Brexit, UK, Sperm Donor

UK – A Shortage of Sperm Donors: The Brexit Dilemma We Didn’t See Coming

Source Huffington Post UK

Every year, around 2,500 men and women in the UK have a baby with the help of a sperm donor. For many, using donated sperm is their one chance to fulfil the dream of having a family. But while the number of women using donated sperm is rising every year, the number of willing British donors remains low. 

This is why the UK relies heavily on foreign sperm – recent figures show 3,000 sperm samples from Denmark alone were imported to the UK in 2017. But like all imports, these could be affected by Brexit next March if these thousands of samples are held at the border, unaccounted for by trade agreements. 

Is this the hard Brexit dilemma we didn’t see coming? And if British men don’t step up and donate, will we see a drop in the number of babies born in the UK by sperm donor? 

Read more

Sperm Donor

Woman Wants to Meet All 44 of Her Half-Siblings, Fathered by the Same Sperm Donor

Source Life News

A recent story in the Washington Post described the story of Kianni Arroyo, who is on a three-year quest to meet all of her half-siblings. It’s not as idyllic as it sounds… So far she has found forty-four of them. They live in eight states and four different countries.

The “father” of these children was, of course, a sperm donor, known affectionately to Kianni as “Donor #2757.”

Read more

Australia, Children from sperm donor, Sperm Donor

Australia – ‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’ Sperm donor discovers he’s fathered ELEVEN children – and now he’s tracking them all down

Source Daily Mail

An Australian man who discovered he was a father to 11 children he never knew he had is now on a mission to track them down.

Ken Allen donated sperm many years ago and didn’t look back.
He was shocked when he received a phone call telling him he had 11 kids living across Australia.
‘Eleven, eleven, eleven, you’ve got to be kidding me,’ Mr Allen told Channel 7’s Sunday Night program.

Read more

Denmark, Sperm Donor

Why are British women using Danish sperm to get pregnant?

Source Metro

Despite the fact that Danish men are renowned for being tall, psychically fit gentlemen, they are not actually involved in the child’s life – but is that the whole clue? A paper from the Department of Health and Social Care revealed on Friday that Danish semen made up almost half of all non-British male reproductive material imported to the UK with 3,000 samples last year.

Read more

Egg Donor, LGBTQ, Sperm Donor

Canada – Paying Sperm And Egg Donors Will Help LGBTQ Couples Build Families

Source Huffington Post

The Canadian government is considering amendments to the Assisted Human Reproduction Act (AHRA) that will benefit the LGBTQ community.

On May 29, Member of Parliament Anthony Housefather introduced a private members bill to the House of Commons. He is seeking decriminalization of surrogacy services and consideration of reasonable compensation for egg and sperm donation in Canada.

It’s currently illegal to pay, offer to pay or advertise payment for sperm, eggs, or surrogacy services. Under the Assisted Human Reproduction Act of 2004, any compensation beyond reasonable expenditures is a criminal offence punishable by 10 years in prison and a $500,000 fine. What constitutes a legitimate expense has yet to be clearly defined by the government, leading to criticism of the Act by many doctors and legal experts.

Read more

Sperm Donor

UK – How I Chose My Sperm Donor

Source Refinery 29
The doctor who performed my egg collection was a Nigerian man with a round face and a cheeky grin. I liked him immediately. Now he was waving a piece of paper in my face. On it was a description of the sperm donor I’d chosen; I needed to confirm the details before any fertilisation process could begin. Clad in nothing but a hospital gown, I dutifully looked it over, signed, and handed it back to him.

Read more

Sperm Donor

Dear Donor 14659, thank you for your sperm

Source Washington Post

Dear Sperm Donor 14659:

You don’t know me, but I am the mother of your child. I’m a single, 42-year-old, African American woman with a successful public-policy career, a strong social network and a tightknit family. I always believed I would bring a child into this world, but by the time I entered the geriatric phase of fertility, I still had not found “the one.” So, a little more than two years ago, after lots of soul searching, research and a few conversations with people I trust, I selected your profile from hundreds of potential donors in the California Cryobank. With God’s abundant grace, and with your generous genetic contribution, I gave birth to a healthy, smart, beautiful and hilariously tenacious little angel who is curious about the world and is just learning to walk in it.

Read more

Australia, Single women, Sperm Donor

Australia – WA single mums’ search for the right donor

Source Perth Now

MORE WA women are seeking to become “single mothers by choice” by using sperm donors, with the wait list at one fertility clinic doubling in 12 months.

