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US woman sues fertility clinic after giving birth to African-American baby through IVF: ‘I will never heal’
US woman sues fertility clinic after unknowingly becoming surrogate for stranger's child, raising concerns over clinic errors.
A US woman is suing a fertility clinic after becoming an unwitting surrogate to a stranger's child when she gave birth to their child and had to give him up to his biological parents, NBC News reported.
38-year-old Krystena Murray gave birth to a baby boy and realised that the child was African-American and Murray and her sperm donor are both white. “I was happy. I was a mom. He was beautiful and perfect, but it was also very clear something was wrong,” she said while announcing a lawsuit against the clinic.
After giving birth, Murray sought a genetic test and discovered she was not related to the child at all. “My baby is not genetically mine – he doesn’t have my blood, he doesn’t have my eyes, but he is and will always be my son. I will never fully heal or completely move on and part of me will always long for my son and wonder what kind of person he’s becoming," she said.
'Cardinal sin'
Murray quickly notified the fertility clinic which informed the child's biological parents. They started custody proceedings and Murray voluntarily gave up the child after he was a few months old.
“She vividly remembers the shock when she saw her baby for the first time. Whereas Kristina is a Caucasian woman who chose a sperm donor with a similar appearance, the baby she delivered was African American. Errors like this should never occur in a fertility clinic, this is the cardinal sin,” her lawyer said.
Clinic calls it ‘isolated event’
The fertility clinic said what happened with Murray was an “isolated event with no further patients affected”.
“The same day this error was discovered we immediately conducted an in-depth review and put additional safeguards in place to further protect patients and to ensure that such an incident does not happen again," read a statement by them.
In 2011, an Ohio woman experienced a similar embryo mix-up and carried another couple’s child to term. In 2019, a New York couple sued a California clinic in 2019 over an embryo mix-up which led to two women giving birth to each other’s babies.
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