St. Louis Dad Sues Sperm Bank After Baby Is Born With Genetic Disorder
Thalassemia is an inherited blood disorder that in severe cases requires a lifetime of blood transfusions. It was never supposed to show up in the baby that a St. Louis couple conceived in 2015 using donor sperm.
That's because the donor had been screened for just that genetic disease — or at least, that's what the paperwork from the Manhattan Cryobank had stated. But according to a lawsuit first filed in St. Louis city circuit court last November, the sperm donor did indeed carry the trait for thalassemia alpha, an incurable disease that impairs the body's ability to manufacture blood cells and the oxygen-carrying protein hemoglobin.
The lawsuit, which was transferred this week to the federal court in the Eastern District of Missouri, accuses the New York-based sperm bank of defrauding the local couple by misrepresenting its screening process for sperm donors.
The lawsuit notes that the child's mother, identified only as "Megan" in the suit, prevailed in arbitration against the company, which had sought to deny any liability for selling the sperm.
Read more: https://www.riverfronttimes.com/newsblog/2019/02/08/st-louis-dad-sues-sperm-bank-after-baby-is-born-with-genetic-disorder