Death doesn’t end a debate
Parents seek to retrieve sperm
When a 21-year-old West Point cadet died after a skiing accident last month, his grieving parents said they couldn’t endure being “left without any piece” of their only son.
They decided they wanted more than a piece: They wanted a grandchild.
Shortly after Peter Zhu was declared brain dead at Westchester Medical Center last Wednesday — four days after the accident — his parents filed a petition in court asking to retrieve his sperm, which was approved the same day, though an upcoming hearing will determine whether they can keep it.
The story is drawing attention partly because it involves a military academy cadet, but it also raises several ethical and legal concerns since there’s no law guiding who can make such requests and each hospital that conducts the procedure has its own set of rules.
Among the key questions: Which family members can keep their loved one’s sperm? Can they do it without any written documentation from the deceased? Who’s going to carry the baby?
“Other questions that come up are, ‘How many kids can you make?’ I’ve never seen that happen, but you could try for more than one,” said Dr. Arthur Caplan, who has worked with about 30 families who kept sperm from their loved ones.
“And if you decide you don’t want it anymore, can you (give the sperm) to another person?”
Caplan, the founding director of the Division of Medical Ethics in the Department of Population Health at the New York University School of Medicine, said he’s closely watching the case, which could set precedents.
He has advocated for states to include the retrieval of sperm, eggs and uterus in organ donation cards.
The Ethics Committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine argued in a 2018 paper that posthumous retrieval of sperm and eggs “is ethically justifiable if written documentation from the deceased authorizing the procedure is available.” If there’s no documentation, hospitals that perform the procedure should only consider requests from spouses or partners, the committee said.
Zhu was skiing in West Point on Feb. 23, when he broke his spine, cutting off oxygen to his brain, court documents show.
“That afternoon, our entire world collapsed around us,” his parents, Monica and Yongmin Zhu, wrote in the petition. “We cannot even begin to put into words the pain we felt, and continue to feel, seeing our son lying lifeless in his hospital bed.
“Peter was only 21 years old, and had an incredible, bright future ahead of him,” they wrote. “Peter was the kindest, most loving and caring young man that you could ever meet.”
The couple said their son wanted to be an organ and tissue donor if anything ever happened to him, but there’s no indication he ever discussed a potential postmortem sperm retrieval. However, the parents say the young man had told them he wanted to have five children and that his dream was to live on a ranch with his family and horses.
“There was never any question or doubt that Peter intended to become a father,” they wrote in the petition. “Tragically, Peter’s life was cut short before he was able to realize this lifelong dream.”
The couple, whose family comes from China, also told the court the procedure would allow them to carry on their family’s lineage. The father’s two brothers each have a single daughter because of China’s “one-child” policy, the couple said. Their son was the only male child in the Zhu family.
Caplan has provided ethical guidance to hospitals and families considering posthumous sperm retrieval since 1997, when a New Jersey woman lost her husband. Caplan said she eventually chose not to use the sperm.
Back then, Caplan helped conduct a study that found that about 20 posthumous sperm retrievals had taken place nationally. He’s now conducting a new study to assess the number, which he expects to be much larger, and the most common practices around it.
He said there’re still too much inconsistency around what individual hospitals do. Some require written documentation from the deceased, others will honor requests from longtime girlfriends, and so on.
The New York Department of Health would not address the Zhu case, but it encouraged individuals to make their preferences known.
“The State Department of Health does not comment on pending litigation, but we urge people to draft living wills and create end-of-life plans to make their wishes clear should they fall victims to an unforeseen tragedy,” Health Department spokesman Jonah Bruno said in an email.
Another one of Caplan’s recommendations is for hospitals that have such programs to establish a waiting period of about three months, which seems to be the amount of time for “grief to quiet down” and for people to make more thoughtful decisions, he said.
The hearing in the Zhu case is scheduled for March 21 in state Supreme Court in White Plains.