Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

‘Wrongful’ Inheritance: Race, Disability and Sexuality in Cramblett v. Midwest Sperm Bank

  • Published:
Feminist Legal Studies Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In 2014 Jennifer Cramblett, a white lesbian, filed a Complaint for Wrongful Birth alleging that the Midwest Sperm Bank mistakenly provided sperm from an African–American donor. In this article, we trace the complex and overlapping lines of legal and social inheritance that have conditioned not only the possibility of such a lawsuit, but also the legal language and arguments within the Complaint itself. First, we trace the racial politics of homonormativity, which set the conditions of possibility for an out, white lesbian to bring this case forward. Second, we trace the inheritance of wrongful birth tort law, reviewing its prior race and disability-related uses, and its basis in feminist reproductive rights. Third, we trace how disability, race and sexuality interlock within the eugenic inheritance of both ‘wrongful birth’ and reproductive technologies. Finally, we follow traces of racial inheritance, namely, the loss of white property and proximity to whiteness.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Cramblett v. Midwest Sperm Bank, LLC, No. 2014-L-010159 (Ill. Cir. Ct.), 2014 WL 4853400. Henceforth cited as Cramblett.

  2. Ibid at 3.

  3. Ibid at 6.

  4. Ibid at 7 and 8.

  5. We use a range of terms around disability in this article in order to represent the range of ways disability is framed by the scholars and lawyers being discussed. In our own discussions of disability, we use the politicised terminology of disabled person, in lieu of the American legal terminology ‘person with a disability,’ in order to emphasise the political processes through which disability is categorised, produced, and governed.

  6. We would like to acknowledge Kara Granzow for this turn of phrase and methodology.

  7. Lawrence and Garner v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003). For a detailed examination of the case, see Carpenter (2012). The defendants in this case were Tyron Garner, a younger black man, and John Geddes Lawrence, an older white man. We follow Jasbir Puar’s usage of both defendants’ last names instead of the usage of the first litigant’s familial name, typical in legal citation. Such a citational practice “accentuates the invisibility of Tyron Garner’s blackness. Indeed, the historical documentation, official record, and scholarly exposition will ensure that this case goes down in history with the name of the white gay man involved.” (Puar 2007, 119).

  8. Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986).

  9. United States v. Windsor, 570 U.S. (2013). This partial repeal of DOMA coincided with a ruling that severely curtailed the Voting Rights Act (VRA), a landmark civil rights piece of legislation that prohibits discrimination in voting. Amendments to the VRA could disenfranchise many voters throughout the U.S. (McCarthy and Moore 2013). In other words, depending on which state they live in, queer people of colour can get federal benefits when they marry but might not be able to vote.

  10. Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S.____ (2015).

  11. Supra n 1 at 2.

  12. Supra n 1 at 6.

  13. Harnicher v. Univ. of Utah Medical Center 962 P. 2d 67 (Utah 1998); cited in Bernabe (2016, 56).

  14. Ibid.

  15. Andrews. V. Kelz. 838 N.Y.S.2d 363 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 2007).

  16. Ibid at 365. Cited in Bernabe (2016, 58).

  17. Ibid.

  18. See Schirmer v. Mt. Auburn Obstetrics and Gynecological Assocs., Inc., 844 N.E.2d 1160, 1165 (Ohio 2006), as cited in Bernabe (2016, 54).

  19. See Complaint, supra note 1 at 7–8.

  20. Roe v. Wade 410 U.S. 113 (1973).

  21. See “Abortion Access: Hyde Amendment”: https://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/issues/abortion/hyde-amendment?utm_source=tumblr&utm_medium=post&utm_content=hyde&utm_campaign=healthtumblr As Dorothy Roberts (1997, 229–232) argues, inadequate access to reproductive health services, including abortion, by poor and low-income women—who are disproportionately racialised women—is bolstered by constitutional jurisprudence of liberty and interference by the state.

  22. See “U.S. House Passes Bill to Deny Millions of Women Reproductive Health Care Coverage”: https://www.reproductiverights.org/press-room/us-house-passes-bill-to-deny-millions-of-women-reproductive-health-care-coverage-0.

  23. See, for example: Berman v. Allan, 80 N.J. 421 (1979); Spencer v. Seikel, 742 OK 75 (1987); and Liddington v. Burns, 916 F. Supp 1127 (W.D. Okla. 1996).

  24. Supra n 1 at 3 and 4–5.

  25. Taylor v. Kurapati, 670 Mich C.A (1999).

  26. Supra n 1 at 4–5.

  27. Supra n 1 at 3.

  28. Supra n 1 at 4.

  29. Supra n 1 at 6–7.

  30. Supra n 1 at 3.

  31. Supra n 1 at 6.

  32. Supra n 1 at 6.

  33. Supra n 1 at 6.

  34. Supra n 1 at 7.

  35. Supra n 1 at 7.

References

  • Ahmed, Sara. 2006. Queer phenomenology: Orientations, objects, others. Durham & London: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Associated Press. 2015. Woman accidentally impregnated with black man’s sperm has legal case dismissed. In The Guardian, September 5. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/05/judge-dismisses-white-woman-lawsuit-black-sperm-donation. Accessed 17 Aug 2016.

