View Full Version : Baby too Dark



Karried
03-22-2007, 08:52 PM
Can you even imagine how this poor baby will feel when she reads this? Check out the name of the attorney. Go figure.

Three Tests Prove Man Not Biological Father


POSTED: 10:49 am CDT March 22, 2007

NEW YORK -- After they saw a baby girl they had gone to a fertility clinic to conceive, her parents became convinced something was wrong, according to court papers.

The girl's skin was darker than either parent's, a judge wrote in allowing the parents to proceed with a lawsuit that claims the clinic botched the insemination of the wife's eggs. The ruling was made public Wednesday.

"While we love Baby Jessica as our own, we are reminded of this terrible mistake each and every time we look at her; it is simply impossible to ignore," state Supreme Court Justice Sheila Abdus-Salaam's decision quoted parents Thomas and Nancy Andrews as saying.

"We are conscious of and distressed by this mistake each and every time we appear in public," the judge quoted the Andrewses' affidavit as saying.

The couple, of Commack, N.Y., sued New York Medical Services for Reproductive Medicine, accusing the Manhattan clinic of medical malpractice and other offenses.

The Andrewses' court papers say that on the advice of Dr. Martin Keltz, the couple agreed to in vitro fertilization of the eggs with Thomas Andrews' sperm so they could have a child who was biologically their own. However, their court papers say, the clinic was negligent and used another man's sperm.


Three DNA tests -- a home kit and two professional laboratory tests -- confirmed that Thomas Andrews was not the baby's father, the judge quoted the couple as saying.


The judge said the Andrewses complain that they have been forced to raise a child who is "not even the same race, nationality, color ... as they are."

The mother was born in the Dominican Republic "and has a complexion, skin coloration and facial characteristics typical of that region," while the father is Caucasian, the judge quoted the Andrewses' papers as saying.


Nancy Andrews asked Keltz about the "abnormality" of the child's complexion, the judge said, and the physician told her the condition was normal, that the in vitro fertilization was done properly and that the child would "get lighter over time." Jessica was born Oct. 19, 2004.


The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, came to light Wednesday after the judge issued a decision that allows the Andrewses to proceed with parts of the suit while dismissing other parts.


The judge dismissed the lawsuit against Keltz, who had advised the procedure and had performed the embryo implantation.

She allowed the case to proceed against Dr. Reginald Puckett as owner of the clinic but threw out the case against him as an individual. Puckett has already been found liable for the alleged blunder.

In trying to have the lawsuit against Puckett personally and as clinic owner dismissed, his lawyer, Martin B. Adams, told the court that Puckett "did not examine, communicate with, care for or treat plaintiffs."

The judge found Carlo Acosta, the non-physician embryologist who processed the egg and sperm for creation of an embryo, liable for the alleged blunder. She said his response to the Andrewses' claims "could not be weaker -- it is nonexistent."



The Andrewses' lawyer, Howard J. Stern, did not return a telephone call for comment.