To say these men shouldn't be allowed to keep this child.

[GrabbyGabby]

2 men hire a surrogate to have a child for them via IVF. They wanted 2 boys (had names and gmail accounts for them already🙄).
The IVF clinic implanted a female foetus, and now they are suing the clinic.

I don't think they should be allowed to raise a child they clearly don't want.

www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/same-sex-couple-sues-fertility-clinic-over-alleged-wrong-sex-embryo-implant/

YABU they will be fine parents and their daughter will in no way be scarred for life

YANBU babies arent commodities. They should never be bought and sold, and being female is not a defect

I'm basing it on the people questioned refusing to comment.

And commenting after, ignoring that point.

That's what I am basing it on

Some of these comments however are clearly based in homophobia as they wouldn't have the same view if this was a straight couple having gender disappointment.

If they used a commercial surrogate I would. You haven't addressed the sexism and misogyny. Or does only one kind of discrimination count?

Well yes to a refund for a service that wasn't provided.

If you paid someone to paint your house green and they charged you for it, came in and painted it orange would you not want the money back and some extra to put it right?

I'm surprised that in such a litigous culture as the US there isn't a clause in the product catalogue stating that the sex cannot be absolutely guaranteed.

I'm sure some parents feel varying levels of disappointment over the sex of their baby. Mostly they don't declare it in public though.

No you’re just shouting homophobia to try and shut people up. And it’s sex not gender.

Having a sex preference isn't sexism. Many parents have a preference based on their own individual needs.

I also don't consider surrogacy misogynistic, so why would I address something I don't believe in?

Has anyone else noticed how many of MN's resident MRAs have pie in their name?

Odd coincidence

Perhaps there are some people on here who base their opinions on the fact that the couple are both men. However, all I see is concern for women and children rather than homophobia and throwing that word around is a lazy attempt to stop debate.
I don’t think these men should have their daughter removed from them but I also don’t think they should have been able to purchase her in the first place and I wonder how she may feel one day when she knows she wasn’t what was ordered but was medical negligence instead.

Who is trying to shut anyone up, if anything I am asking people to speak more, and explain whether they'd have the same issue with straight couples keeping their children if they suffered disappointment at their child being a boy or a girl.

Those posters are yet to comment one way or another, telling

People are not inanimate objects to be owned though. The house will not grow up and realise how much it was unwanted

Do you think the many women who suffer gender disappointment don't treat their children the same?

If the disappointment remains for month+ after the child being born, probably not in my experience. There is a lot out there on the issues for girls and women in being an unwanted daughter. Those interested can look into Pink Ladoo and similar projects around helping girls and women push back against cultural and familial attitudes that our births are less than our brothers.

I think if a parent goes on about how they wanted the other sex, I think that should be a serious concern worth investigating - there are cases even in the US where this happened of girls being abused and even murdered by a parent who wanted a boy. There isn't enough information here to know if these guys fall into that category - they could just want their money back for a service they didn't get which is perfectly understandable even if I think getting the service isn't - but going to all that effort for a boy does raise some concerns for me. It's bad enough being with a parent who was so sure and 'disappointed'/irate about it without all that cost to try to make it certain involved.

@Hoppinggreen who is trying to shut down debate, there are definitely posters here who have said this couple should have their child taken from them because they are disappointed with her sex, and that alone, they have then refused to comment on whether they'd have the same extreme views if a straight couple has the same disappointment, some have replied and said they'd feel the same.

Asking people questions is the opposite of shutting down a debate.

Id feel exactly the same if a straight couple ordered a baby and then tried to essentially get a refund because it was the wrong sex. I know you'd rather i and people who share my viewpoint confessed to being a homophobe but I'm not. It's not gay people i object to. It's surrogacy and the expectation that you should be able to order the baby you want, and if you don't get what your money has paid for, you should be able to sue. It's wrong.

people are so busy frothing about their opinion on surrugacy, they're not even answering the question posed in the OP

Which is.. should parents who have gender disappointment have their children removed?

My sister in law (by marriage) was so adamant she wanted a girl, she had 9 children.. 8 boys, and the girl. She loves and treats them all equally.. do you think she ought to have her boys removed?

If someone over here paid privately for ivf genetic selection because of a genetic disease on the y chromosome, and ended up having a boy because the IVF clinic got it wrong, would they be entitled to sue?

The surrogacy in this is a fallacy, its unimportant, your feelings on the morality/ethics of surrogacy methods which are perfectly legal in the USA are irrelevant.

The issue here is that they paid thousands of dollars for gender selection which the clinic failed to do, as such they are 100% entitled to sue.

Its not just about the disappointment though is it? It"s about making the disappointment public and demanding compensation for it. And yeah I'd judge anyone who did that with the same harshness.

Weird that it has to be pointed out, but a baby is not the same as a house.