A nationwide sperm shortage and increased demand for donor-assisted conception have extended wait lists at Perth fertility clinics, and hundreds of women are instead seeking sperm donors through Facebook.

PIVET Medical Centre’s wait list for donor-assisted conception has doubled in 12 months.

Donor co-ordinator Anne Wigham said more women were aware of their fertility limitations and were making the decision to have a child rather than wait for a partner.

Read more

Sperm Donor

Australia – Sperm donors grant WA single women’s motherhood wishes

Source The West Australia

Cari Warr, Hayley Hendrix and Jayme Gibson don’t know each other, but they are bound by a common thread.

Each one longed to have a child, but had reached a point in their lives where that possibility was slipping out of reach.
They had each hoped to meet a partner to embark on parenthood with, and all eventually decided to go on that journey alone using a sperm donor rather than miss out.

Read more

compensation, Sperm Donor, Surrogate Mother

Canada – Liberal MP demands financial incentives for sperm donation, surrogacy

Source Life Site

April 25, 2018 (LifeSiteNews.com) – I suppose it makes sense that the Liberal Party of Canada, which under the reign of Trudeau the Younger has decided to style itself the champion of unrestricted abortion, would also consider exploring new frontiers in the ever-expanding territory of “reproductive rights.” This time, Liberal M.P. Anthony Housefather, with the backing of the Liberal women’s caucus, is pushing for a legal change so that surrogate mothers and sperm donors can be paid for their “services” – those services being the renting of wombs to other couples and the supply of fresh sperm to those who wish to use it for the purposes of conception. (The confusion abortion activists have about when life begins magically clears up when it comes time to create such lives in Petri dishes.)

Read more

Sperm Donor, Sperm Donor Rights, Sperm Freezing

Man claims fertility facilities allowed specimen donations to thaw, declined to provide explanation

HOUSTON – A Harris County man alleges Houston Fertility Services, PLLC and Southwest Andrology Services, LLC refused to provide him information in connection with the purported destruction of his sperm donation.

In a lawsuit filed on Apr. 6 in the Harris County 334th District Court, Sharon Amos explains he contributed the specimens in question to the defendants in 2014 after he was diagnosed with cancer. Amos and his wife intended to start a family following his treatment regimen, the suit states.

China, Sperm Donor

Chinese sperm bank: Donors must ‘love socialist motherland’

Source MassLive

If you want to donate sperm at one Chinese hospital, get ready to pledge support to the Communist Party.
According to the BBC, quoting various media sources, a statement Wednesday on a since deleted website of Peking University Third Hospital in Beijing, said donors to its sperm bank must “love the socialist motherland.”
This was translated to mean “support the leadership of the Communist Party, be loyal to the party’s cause and be decent, law-abiding citizens, free of political problems.”

U.S. sperm banks ask many non-genetic based questions of donors, such as hobbies and goals, but party affiliation may be a first one for such screening anywhere.

Read more

DNA Test, Sperm Donor

Lawsuit Claims Fertility Doctor Used His Own Sperm To Impregnate Patient

Source Courthouse News Service

(CN) – A DNA sample sent to Ancestry.com in 2017 led to the filing of a federal lawsuit Friday, as it was discovered that a fertility doctor allegedly used his own sperm to inseminate a patient in 1980.

The parents and the child of the artificial insemination filed the medical malpractice lawsuit in Idaho’s federal court. The complaint alleges that Dr. Gerald Mortimer told Sally Ashby and her husband Howard Fowler that Fowler had a low sperm count and offered an insemination procedure in order to fulfill the couple’s wish to have a child.

Read more

Australia, Sperm Donor

Australia – Victoria’s sperm donor laws yield some surprises, but mostly happy ones

Source. The Conversion

At least half of the donors who had donated anonymously were in favour of their offspring being able to know their identity. Shutterstock

Many Victorians are now discovering for the first time that they have offspring from sperm donations made in Victorian clinics in the 1970s and 1980s.

These findings were revealed in a new report released earlier this month by the Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority (VARTA), the organisation charged with overseeing applications for information from donors, donor-conceived persons, their parents and descendants.

The VARTA report revealed that sperm donor records that were held by clinics in the 1970s and 1980s have been preserved. This is good news for people who wish to find people to whom they are related via donor conception, using last year’s changes to donor conception laws in Victoria.

Read more

Australia, Sperm Donor

Australia – WA woman wins right to bring dead partner’s sperm to ACT

Source The Sydney Morning Herald

A West Australian woman has won the right to bring her deceased partner’s sperm to the ACT in an attempt to have a baby, with the territory’s broad legislation allowing the procedure where other states don’t.

