There is no horror for parents like the thought of losing a *****. It could turn even the smartest, most grounded *** or *** into a raving lunatic. I can even understand why Jerri and Rufus McGill spent the days while their teenage *** Rufus Arthur McGill was in a **** fighting for the right to harvest his sperm. But I can't say I think it was right.
He's their ***. Creating a new ***** that shares some of his DNA isn't going to dial them back to the days before he crashed his ***'s car.
Rufus died this week at 19. His death ends his parents' legal battle. It's too late to collect their ***'s sperm.
My heart goes out to them. But I hope that in a few weeks, after the funeral, after things start to settle down and they are left to ponder that hole left in their hearts that the McGills realize that collecting their ***'s sperm was not going to fix this tragedy.
Collecting a dying *****'s sperm or eggs before death is fairly new, but the McGills aren't the first to try it. I have a sad feeling they won't be the last. Like I said before, parents trying to come to terms with the early loss of a ***** are not generally rational. You can understand why.
However, reality has to set in at some point. There is no "replacing" a lost *****. If there is, we need to rethink the value we put on human life overall. You may love a new baby, you may spend so much time caring for them that you have less time to focus on your loss, but this is not a case where one equals one.
Not to mention, these cases generally involve teenage ******** whose parents seem to think that their proximity to adulthood makes it obvious that it's somehow fitting to grant them post-mortem parenthood. As if that fulfills an older ***** lost too soon's point in being on this earth. What does that say about our ****? That we value them as vessels for grandchildren?
