White mom sues after birth of brown surrogate

Washington: What is the price of being forced to raise a brown baby? It’s an unusual question, arising from an unusual lawsuit prompted by an insemination gone wrong.

And it has set off an extraordinary discussion touching on sensitive issues of race, motherhood, sexuality and justice, though the debate begins with one basic premise: You should get what you pay for.

Jennifer Cramblett and her wife, Amanda Zinkon, wanted a white baby. They went to the Midwest Sperm Bank near Chicago and chose blond, blue-eyed donor No. 380, who looked like he could have been related to Zinkon. When Cramblett was five months pregnant, they found out that she had been inseminated by donor No. 330 - a black man.

“The couple did not get what they asked for, which was a particular donor. The company made a mistake, and it should have to pay for that,” says Jessica Barrow, an information technology professional.

Barrow is black and lesbian, with a white partner. They considered insemination of the white partner before choosing to adopt. When looking at donors, they wanted sperm from a black donor, to create a biracial baby that would have shared some physical characteristics with both of them.

“They’re not saying anything racist, they’re not saying we don’t want a black baby,” Barrow said of Cramblett and Zinkon, who profess their love for their now 2-year-old daughter. “They’re saying, we asked for something, you gave us something different, and now we have to adjust to that.”

That “adjustment” is a major justification for Cramblett’s lawsuit. It cites the stress and anxiety of raising a brown girl in predominantly white Uniontown, Ohio, which Cramblett describes as intolerant. That leads some to believe that Cramblett is asking to be paid for the difficulties that many black folks and white parents of adopted black children deal with for free.