The key here is their disappointment isn't loading more than a month, or at least we don't know either way.

They are fighting for their money back for a service that wasn't delivered. That doesn't mean they don't love their child, it doesn't mean they're disappointed with their child, it simply means they don't want a company who has messed up keeping money they shouldn't keep.

People seem to really be unable to split the two sides of this, this is a legal case, one they have every right to challenge, it doesn't mean they are still disappointed their child is a girl.

(Not that I think the child should be removed, another fractured attachment is not what she needs)

Actually @OchonAgusOchonOh the only evidence that exists is based on adoption statistics and commercial surrogacy not altruistic surrogacy.
Lots of babies are not looked after by their mother immediately post birth and don't have long term issues from it.
None of it is as straight forward as you make out.

@B0ssAssB1tch the principle in law is the same, people on here (you included) seem to really struggle to separate the legal case from their surrogacy.

There is no indication they don't love their daughter, they're simply asking for money back on a service that wasn't carried out properly

If this was any other situation, such as a house, no one would bat an eyelid, least not post on Mn about it.

This

Hence why foster to adopt is being widely pushed by local authorities in the UK, the attachment issues when removed at birth before attachments are formed is proven to be positive and shows no sign of preventing future attachments.

@UnimpeachableBravery if you were charged $25-$45k for a service that wasn't delivered would you not want that paid back?

Them wanting that money back doesn't mean they love their child less.

I'd have done the same if my sex selection hadn't been done properly.

I'll bite.

First off, most posters have not stated one way or another whether they think the child should be taken off the couple.

This case is not the same as a couple, straight or gay, suffering gender disappointment on initially discovering their child is the non-preferred sex. Leaving said the whole surrogacy issue, this is the equivalent of a couple who have suffered gender disappointment telling everyone how disappointed they are and posting it repeatedly on social media where they child is likely to discover it in later years. That sort of behaviour would have me wondering about their suitability to raise the child regardless of how the child was conceived.

A couple, straight or gay, who have an initial twinge of disappointment that they overcome and go on to bring up a much loved child is very different scenario.

So yes, from a commercial and contract perspective, the couple are entitled to sue. However, they obviously haven't thought about the impact on the child of doing so.

To all the ‘well, of course it’s ok to sue, the clinic promised them and didn’t deliver’

How do you think the girl will feel when she finds out her parents were so upset with her being a girl they sued the people who enabled her to be born to them?
That’s nothing like an anonymous post on mumsnet! Most parents don’t publicly and indelibly announce to the world through legal action how fucked off they are to have a child if a particular sex. Most parents would never want their child to know this as they know how hurtful and damaging that would be. Only arseholes who view their child as a commodity to select would place their breach of contract over the security their future child feels in their relationship with them.

The OP's question wasn't whether the Saningers have the right to sue, but whether they should be allowed to raise the child.

They are raising her, and can continue unless it's judged that the parents' actions put the child in danger. Yes, they're causing harm to their child and arguably have demonstrated they do not have the child's best interests at heart. If someone - an interested party, or the authorities - made a case to remove the child it would be up to the courts to decide what's best (least bad) for the child. The Saningers claim that they HAVE to sue to recoup the money they have to spend on their "extra" child. Presumably, the money they would gain from the lawsuit (if successful) will benefit all of their children. Win or lose, harm has been done by bringing the suit. Unless the child is removed from the home and given a new identity she will suffer, but the process of removing her and giving her a new identity would also be a hardship for her.

RE the current case - no existing process is 100% effective to predict the sex of an individual embryo pre-implantation. For this reason, clinics don't generally offer a guarantee that the foetus initially implanted will be a particular sex, although they may offer after-the-fact sex selection ("selective abortion") as a backup to PGD/PGS in states where that's legal and covered by the contract.

It appears in this case that the written contract did NOT guarantee the sex of the implanted foetus. The Saningers say that (1) they were verbally assured the clinic could guarantee the sex of the implanted foetus (2) the reputation of the clinic is such that they believed the claims without thoroughly investigating and (3) the clinic knew the Saningers only wanted boys. There's a good case for breach of (commercial) contract here, depending on available documentation.

Not so sure about malpractice. In a California context, there have been successful claims where it's judged that a vendor or medical facility's actions "confounded efforts to have or avoid a child born with particular traits". But it's previously been in cases where there was demonstrable harm done: for example, a couple screening out male foetusus to avoid a congenital birth defect has a male child whose health is severely compromised by that condition (Bergero vs University of Southern California).

Usually you have to prove actual damage to life, health, or property - hence the Saningers' claim that having one healthy baby of each sex rather than two healthy boys forces the couple to repeat the expense of IVF/surrogacy unnecessarily and to take on the cost of raising three children instead of two. So we'll see if the California courts rule that the birth of a healthy female baby constitutes actual harm - and expect it to be appealed whatever they decide.