens appealed for volunteers who were willing to be impregnated with the sperm and raise the child.

In an interview on Israel's Channel 10 news, Mr Cohen's mother, Rachel, said more than 200 women offered to help, AFP news agency reported.

During the four-year legal case, Ms Rosenblum presented testimony from Mr Cohen's family and friends that he had said he wanted children.

On Monday a court in Tel Aviv said the family could use the sperm to impregnate a 25-year-old woman who had agreed to be the mother.

"It's a great gain even though it took so long," Ms Rosenblum, a family rights advocate, told the BBC.

"It's a dream come true... On the one hand [the Cohens] lost a child, on the other hand they got some hope."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle ... 279061.stm
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This just seems wrong on so many levels.

I do sympathize with the soldier's family, I can believe that he might have said at some point that he would eventually like to marry and have children, but I have to wonder what Private Cohen would have said to this whole thing?? :shock: Somehow I don't think that this is what he had in mind!

And yes, family is important to Jewish people (as it is to most non-Jews too!) but this sounds like love of family turned to madness.

I would have less of a problem with this if Pvt. Cohen had said he wanted his sperm frozen "in case" anything ever happened to him. But it doesn't sound like this is what happened at all.

It seems that all of this came from Mrs. Cohen, the soldier's mother. And I agree, it seems very very odd that a mother's first reaction on being informed of her son's death would be to instruct the medics to "extract" and "store" a sample of his sperm.

It sounds to me that Mrs. Cohen is looking for a replacement for her son--as well as having an overwhelming (!) desire for grandchildren.

I worry about how will she relate to this child? Will she look on it as a grandchild--or as her son miraculously brought back to life?

It would be totally unfair to the child to be seen as just a "replacement" for poor Private Cohen. A child has a right to its own identity--not to take the place of someone else.

And how will the relationship between the "chosen" mother and the Cohens work?? They chose a total stranger to give birth to their grandchild! What if for some reason the mother decides to leave Israel and take her child with her? Will the Cohens have the right to fight for custody of the child?? Even if there's some kind of written, "legal" arrangement, I can just see the legal battles looming ahead for this poor mother--not to mention the child!

And since Mrs. Cohen seems to be looking for a grandchild to take the place of her son, it bring up another question:

What if the child is a girl??? :shock:

Sorry--to me this is an unbalanced woman who hasn't grieved for her son. Instead she's become obsessed with getting grandchildren from him whether he's alive or not.

It sounds very unhealthy and very, very selfish.
 
The thing that amazes me the most is not that the mother wants to do this - you can sort of see why a woman greiving almost to the point of obsession would do anything to cling onto some fragment of her son (ewww, but not that fragment!). What really amazes me is that somehow the law seems to have allowed it. There just doesn't seem any way at all this would get past even the most lax ethical committee. What were they thinking? I would love to hear the court's reasoning of this.
 
What if the mother marries or remarries and has children with her new partner? How's he going to feel about the dead man's family being involved in their lives? How would the kids feel?

It'd be one thing if the soldier had left a girlfiend behind, i.e. someone he loved but with no real legal standing; it'd still be a bit odd, but more understandable perhaps.

"Selfish" and "neurotic" don't begin to describe Mrs. Cohen.
 
Yup, I agree. It is about control. If the poor man had lived to become a father, I do believe his mother would have trampled all over him and his partner to get at the child. :lol:

The poor man has no privacy or dignity in death. What moral right has his mother to have his testicles interfered with? I can understand a widow having that desire, but it is creepy and disturbing for his mother to do it.
 
Exactly!

It would be different if Private Cohen had left a widow behind, and she expressed the desire to have a child by him. In fact I believe the articles quoted said that there were already laws in existence which would allow that. The law might even extend that privilege to a fiancee or even a girlfriend left behind.

But his mother??? :shock:

I think that woman needs some serious psychiatric help. :(
 
The mother needs to let go and accept that her son's life is over, and that all the hopes and expectations she had for him have died with him.

A tough thing to do. But the alternative is madness.
 
synchronicity said:
It would be different if Private Cohen had left a widow behind, and she expressed the desire to have a child by him...
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Reading between the lines, I doubt he'd have ever got as far as having a widow. If his mother's that much of a control freak I doubt any prospective wife would have got a look-in (I've known a few chaps for whom no woman was good enough in the eyes of their mothers, and the latter have set about making any such relationship as difficult as possible.) She was quite possibly (relatively) happy for him to be in the forces on active duty as he'd have less time to dally with young ladies - yes, there are parents, particularly mothers, who are really that mad :(.
 
I agree. There are whole sites devoted to tales of the things mother in laws have done to try and put prospective brides off, or, having failed to do that, to make sure they're in absolutely no doubt about how unwelcome they are...

http://www.motherinlawstories.com/

for example.

I suppose it's only a short step from this kind of thing to the sad obsession of Mrs Cohen.
 
Fathers in law, or rather prospective fathers in law, are notorious too, when they know what the boyfriends hope to get up to with their daughters. :lol:
 
Yes...

I know when my daughter first started going out with boys, my husband was fluffing himself up like a peacock, blustering "If he lays a finger on her, I'll..."
I said, "Oh, calm down. Remember when you were that age?" And he gave me this haunted look and said, "Exactly..."
 
All I can say Is I agree how It's unfair on the child. :?

I will donate my usable organs upon death, I would do the same with my husband and children.

If I was told of my son's death, I would immediately ask if his organs could be or were donated, and if he had no children, I would ask them to harvest and store his sperm. While the organs are harvested, the sperm could be as well.


On a side note, glad to see you back, Rynner. Hope you're recovering well.
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A little different from Organ donation this Is.

Organs don't grow Into lifes or have emotions.
 
It just sounds like a mother's love gone a bit cock-eyed.....

Pardon the pun.
 
Organs for transplant are in short supply and can save lives. As I said before, sperm from the living is hardly scarce and I can't think of any real justification for this genetic rape of the dead.
 
I really think it's rape. I would be absolutely disgusted if my spouse, much less my mother (EW) harvested my eggs after I died and used them to grow new people. Absolutely wrong.
 
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