  • Bernabe, Alberto. 2014. Final thoughts on the sperm bank case. Torts blog, October 14. http://bernabetorts.blogspot.ca/2014/10/final-thoughts-on-sperm-bank-case.html. Accessed 14 Aug 2016.

  • Bernabe, Alberto. 2016. Do black lives matter? Race as a measure of injury in tort law. The Scholar: St. Mary’s Law Review on Race and Social Justice 18 (1): 41–72.

    Google Scholar 

  • Black, Edwin. 2003. War against the weak: Eugenics and America’s campaign to create a master race. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows.

    Google Scholar 

  • #Blacklivesmatter. Guiding Principles. http://blacklivesmatter.com/guiding-principles/. Accessed 5 Sep 2016.

  • Boustan, Leah Platt. 2011. Racial residential segregation in American cities. In The Oxford handbook of Urban economics and planning, ed. Nancy Brooks, Kieran Donaghy, and Gerrit-Jan Knaap, 318–339. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carpenter, Dale. 2012. Flagrant conduct: The story of Lawrence v. Texas. New York & London: Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chamallas, Martha, and Jennifer B. Wriggens. 2010. The measure of injury: Race, gender, and tort law. New York & London: New York University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Combahee River Collective. 1982. A black feminist statement. In All the women are white, all the blacks are men, but some of us are brave, ed. Gloria Hull, Patricia Bell Scott, and Barbara Smith, 13–22. New York: Feminist Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Crenshaw, Kimberlé. 1988. Race, Reform, and retrenchment: Transformation and legitimation in antidiscrimination law. Harvard Law Review 101 (7): 1331–1387.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Crenshaw, Kimberlé. 1991. Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review 43 (6): 1241–1299.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Davidson, Ki’tay. 2014. Angry about the white lesbians suing for having a black child? You’re missing something. In Blackgirldangerous, October 6. http://www.blackgirldangerous.org/2014/10/angry-white-lesbians-suing-black-child-youre-missing-something/. Accessed 17 Aug 2016.

  • DiAngelo, Robin. 2011. White fragility. International Journal of Critical Pedagogy 3 (3): 54–70.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dice, Lee R. 1952. Heredity clinics: Their value for public service and for research. American Journal of Human Genetics 4 (1): 1–13.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dryden, OmiSoore H. 2016. Unrepresentable blood: Canadian blood donation, ‘Gay Blood’, and the queerness of blackness. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Toronto.

  • Duggan, Lisa. 2002. The new homonormativity: The sexual politics of neoliberalism. In Materializing democracy: Toward a revitalized cultural politics, ed. Russ Castronovo, and Dana D. Nelson, 174–194. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Franke, Katherine. 2004. The domesticated liberty of Lawrence v. Texas. Columbia Law Review 104 (5): 1399–1426.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Garland Thomson, Rosemarie. 2005. Feminist disability studies. Journal of Women in Culture and Society 30: 1557–1587.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Haritaworn, Jin. 2015. Queer lovers and hateful others: Regenerating violent times and places. London: Pluto Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Haritaworn, Jin, Tamsila Tauqir, and Esra Erdem. 2008. Gay imperialism: Gender and sexuality discourse in the ‘War on Terror’. In Out of Place: Interrogating Silences in Queerness/Raciality, ed. Adi Kuntsman, and Esperanza Miyake, 71–95. York: Raw Nerve Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harris, Cheryl I. 1993. Whiteness as property. Harvard Law Review 106 (8): 1707–1791.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hensel, Wendy F. 2005. The Disabling impact of wrongful birth and wrongful life actions. Harvard Civil Rights Civil Liberties Law Review 40 (1): 141–197.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jacoby, Jeff. 2014. Wrong sperm, right baby: So why sue? In Boston Globe, October 9. https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014/10/08/the-baby-was-wrong-color-but-that-reason-for-lawsuit/ZCxZswYlTdM0mSEz1TkSbP/story.html. Accessed 17 Aug 2016.

  • Johnson, Heather Beth, and Thomas M. Shapiro. 2003. Good neighborhoods, good schools: Race and the ‘Good Choices’ of white families. In White out: The continuing significance of racism, ed. Ashley W. Doane, and Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, 173–187. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kafer, Alison. 2013. Feminist, queer, crip. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kumari, Campbell Fiona. 2009. Contours of ableism: The production of disability abledness. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lorde, Audre. 1984. Sister outsider: Essays & speeches by Audre Lorde. Trumansburg, NY: Crossing Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacMurchy, Helen. 1907. Feeble-minded in Ontario. Toronto: Office of the Feeble-minded. https://archive.org/stream/feeblemindedinon1907onta/feeblemindedinon1907onta_djvu.txt. Accessed Sep 2015.

