Month: January 2013

Fertility Clock Headlines, Fertility Headlines

Activists: Topeka sperm donor case opportunity for change

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By Aly Van Dyke

THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL

As divisive as Kansas’ child support claim against a sperm donor to a lesbian couple is, activists on both sides of the issue can agree on a couple of things: first, that the case is an opportunity for change, and second, that its implications reach beyond same sex unions.

Organizations that support gay and lesbian rights say the claim is politically motivated but can be used as an opportunity to give rights to same sex partners.

For conservative groups, it is a chance for Kansas to reinforce its laws protecting traditional marriage. They offered arguments about how same sex parenthood is damaging to the children to such unions and supported the state’s claim against sperm donor William Marotta, 46.

But both sides said the issue currently set before the Shawnee County District Court goes beyond the usual arguments surrounding the legalization of gay marriage in America. It deals with adoption and the relatively untouched issue of artificial insemination — and, as such, has implications for heterosexual couples as well. Read full article.

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Tia Mowry Opens Up About Her Battle With Endometriosis

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Actress Tia Mowry has opened up about her long and painful battle with endometriosis which prompted her to undergo two operations in a bid to have children.

The 34-year-old Sister, Sister star and her husband Cory Hardrict welcomed a son named Cree last June, and Mowry has now revealed she once feared she would never become a mother after being diagnosed with the gynecological condition.

Mowry found out about her condition at the age of 27 and she underwent two surgeries in a bid to ease her pain and help increase her chances of having children.

In a blog post for Ivillage.com, she writes, “I was 27 years old when I was diagnosed with endometriosis… I knew nothing about it… The simple explanation of this: endometriosis is an abnormal growth of cells from the lining of your uterus that appear outside of the uterine cavity… It was a condition that could potentially prevent me from having children. I was devastated.”

“You see, now married, having kids was on my radar and I was informed that surgery could help! So, surgery seemed to be my only option. The operation was successful, however, two years later the pain returned.”

Mowry underwent a second operation and was advised to alter her diet to help with her condition, and she is convinced the lifestyle changes helped her fall pregnant. Read full article.

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Is infertility a disability?

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Is infertility a disability?
‘Disabilities are an umbrella term, covering impairments, activity limitations, and participation restrictions. Impairment is a problem in body function or structure; an activity limitation is a difficulty encountered by an individual in executing a task or action; while a participation restriction is a problem experienced by an individual in involvement in life situations. Thus disability is a complex phenomenon, reflecting an interaction between features of a person’s body and features of the society in which he or she lives’.

If you use the above definition. Is infertility is a disability?  To help you to make your decision, I include a few facts. As many members are male, it may seem that descriptions are over emotive. Infertility is an emotive subject. I have written this as honestly as I can in the hope that reading it will cause people to think before they respond with unnecessary harshness and insensitivity.

Infertility is often caused by very painful physical gynaecological problems. Endometriosis and polycystic ovaries being the most common. Most doctors will tell any woman that the best known cure for these problems is to have a pregnancy. Some women have been given IVF solely for this reason and it has worked. Symptoms have reduced significantly after she’d had a child. Read full article.

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Kansas Wants Sperm Donor to Pay Child Support

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The state of Kansas is seeking child support from a man who says he signed away all parental rights when he donated sperm to a lesbian couple.

“It came out of the blue. He was absolutely floored,” attorney Ben Swinnen said of his client William Marotta.

Marotta, 46, met Angela Bauer and Jennifer Schreiner in 2009 when he responded to a Craigslist ad from a lesbian couple in Topeka, Kan., who were offering $50 per sperm donation, according to legal documents. Marotta and his wife met with the women and he agreed to donate to them without accepting the money, Swinnen said.

All three signed a sperm donor contract that stated that he would have no paternal rights and would be in no way responsible for any child that resulted from the donation.

“Jennifer and Angie further agree to indemnify William and hold him harmless for any child support payments demanded of him by any other person or entity, public or private, including any district attorney’s office or other state or county agency, regardless of the circumstances or said demand,” the agreement read. Read full article.

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Reproduction without sex, a liberating future

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(CNN) — Last year on the 50th anniversary of the creation of the contraceptive pill its inventor Carl Djerassi spoke of the coming dramatic changes to reproductive options — of the technologies that will have just as big an impact on society in the 50 years to come.

After sex without reproduction, reproduction without sex.

In an article in the UK’s “traditional values” tabloid, the Daily Mail, titled “A Terrifying Future for Female Fertility,” Djerassi said, “There are an enormous number of well-educated, proficient women who, when facing the biological clock, first pay attention to their professional ambitions…in the next 20 years, more young people will freeze their eggs and [sperm] in their 20s, and bank them for later use. They will do away with the need for contraception by being sterilised, and withdraw their eggs and sperm from the bank when they are ready to have a child via IVF.”

That is certainly one option as we develop greater capabilities to store eggs more reliably and safely so that they are not damaged by the freezing/thawing process meant to preserve them. But in the next 20 years, there could be other developments on their way to the clinic. For example — also to avert damage — freezing strips of ovarian tissue instead of eggs, or tapping into recently identified reserves of ovarian stem cells that could be turned into a fresh supply of eggs for a woman, at any age; or even creating to order eggs (or sperm) from skin or bone marrow stem cells of men and women.

Early experiments with mice have shown that both sperm and eggs can be generated from the stem cells of males, and eggs from that of females, and that they can be fertilized to produce viable young. Read full article.