Posthumous Conception

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Technology is making it possible for an increasing number of men to father children even after death. Some men facing terminal illness are freezing their sperm in order to create a family in a future they may never see.

Questions and controversy arise when the children of these cryogenic unions go looking for the same rights and benefits as children conceived when the father is alive. In an age of frozen sperm and embryos, technology is outpacing long-held beliefs and definitions of entitlement.

Guests:

Rhonda Gillett-Netting, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Arizona, mother of twins conceived after her husband’s death

Professor Elizabeth Bartholet, Professor, Harvard Law School and author of “Family Bonds: Adoption, Infertility and the New World Order of Child Production”

Thomas Harman, California Congressman.