  • Malacrida, Claudia. 2015. A special hell: Institutional life in Alberta’s eugenic years. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Massey, Douglas S., and Nancy A. Denton. 1998. American apartheid: Segregation and the making of the underclass. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCarthy, Timothy Patrick and Darnell L. Moore. 2013. In Conversation: On the landmark SCOTUS decisions, single-variable politics and movement forward. In The feminist wire, June 26. http://www.thefeministwire.com/2013/06/in-conversation-on-the-landmark-scotus-decisions-single-variable-politics-and-movement-forward/. Accessed 7 Oct 2016.

  • McLaren, Angus. 1990. Our own master race: Eugenics in Canada, 1885–1945. Toronto: McLelland and Stewart.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • McWade, Brigit, Damian Milton, and Peter Beresford. 2015. Mad studies and neurodiversity: A dialogue. Disability and Society 30: 305–309.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McWhorter, Ladelle. 2009. Racism and sexual oppression in Anglo-America: A genealogy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mor, Sagit. 2014. The dialectic of wrongful birth and wrongful life claims in Israel: A disability critique. Studies in Law, Politics, and Society 63: 113–146.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • O’Neil, Lonnae. 2015. A few words about suit for ‘Wrongful Birth’ of a biracial child. In Washington Post, September 10. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/lonnae-oneal-a-few-words-about-suit-for-wrongful-birth-of-a-biracial-child/2015/09/09/f9be4564-5705-11e5-8bb1-b488d231bba2_story.html. Accessed 17 Aug 2016.

  • Ordover, Nancy. 2003. American eugenics: Race, queer anatomy, and the science of nationalism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Polo, Carissa. 2014. Faking a manufacturer’s defect on a designer baby. In The wake: Fortnightly student magazine, October 27. http://www.wakemag.org/sections/voices/faking-a-manufacturers-defect-on-designer-baby Accessed 4 Sep 2016.

  • Puar, Jasbir K. 2007. Terrorist assemblages: Homonationalism in queer times. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Reddy, Chandan. 2011. Freedom with violence: Race, sexuality, and the US State. Durham & London: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Rhinehart, Kelly E. 2002. The debate over wrongful birth and wrongful life. Law and Psychology Review 26: 141–157.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rinaldi, Jennifer A. 2009. Wrongful life and wrongful birth: The devaluation of life with disability. Journal of Public Policy, Administration and Law 1: 1–7.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roberts, Dorothy. 2011. Fatal invention: How science, politics, and big business re-create race in the twenty-first century. New York & London: The New Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roberts, Dorothy. 1997. Killing the black body: Race, Reproduction, and the meaning of liberty. New York: Vintage Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Snyder, Sharon L., and David T. Mitchell. 2006. Cultural locations of disability. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Stubblefield, Anna. 2007. Beyond the pale: Tainted whiteness, cognitive disability, and eugenic sterilization. Hypatia 22 (2): 162–181.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tremain, Shelley. 2006. On the government of disability. In The disability studies reader, 2nd ed, ed. Lennard J. Davis, 185–196. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walters, Suzana Danuta. 2014. The tolerance trap: How god, genes, and good intentions are sabotaging gay equality. New York: NYU Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, Patricia J. 1997. Seeing a color blind future: The paradox of race. New York: The Noonday Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, Patricia J. 2014. The value of whiteness: A lawsuit is being waged against the ‘Wrongful Birth’ of a black child. In The Nation, November 12. https://www.thenation.com/article/value-whiteness/. Accessed 17 Aug 2016.

  • Withers, A.J. 2012. Disability politics and theory. Black Point: Fernwood.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolbring, Gregor. 2014. ‘Culture of Peace’ from an ability and disability studies lens. In Expanding peace ecology: Peace, Security, sustainability, equity and gender: Perspectives of IPRA’s ecology and peace commission, ed. Ursula Oswald Spring, Hans Günter Brauch, and Keith Tidball, 183–199. Cham: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Women and Gender Studies, University of Lethbridge, C884 University Hall, Valley Rd, Lethbridge, AB, T1K 6T4, Canada

    Suzanne Lenon

  2. Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation, University of Alberta, 3-417 Van Vliet Complex, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2R3, Canada

    Danielle Peers

Authors
  1. Suzanne Lenon
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Danielle Peers
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Danielle Peers.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Lenon, S., Peers, D. ‘Wrongful’ Inheritance: Race, Disability and Sexuality in Cramblett v. Midwest Sperm Bank . Fem Leg Stud 25, 141–163 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10691-017-9347-y

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10691-017-9347-y

Keywords

Search

Navigation