FedExing Fatherhood

Well, a panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has blazed new legal trails again. It has just ruled that male prison inmates have an inalienable right to create babies via overnight air freight and artificial insemination. In a 2-1 ruling that creates new law for California and eight other Western states, the judges held that a prisoner’s right to marriage survives incarceration and, therefore, absent genuine security concerns, so does the fundamental right to procreate.

Let’s think that through: The 41-year-old inmate in this case, William Reno Gerber, so offended our society’s existing laws and values over time that he was given a minimum prison term of 111 years. This means that unless the 9th Circuit discovers a prisoner’s right to cryogenics, the former Riverside County resident will never cohabit with his 46-year-old wife, whom he married in prison. So Gerber wants to ship his sperm to a lab for artificial insemination to create one more economically challenged household forever free of a father’s influence.

As part of their punishment, felons lose their right to carry firearms, to vote and to travel about freely for some period. As a lifer, Gerber is denied conjugal visits. But the court, apparently failing to distinguish between the ability to produce sperm and its consequences, decided that creating a new life for which the father shall never exercise familial responsibility is permissible.

Guess who probably will end up financially supporting many of the children produced by such means during the enforced absences of thousands of prisoners now legally empowered to become deadbeat dads?

The drive to procreate is a powerful one, admirable when it involves real parental love and nurturing. But in a practical sense, is it primarily a right or a responsibility? Making a baby is the easy part; raising one is something else.

This decision is prima facie stupid. This is prison. Being in the pen has a downside. That’s the point. California’s attorneys should appeal. If they mark the “First Overnight” box, FedEx can get the papers to the courts before a “Standard Overnight” sperm shipment reaches the lab.