According to an article in WP, the parents of a 21 year old son who died in a skiing accident are granted right to use his frozen sperm for procreation.
The reason for the parents wanting to do this is to fulfill his dying wish (they claim) to have become a father. However, they did not discuss the specifics with him prior to death and it opens up an “ethical quagmire” according to professor of bioethics at New York University School of Medicine, Art Caplan.
That, Caplan said, leaves many ethical considerations, particularly about what’s in the best interest of the child — would the deceased parent have wanted the child to be created using a surrogate? Would that parent have wanted the child to be raised by his or her grandparents or someone other than the actual parent? When and how would that parent have wanted the child to be told the truth?
Caplan disagrees with the judge’s ruling in their case and does not believe “parents should have control over their children’s reproduction”, pointing out that this doesn’t occur in nature.
Alexander Capron, professor of law and medicine and co-founder of Pacific Center for Health Policy and Ethics at USC, asks, “Is it appropriate to consciously bring a child into this world with a dead father?”
This is not for the betterment of the human condition.
The parents are ethnically Chinese and claim that their sons legacy must be preserved “for deeply cultural reasons” as he is the sole male child in his family which in the Chinese culture is important for passing down the family name, for example.