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I thought my divorce was acrimonious, but we had nothing on divorcing Long Island couple Richard and Dawnell Batista, who are currently battling over the house, the kids, and -- oh yeah -- the kidney he donated to her eight years ago. If she doesn't want to give up the kidney, he'll settle for $1.5million, instead. He's flexible!
The story is being lapped up by news outlets; Batista is every inch the wronged husband. He donated his kidney to save his wife's life, even though their marriage was already a "troubled relationship" (his words). The good news is that wife Dawnell made a complete recovery and became healthy enough to take up karate. The bad news is that she suffered an injury, went to physical therapy, and allegedly began having an affair with her physical therapist.
Batista insisted his cash-for-kidney claim was a direct result of his wife's behavior. He said he hasn't seen his three daughters - ages 14, 11 and 8 - in months.
"This is my last resort," Batista said. "I didn't want to be in the public eye."
While I feel genuine sympathy for Dr. Batista (oh, did I forget to mention that? he's a doctor, as well) if he's truly being unfairly kept from his children, did he really think that asking the court to award him either a transplanted body part or a gigantic sum of money wasn't going to land him "in the public eye?" Seriously?
As for his wife, her lawyer is all but calling Dr. Batista a liar, which is totally shocking because accusations like that never happen during divorce cases.
The case is naturally drawing a lot of interest from the public. As Jen at Right Celebrity points out, the premise that this is a demand worthy of consideration is flawed:
[A]ccording to Doctors, an operation to return the kidney is unethical and nearly impossible. It is also illegal for an organ to be exchanged for anything of value and organs in the United States cannot be bought or sold. Furthermore, donating one is considered a gift.
I abhor the common divorce notion that if you want ABC and the other party is refusing to give it to you, the solution is to simply demand DEF -- which is usually something that you clearly don't want or need, but is held dear by the other party -- until the other person capitulates on ABC in order to preserve DEF. This is hardly a new tactic; it happens constantly in divorce cases. But to make DEF, in this case, be a body part? Dr. Batista knows that no judge is going to award him a kidney. Which is why he has so magnanimously offered to take the approximate cash value, instead.
Except that he has no interest in the money, either (even if there wasn't that pesky ethical issue about how we don't allow payment for body parts in this country). He wants to see his kids.
At what point does it become acceptable for a person intelligent enough to graduate from medical school to go before a judge and explain that he is retaliating against his wife for withholding their children by demanding the return of his kidney?
(Answer: Never. Never ever ever EVER.)
Kristen King at Sass Pants makes several salient points, including:
Last time I checked, an organ wasn't like an engagement ring, something you can give back if things didn’t work out. And I doubt that when Dawnell uttered the words, "'til death do us part," she didn’t mean, "until you demand your kidney back, you scumbag."
The couple has 3 daughters ranging in age from 8 to 14. I may be going out on a limb here, but I don't think their dad's inexcusably selfish behavior bodes well for their future relationships with men. Way to parent.
And therein lies the rub with his justification of this being a necessary reaction to being kept from his daughters; for one thing, it doesn't seem like this is going to get him his visitation (unlike the "I want ABC so I'll ask for DEF" model, above, no judge is going to award him either the kidney or the money, which means there is no pressure for Dawnell Batista to "give in" based upon this request), and for another, he just ends up looking like a vindictive jerk. And that's not going to help his relationship with his kids one bit.
Alice at NOT2WO sees it differently:
When your kidney is transplanted in another
