Cultural tropes aside, do you know what makes a good lawyer? Being able to discern when you’re being lied to. Honesty. Respect (say, for the wife and her relationship, this man’s family, which you seem interested in destroying). Putting others’ interests before your own. Trustworthiness. Respectability. Morals.…

Lamu Island, off the coast of Kenya! Gorgeous, quiet, serene...for the next couple years anyway. It’s (98%?) Muslim, so you need to take your own wine (there’s some available at restos, but take some for your balcony) but for the same reason you will be left alone. Wander the town. Wander the beach. Drink limeades.…

This is true for both mothers AND fathers — short of committing child abuse against the child in question, courts in most states will grant visitation. And even in cases of child abuse against the child in question, courts in some states/cases will still grant supervised visitation.

I KNOW, RIGHT?!?

Great piece. Uncomfortable-making.

It's a fluff book, though, not legal scholarship. Fun, light reading (not actually about the protagonist's divorce, but about a young lawyer working on a divorce and her related issues with work and family that result). Legally more accurate than most divorce tales (I recommended it to a friend contemplating divorce…

Did I mention...he's TWO?

FACT. My two year old likes to order scrambled ("scram"); scrambled with cheese ("cheesey eggies"); scrambled with goat's cheese and spinach ("green eggies"); fried ("fry, mama") or other ("NO MAMA NO SPIN-ACK!") on the regular. Didn't mind the poached, but never wanted the egg salad again.

Dang! You will be much missed!

In Illinois, you can sue for emotional distress. It's a type of damages permissible under wrongful birth in that jxd.

This is a huge part of the problem: there are no regulatory bodies overseeing fertility stuff; there are few regulations dealing with it as well. The law is catching up, but slowly, and imperfectly as always.

The state of Illinois allows recovery of two types of damages for wrongful birth suits: 1) reimbursement of medical expenses and 2) emotional distress. And if the idea of some sperm bank impregnating you with an unknown donor's sperm doesn't cause you distress, what on earth does??

The claim of emotional distress is how she gets the bucks to move. She has to prove that the clinic error caused emotional distress to seek more than reimbursement of the amount of her medical expenses.

See also this case, in which a white mom and black dad found out their blonde twins were the fertility doctor's own, not the dad's:

She is suing for the funds to move. But to get to that claim, she has to have a cause of action — here wrongful birth and breech of warranty get her to that claim.

Yeah, it's costs of procedure. But Illinois allows for additional damages for emotional distress, hence that claim.

wrongful birth is the specific type of medical malpractice for these suits.

I think your funny bone is missing. Also, titular clarity is a good thing.

Yes. But still not ok!

Well, if you ask me, he's certainly not an ok cop...more like a terrible awful no good very bad cop.