Judge allows wife to harvest dead husband's sperm

Left to right: (front row) his mother Carmen; his fiancee Gisela Marrero; his father Johnny Sr.;( back row:) his brothers Elvin(l) and Alex.


BY Dorian Block
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Saturday, April 18th 2009, 4:00 AM

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Left to right: (front row) his mother Carmen; his fiancee Gisela Marrero; his father Johnny Sr.;( back row:) his brothers Elvin(l) and Alex.

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Cold, hard facts when it comes to extraction
The clock began ticking down on a dream Friday when a Bronx judge granted the last wish of a young man who died too soon.

As Johnny Quintana's chilled body lay in a hospital, the judge gave the dead man's fiancée the green light to harvest her dead lover's sperm - and preserve his legacy for the future.

"The day before he passed away, we talked about planning for our future, buying an apartment and having another child," said Gisela Marrero, Quintana's fiancée and the mother of his 2-year-old son. "This was his wish. It's the last thing I can do for him."

For sperm to be viable, it must be harvested within 36 hours of death. When Supreme Court Justice Howard Sherman ruled, they had just four hours left.

The family rushed out of the courthouse and faxed the paperwork to The Sperm and Embryo Bank of New Jersey, which rushed their staffers to Jacobi Medical Center.

Marrero's mom prayed they would make it in time.

"I want my son's sperm to live," Carmen Moreno, Quintana's 56-year-old mother, said through sobs as she testified.

"The Lord took him away from me. This is the only way for him to live on. He wanted this. He wanted this."

The race against time really began at 3:30 a.m. Thursday when Quintana, a seemingly healthy, 31-year-old concierge and auto mechanic, collapsed and died while watching an episode of NBC's "The Chopping Block" on a computer with his brother.

Through her tears, Marrero remembered their last talk about the future and immediately asked Jacobi if it would be possible to remove and preserve Quintana's sperm.

Under law, it takes a court order.

So while Quintana's body was placed in a cooling room and an ice bag was placed on his testicles to preserve his potential progeny, Marrero set about preparing a funeral - and building a legal argument.

Much of Thursday was spent frantically calling sperm banks, lawyers and arranging for an emergency hearing before Sherman.

To argue a case that Sherman said is unprecedented in New York, they enlisted lawyer Nelson Stern, who usually handles disability cases.

Earlier this month in Texas, a judge granted a mother's right to extract and preserve her son's sperm after he died in a fight outside an Austin bar.

Sherman said he was not aware of any cases like this one in New York. "There is very little precedent," the judge said after the 10-minute hearing.

Nevertheless, Sherman ruled in favor of the family.

"There is no basis, as far as I know, not to let them do this," he said. "Under this kind of tragic circumstances, this is all that is left for them."

"Thank you so much. Thank you!" Quintana's parents cried out and collapsed into each other's arms in tears.

"I know he wanted his son to have a brother or a sister," said Alex Quintana, 26, as he kissed a photo of his brother. "He wanted to give me another niece or nephew."

Marrero said she is not sure when she will use the sperm to try and give their son, Lucas, a brother or sister.

"I wanted to get through this hurdle first," she said. "We talked about this so many times. I'm very hopeful."

An autopsy was scheduled to be performed to determine what killed Quintana, who lived in the Allerton section and worked as a concierge at an upper West Side condominium.

Several of Quintana's organs will then be donated - so he lives on in others.

"All our dreams we accomplished together," Marrero said of the man she began dating when she was 18. "He was my best friend, the love of my life."

dblock@nydailynews.com


http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/bronx/2009/04/18/2009-04-18_ma_let_my_sons_sperm_live_judge_allows_dead_bronx_mans_seed_to_be_harvested.html