Fun_People Archive
16 Dec
"Use A Fruitcake - GoTo Jail" & Family Tree Transplant

Date: Fri, 16 Dec 94 23:08:58 PST
To: Fun_People
Subject: "Use A Fruitcake - GoTo Jail" & Family Tree Transplant

From: WhiteBoard News for December 16, 1994

==========

Federal Way, Washington:

You've heard of taking a bite out of crime?

King County Police Major Bob Evans is heading up what
is believed to be the region's first "Fruitcake
Buyback" program.

"This is an effort to make the holidays safer by taking
as many fruitcakes off the streets as possible,"
Federal Way city clerk Maureen Swaney alerted in a
memo.

The scheme was cooked up by some DJs of radio station
KWRM-FM, and when listener Swaney heard about it, she
quickly volunteered Evans.

Those wishing to unload holiday fruitcakes may do so at
any Cinnabon Store.  They'll get a fresh Cinnabon
cinnamon roll in return.

All fruitcakes will be donated to area food banks.  The
event will run through Christmas."

"I'm just glad we don't have to melt the fruitcakes
down," Major Evans said.  "I don't think there's a
furnace hot enough to do the job."
==========

New Orleans, Louisiana:

A woman who used her husband's stored sperm to become
pregnant after he died of cancer asked a court Monday
to have their 3-year-old daughter declared his child
and heir.

The aim is to win Social Security survivor's benefits
for Judith Christine Hart, who was born in 1991, a year
after her father's death.

"Even when I was reluctant to talk about the
possibility that he would not survive, Ed said, 'There
could always be a child for you,'" said the girl's
mother, Nancy Hart.

"Judith was Ed's last gift to me.  I want her to know
who her father was and to be recognized as his child."

No state recognizes a child conceived after the
father's death as legitimate, said Kathryn Kolbert,
vice president of the Center for Reproductive Law and
Policy, which filed the federal lawsuit.

Kolbert said it's apparently the first lawsuit in the
United States to seek benefits for a child conceived
after the father's death.

Edward William Hart Jr. was diagnosed with cancer of
the esophagus in March 1990 and died that June.

When he was diagnosed, doctors told him the treatment
probably would leave him sterile.

Since the couple wanted children, doctors suggested he
store his sperm.

Nancy Hart, 40, became pregnant in September 1990.

Edward Hart's adult son and daughter recognize Judith
as their half-sister and their father's heir, but
Louisiana law does not.

The Social Security Administration follows state law
when deciding whether a child is a legitimate heir,
Kolbert said.

© 1994 Peter Langston