From the Daily Telegraph in the UK:
A prisoner is hoping to become the first man in Britain to father a child from behind bars after officials allowed him to enrol on an artificial insemination program. Scott Hurford is serving a 30-year sentence at HMP Wandsworth in London after he was caught with 250 amphetamine tablets in Thailand in 2005.
But since his incarceration, the 34-year-old has remained in contact with his Thai girlfriend of six years and the couple now hope to have a baby.
I’m very sorry that this man was locked up for dealing drugs to pay off his gambling debt. It’s unfortunate he chose Thailand with it’s stiff drug laws and ended up serving 30 years (although not in a Thai prison, luckily for him.) Maybe this was his first and last offense. Maybe he’s seen the error of his criminal ways. Maybe he’ll rehabilitate and get out in 2035 and be a model father to his 25 year-old offspring.
Then again, maybe he won’t.
If some people really didn’t ought to bring children into the world, I think that this couple qualifies hands down. What do you think?
I’m not certain what your last sentence is meant to say.
I guess I don’t see much difference between this method and picking a faceless donor from a sperm bank. I watched that movie “The Kids are All Right” and the sperm donor became a much different person than his original donor profile indicated. With that in mind, it would be interesting to see how many sperm bank donors have had addiction issues or spent time in the slammer 20 years after donating.
I question this woman’s taste in men, but he’s not going to be in the picture very much while this child is raised. I do feel for the child, as the ‘parents’ are setting the child up for a difficult reality. She’s going to be a single Mom, so I hope she has a great support system.
I do believe that if someone has the ability to overcome their addictions (gambling, drugs) they deserve all the happiness they have coming their way.
All that said, it does grate on me.