The West Australian Supreme Court decided this week that the 42-year-old woman, identified as GLS in court documents, would be allowed to undergo in vitro fertilisation (IVF) procedures in the ACT after her application to move the sperm had previously been rejected.

Read more

Donor Eggs, Sperm Donation, Sperm Donor

Letter: Salonen uses public voice to spread misinformation

Source Inforum

I was dismayed to read the rather closed-minded offering published March 17 from Ms. Salonen, who is the mother of five children. While I am not in a position, as a physician, to routinely determine what is right, and what is wrong, I am in a position as a reproductive endocrinologist to know that it is quite dangerous to lump things as important as creating families together.

To paint with a broad brush that it is not OK to use “third party reproduction” is hurtful and inappropriate. Does she disprove of helping single women who have a strong support network in place conceive using donor sperm? Should donor sperm be used in a heterosexual couple who choose this means of having a family?

Read more

Australia, Sperm Donor, Sperm Donor Registry

Man shocked to discover he has kids after donating sperm for ‘research’ 30 years ago

Source: news.com.au

An example of one of the advertisements looking for donors. Picture: VARTASource:Supplied

MEN who donated sperm in Victoria in the 1960s and 1970s for “research purposes” may not have been aware that their donation was being used for conception, according to a new report.

Research by the Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority (VARTA), set to be released later today, reveals meticulous records kept by donor clinics and approximately 40 interviews with clinicians, sperm donors and recipient parents who were involved in the early days of the fertility industry.

The report states that men who donated in the early years of the program may not have been aware that their semen was being used for conception purposes.

Read more

children from egg and/or sperm donor, Egg Donor, Sperm Donor, surrogate children

My father was an anonymous sperm donor. I feel the consequences of that every day

Source: Los Angeles Times

This image shows the first sign of successful in vitro fertilization. (Oregon Health & Science University)

I got the truth when I was 16: My mother hadn’t gotten pregnant by an ex-boyfriend. I was, rather, the product of a completely intentional transaction. My father was an anonymous sperm donor.

My mom conceived me on her own at a time when it wasn’t in vogue to do so, and she didn’t tell her siblings or parents what she’d done. The revelation hit me deeply. An introverted, introspective teen, I internalized her decision to hide the truth as my own shame — shame I still feel today.

Read more

Same Sex, Sperm Donor, UK

How it feels to … be a sperm donor baby and have three mothers

Source The Sunday Times

Raised by three lesbian parents, Jordan Waller had just a brief description of his biological father. Despite being bullied as a child, the actor says his upbringing has been a blessing

Supporting roles: Waller, 25, says his unconventional family has informed his acting career

I know about my dad is that he is a 6ft-tall doctor with brown hair and green eyes. My parents chose him from a list at a sperm bank in Bristol, and from the moment I was old enough to understand, they were open with me that I was born via artificial sperm donor insemination to my biological mum, Miranda.

The donor was chosen to match mum’s partner, Dawn, in terms of her physical characteristics, so on paper I should have been tall and dark, but I turned out to be blond and blue-eyed. My mum likes to joke that they must have mixed up the sperm

Read more

Donor Eggs, Egg Donor, Europe, Gestational surrogacy, intended parents, IVF, Sperm Donor, Surrogacy, Surrogate Mother

Fertty International: Study Reveals Americans Opting for Assisted Reproductive Treatment Abroad

Source: Cision PR Newswire

The high cost of assisted reproductive treatment in North America is forcing many US citizens to look to other countries for high-quality medical care at a lower cost.

Fertty International. A modern clinic, for new models of the family (PRNewsfoto/Fertty International)

In 2016, nearly 1.4 million Americans travelled outside the U.S. in search of medical treatment, compared to 750,000 in 2008. Currently, medical tourism, or cross border reproductive care as the media have labelled it, is rising by 25% per year.

The primary reasons for these trips, according to a study conducted by the Task Force on Ethics and Law from the ESHRE, and published in the scientific journal Human Reproduction (Shenfield et al. 2010), is the difficulty in accessing certain treatments due to legal restrictions, long waiting lists, and thirdly, the search for high-quality reproductive treatment.

The main countries hosting these medical tourists in Europe are Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Switzerland, Slovenia and Spain. The fact that the latter has the most permissive legislation in terms of assisted reproduction, together with the European regulations on mobilisation of biological samples, and high medical and technical quality make Spain the top destination. It is also the country with the most egg donations.

Read more