Men and women who donated their sperm or egg cells anonymously should consider revealing their identity to their biological children, a study into the ethics of donor conception has recommended.
Tag: sperm
The Science of Sperm Collecting
How far would you go for science? No matter what your answer, there is an elite cadre of scientists who have dedicated their lives to going a lot further. Meet the sperm collectors. They’re doing it to make the world a better place.
Woman Who Is Allergic To Her Husband’s Sperm Opens Up About Rare Condition That Threatened To Destroy Their Sex Life
A newlywed bride, who waited until she was married to have sex with her husband, has opened up about the shock discovery that she is allergic to his sperm.
Made in America: Sperm One of Country’s Hottest Exports
Sperm is a hot commodity, and when these sexy swimmers come from American lads they’re even more so.
Powder Women’s Eggs for Home Storage
Just add water and sperm – any romance should be provided separately. In future, women who want to safeguard their fertility may be able to store their eggs at home as a powder. To revive them for an attempt at having a baby, all they would need to do is empty the sachet, add water, fertilize with sperm and implant the embryo.
Sperm Donor Sparks Ethical Debate
A Danish sperm donor may have unknowingly passed on a cancer-causing illness to 50 percent of the children created using his sperm.
Gamete Donation: Findings on Disclosure and Anonymous Donation
By Madeline Licker Feingold, Ph.D., AFA Mental Health Advisory Council
Mental health professionals often are in the position of helping people build families with the help of egg or sperm donors. At times we see people who have been trying to …
Seminal Research: New Study Says TV Watching Lowers Sperm Count
For the past 20 years scientists have been fretting over the decline of sperm counts in the West. The most recent alarm came late last year, when a study found that sperm counts had fallen in French men from an average in 1989 of 73.6 million sperm per milliliter of semen in a 35-year-old man to 49.9 million per milliliter in 2005.
While nowhere close to threatening our fertility as a species—that number would need to drop below 15 million per milliliter—it is not a comforting trend given that lower sperm counts make it harder to father children. But the cause has been unknown. Did the lower sperm counts stem from high-fat diets, being overweight, or trace amounts of chemicals in the environment and their effect on the body’s hormones? The search for a smoking gun produced a lot of intense speculation but little firm evidence.
Now, a deceptively simple study published in theBritish Journal of Sports Medicine has found a new and surprising culprit: television.
“Men who watched more than 20 hours of TV every week had 44 percent lower sperm counts compared to those who watched almost no TV,” says lead author Audrey Gaskins, a doctoral candidate at Harvard’s School of Public Health. “And then men who exercised for 15 hours or more per week at moderate to vigorous levels had 73 percent higher sperm counts than those who exercised less than five hours per week.” Read full article.
Ottawa fertility doctor accused of inseminating women with wrong sperm
An Ottawa fertility doctor faces a disciplinary hearing Thursday over allegations he artificially inseminated three women with the wrong sperm.
Dr. Bernard Norman Barwin, a celebrated gynecologist, could lose his licence if the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario discipline panel finds he committed misconduct.
He agreed last year to stop the practice of insemination after the college filed its notice of hearing.
The medical college alleges that three of Dr. Barwin’s patients discovered their children aren’t biologically related to their husband or, in one case, the patient’s chosen donor.
Two women with the same allegations sued Dr. Barwin a few years ago. The lawsuits were resolved last year, but neither the women’s lawyer nor Dr. Barwin’s lawyer could discuss the terms. Read full article.
Kan. case reveals risks with assisted reproduction
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The case of a Kansas sperm donor being sued by the state for child support underscores a confusing patchwork of aging laws that govern assisted reproduction in the United States and often lead to litigation and frustration among would-be parents.
Complex questions about parental responsibility resurfaced late last year, as Kansas officials went after a Topeka man who answered a Craigslist ad from a lesbian couple seeking a sperm donor. Because no doctor was involved in the artificial insemination, the state sought to hold William Marotta financially responsible for the child when the women split up and one of them sought public assistance. A hearing is set for April.
Many states haven’t updated their laws to address the evolution of family structures — such as same-sex families, single women conceiving with donated sperm or artificial inseminations performed without a doctor’s involvement. At-home insemination kits are inexpensive, and obtaining sperm from a friend, or even a donor met over the Internet, allows women to avoid medical costs that generally aren’t covered by insurance. Read full article.