Dead Man’s Sperm Can Create Babies; State Does Not Recognize Baby As Legitimate Heir

A deceased man's sperm can be extracted to produce babies through post-mortem sperm retrieval procedure. However, the rights and legitimacy of posthumously conceived children are in question by the state.

Cappy Rothman, an urologist from Los Angeles was the first surgeon to perform the first post-mortem sperm retrieval in the late 1970s, according to Tech Insider. The idea came when a prominent politician's son was left brain dead after a car accident and the chief resident of neurosurgery at UCLA asked for the strange request.

Research shows that the extraction and freezing of a man's sperm sample should be done within 24-36 hours of death. However, some case studies have shown that sperm can survive beyond this under the right conditions.

However, the first live birth did not come until 1999 when Gaby Vernoff gave birth from sperm extracted by Rothman just a day after her husband died. Rothman is now co-founder and medical director of the largest sperm bank in the U.S., California Cryobank.

The practice has reached nearly 200 post-mortem sperm extractions with most of the procedures completed in recent years due to its popularity. From 2000 to 2014, 130 post-mortem sperm extractions were performed with an average of just under nine procedures a year.

Unfortunately, posthumously conceived children has sparked plenty of debate as women who are interested in the procedure are perceived to be not in touch with reality. Adults make a decision to bring a child into the world because of adult needs, without considering the impact on the child who will never know their biological father, according to Julianne Zweifel, a clinical psychologist from the University of Wisconsin Schools of Medicine and Public Health.

In 2012, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling that babies conceived with the help of fertility treatment after the father died of cancer were not eligible for Social Security survivor benefits. The law discriminates against children based on how they were conceived, according to Laura Riley from the Cancer Legal Resource Center.

Since there is no uniform across the country, the benefits will be governed by state rules. The ruling of whether a posthumously conceived child will be legitimate heir will be left to the interpretation of individual states, according to Time.