Infertility is a growing problem in China. In southern Guangdong province, 14 percent of the population, which numbered 104 million in 2010, cannot conceive — and the fact that the province has only one sperm bank doesn’t help. Couples generally have to wait at least a year to have their names called. The sperm shortage has even prompted a desperate plea from a government official, according to one Chinese-language news site, asking college students to donate. ”Donating your sperm is healthy,” said Luo Wenzhi, the head of Guangdong’s family planning commission, in an interview. “It won’t hurt you nor kill you.” Read full article.
Tag: sperm donation
Sperm Is a ‘Marital Asset’ Says UK Donor’s Wife
A British woman whose husband donated sperm secretly has called for a change in law since sperm is a ‘marital asset’ and wants clinics to obtain the wife’s consent before the husband can donate sperm.
The Surrey-based woman has not been named in the Daily Mail, but she reportedly fears that children fathered with the sperm – who would be half-brothers or sisters of her son – may one day ‘disrupt’ the family by getting in touch.
The businesswoman has written to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) calling for guidelines on sperm donation to include the spouse’s views, and says the sperm should be treated as a joint ‘marital asset’.
The tabloid reported today that a controversial ruling in 2005 meant that children born through sperm donation – up to ten families are allowed per donor – have the right to trace their biological father when they reach adulthood. Read full article.
The Coming Culture War Over Fertility Technology
Abortion is currently the most fevered issue in American life, sometimes even surpassing questions of national security and defense, the economy, international terrorism, health care, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, drug usage, and education.
While we know the shorthand linguistic terms employed in the never-ending public argument over abortion — pro-choice, pro-life, personhood, “war against women,” family values, Roe v. Wade, sanctity of life, “safe, legal and rare” — there is an emerging issue with a three-letter abbreviation that may soon dominate our religious, political and cultural debates: assisted reproductive technology, or ART.
Just as abortion has divided our nation, ART could do the same, especially as it becomes better known and more widely practiced in America.
ART offers women — heterosexual, lesbian, single, or married — a method to become pregnant through a complex procedure involving anonymous donor sperm. A recent Religion News Service story indicated that 30,000-60,000 donor-conceived children are born each year in the United States and as the technology improves, that number will grow.
Court To Rule If Sperm Donor Can Renege
Who actually owns sperm donated to a sperm bank – the donor or the woman who paid for the sperm? Can a donor decide to change his mind after receiving payment for his donation? And what is more important, a donor’s right to refuse to be a father against his will, or a women’s right to have children who are biological siblings? The High Court of Justice will have to rule on these complex and sensitive questions in a petition that might affect the lives of thousands of women who use Israeli sperm banks to fulfill their wish to be mothers.
Four sperm vials – enough for eight fertilization treatments – are at the center of a judicial conflict between the donor who wishes to have his sperm donations scrapped and the recipient who purchased the vials and wishes to use them to have several children from the same father. Surprising as it may sound, there are no legal guidelines regarding sperm donations, and the scenario of the donor reneging is not dealt with in forms filled out by the donor and the recipient, nor in the directives of the Health Ministry.
Ed Houben, Sperm Donor, Has Fathered 82 Children
Ed Houben was a virgin until the age of 34. Now he’s the biological father of 82 children. Der Spiegel reports that the 42-year-old Dutchman performs his services for free, offering women and couples a chance to conceive a child without the expense of using a sperm bank.
Fertility Treatment Bans in Europe Draw Criticism
France and Italy forbid single women and lesbian couples from using artificial insemination and in vitro fertilization, or IVF, to conceive. Austria and Italy are among those banning all egg and sperm donations for IVF. Germany and Norway ban donating eggs, but not sperm.