Hacker News Reader

The girl "does not have to show that [the sperm bank] was negligent, only that the sperm it provided was unsafe and caused injury"

I thought the notion of biological products like this as defective was an interesting idea. I'd never considered it before, and thought it might pique others' interest as well.

View on HN

'causing injury' is an interesting thing to prove, since without the sperm the girl would not exist. Conflating the parties involved with the transaction being made (one of the parties _is_ the transaction) is sure to throw a monkey wrench into liability laws. This should be fun.

I'm not a judge, but if I was I would sidestep the whole issue by throwing this out because the girl has no grounds to bring a suit: her mother does. Then it falls neatly back into existing legal frameworks: did the sperm bank fulfill its obligation in the transaction?

---------

On further reading..

"..under a product liability law more commonly associated with manufacturing defects"

Damnit where is the wikipedia of law? Can't they at least _name_ the law, "US Code Title XII Section 5 Subparagraph Whatever.."

Reply on news.ycombinator.com