Semen is one of the most abundant resources on the planet, with men producing an estimated 1,500 sperm cells every second. But in places like Canada and the U.K. where sperm donation is limited, family building is a unique logistical challenge, especially for lesbians.
Tag: sperm donation
Couples Needing Sperm Donation Favor the Same Donor for All Conceptions
Despite a prevalence of anonymous sperm donation in European countries, the use of the same sperm donor for subsequent conceptions is of paramount importance to those couples needing sperm donation to have children.
States Aren’t Eager To Regulate Fertility Industry
The Utah Legislature took a step last week into territory where state lawmakers rarely tread. It passed a law giving children conceived via sperm donation access to the medical histories of their biological fathers
Why It’s Wrong to Ban Anonymity For Egg and Sperm Donors
The central pillar of the Children and Family Relationships Bill’s assisted reproduction regulations is an attempt to outlaw anonymous egg and sperm donation and force every donor-conceived child to be given the opportunity to identify and meet their donor once they have reached 18.
London Sees ‘Boom’ in Sperm Donation
Lawyers, film-makers and financiers are behind a sperm donation “boom” in the capital.New figures published today give an insight for the first time into the profile of donors. Instead of students, professionals are now among altruistic Londoners helping childless couples become parents.
Babies Born From Donor Sperm Still Big Business
With more than 300 sperm banks expected to rake in a third of $1 billion this year, sperm donation births are a big business in the United States. ABC News learned of at least five individuals who had fathered more than 100 children and one individual who had fathered nearly 200.
Illegal purchase of sperm, eggs and surrogacy services leads to 27 charges against Canadian fertility company and CEO
For nine years, the criminal law in Canada has prohibited anyone from buying human eggs or sperm or the services of a surrogate mother.
For just as long, it has been common knowledge in the fertility-treatment field — and easily confirmed by anyone with Internet access — that such commercial transactions routinely take place, conveniently free of enforcement action.
That all changed Friday, with news that an Ontario surrogacy consultant and her company had been charged with 27 offences under both assisted-reproduction legislation and the Criminal Code, capping a groundbreaking, year-long investigation.
The charges laid by RCMP investigators against Leia Picard and her Canadian Fertility Consultants (CFC) in Brighton, Ont. — the firm also has a branch in Comox, B.C. — stunned the thriving assisted-reproduction industry, while also raising questions about whether the neglected legislation itself is even needed. Critics applauded what they considered long-overdue action. Read full article.
When the Law Says a Parent Isn’t a Parent
It is easy to interpret the popularity of a network television series like “Modern Family” as proof that we have mainstreamed the various and sweeping ways domestic life has reshaped itself over the past two decades. A nation of squares would not embrace a comedy about a badly dressed, middle-aged gay couple raising an adopted Vietnamese baby, we tell ourselves, no matter what they might say in Copenhagen or Berlin.
Gay rights are moving forward; single women now account for 41 percent of all births. Americans build caring families with lovers, friends and neighbors; from one-night stands and anonymous providers of genetic material. And yet, even in a place as progressive as New York, the legal system has been slow to synchronize to these altered realities.
It is hard to imagine anyone experiencing this more viscerally right now than a man named Jonathan Sporn, a 54-year-old pharmaceuticals executive living on the Upper West Side, who in a sense has fallen prey to a system that excessively privileges the conventional family models from which there seems to be a growing exodus. Read full article.
Va. Supreme Court sides with sperm-donor father
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A Virginia law concerning sperm donation was not intended to deny parental rights to a man who conceived a daughter with his girlfriend through in-vitro fertilization, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
The court ruled that the law, which says unmarried sperm donors have no parental rights, had been intended to ensure married couples could seek a sperm donor without fearing the donor would claim parental rights.
The decision was a victory for Virginia Beach attorney William D. Breit, who is seeking enforcement of a custody and visitation agreement he and his former girlfriend signed shortly after the birth of a daughter who was conceived through in-vitro fertilization. The couple signed the agreement as well as an affidavit establishing Breit as the biological father. Read full article.
Activists: Topeka sperm donor case opportunity for change
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.