Dreams Dashed, and Danger, in Loss of Sperm

New York Times (Jul. 25, 2016): One Woman’s Crusade for Her Husband’s Sperm, by Tamar Lewin:

Sarah Robertson, a Californian who lost her husband to a rare disease at the age of twenty-nine, desired to have a child using the sperm he had stored in an infertility clinic. But when she went to retrieve it, she was told it had vanished. Aaron had been a carrier of a Marfan syndrome, and there is a fifty per cent chance that the diseases will be passed along to any children created with his sperm. In vitro fertilization will be required to ensure that any of her embryos chosen for gestation do not carry the genes linked to the disease. Robertson worries that the clinic may have misappropriated vials of her husband’s sperm and sold them to unwitting women and couples. She wants the clinic to warn those who purchased sperm from the clinic and to pay for testing and treatment of any children born. Attempts at mediation and negotiation have led nowhere. Robertson has now filed suit.