Showing posts with label sperm donors us. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sperm donors us. Show all posts
Monday, 11 November 2013
Babies from donor sperm in USA are big business
Todd Whitehurst was a young grad student at Stanford when he began donating sperm to pay his way through school.
“I went about 3.5 years, two or three times a week,” said Whitehurst, who estimated he’d raked in more than $12,000.
Then six years ago, Whitehurst, 48, married with children and living in Los Gatos, Calif., was contacted by a 14-year-old girl who said she was his daughter and that she had obtained his information from the cryobank he’d visited.
“My first reaction was just to be stunned,” Whitehurst said. “I would say I was kind of shocked at first but really happy about it overall.”
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.
“It’s the wild, wild west of regulation,” said Deborah Spar, president of Barnard College and author of “The Baby Business.” “There’s essentially no sheriff in town. There’s virtually no regulation in this area, which has become quite large, quite lucrative and is literally involved in the most intimate area of people’s lives.”
Sperm banks test for about a half-dozen diseases, including HIV, but there are many more, such as diabetes, that they don’t. There is no genetic testing and there is no limit on the number of children a donor can father, Spar said.
In other countries, however, there are legal limits on the number of children a sperm donor can have — in the U.K., it’s 10 — and children have a right to know who their biological fathers are and be able to obtain his health records.
“In England and most of Europe, it’s illegal to have anonymous sperm donation,” Spar said.
In the U.S. where there are more than 2 million children born from donated sperm, there are no official records that connect them to their biological fathers.
The private Donor Sibling Registry allows them to connect to their fathers and to their half-siblings, with their permission. In 13 years, the registry says more than 10,000 donors and children or siblings have connected to one another.
Article: 6th November 2013 www.abcnews.go.com
Read more about known sperm donation in US, Canada, Europe, Australia and UK at www.prideangel.com
Monday, 12 March 2012
Sperm donors paying child support in the US is a mess
The child support system in the United States is a mess. Too many states follow formulas that don't serve the needs of individual families and leave many non-custodial parents feeling stripped of their rights while many custodial parents feel they are forced to wait and wait through bureaucratic processes before receiving their money. There are some single parents who are happy with the way child support works, but they are hard to come by.
Chukwudera B. Okoli is a man in Massachusetts (I hesitate to even call him a "father") who has every right to hate the system right now. Currently, he's being forced to pay child support to the children born via IVF to Blessing Okoli, his former wife.
The story is so unfair, it will make you want to scream. But the issues it raises are even more troubling. Are sperm donors fathers now?
Even in the case of an anonymous sperm donor, the child support may be in the best interest of the children. After all, children need the support of two parents. But morally it's wrong. Isn't a man a person, too? Don't they have rights? What kind of mother purposely creates and gives birth to a child (or children) she can't afford and then changes her mind about an agreement?
Our legal system shouldn't be supporting such irresponsible behavior.
Biology doesn't make a person a father. That is done through late nights and changing diapers and school plays and cuddles. But the court says otherwise. The court says regardless of whether you and the mother signed an agreement, a person is legally obligated to support their offspring with their money whether they're involved with the children or not.
No one is going to donate sperm anymore if this is the kind of thing that happens. Okoli's case may be unique in that he was once married to the mom, but in the end, he is a donor and just a donor. Just like the anonymous ones in a sperm bank. Here is a man thinking he is doing a good thing and he gets sued for child support. It's so wrong.
The bottom line is that a single woman shouldn't have children she can't afford on her own. Part of good parenting is making good decisions for your family. Why would you have kids you can't afford?
An anonymous sperm donor -- or any sperm donor -- is not a father and no amount of child support can make him one. In the family court, every decision is made in the best interest of a child, but parents are people, too. They have rights. This tramples on men's rights and it makes women look incompetent. If you can't afford a child, for God's sake, don't have one.
Child support may make sense legally, but morally it's an absolute mess.
Chukwudera B. Okoli is a man in Massachusetts (I hesitate to even call him a "father") who has every right to hate the system right now. Currently, he's being forced to pay child support to the children born via IVF to Blessing Okoli, his former wife.
The story is so unfair, it will make you want to scream. But the issues it raises are even more troubling. Are sperm donors fathers now?
Even in the case of an anonymous sperm donor, the child support may be in the best interest of the children. After all, children need the support of two parents. But morally it's wrong. Isn't a man a person, too? Don't they have rights? What kind of mother purposely creates and gives birth to a child (or children) she can't afford and then changes her mind about an agreement?
Our legal system shouldn't be supporting such irresponsible behavior.
Biology doesn't make a person a father. That is done through late nights and changing diapers and school plays and cuddles. But the court says otherwise. The court says regardless of whether you and the mother signed an agreement, a person is legally obligated to support their offspring with their money whether they're involved with the children or not.
No one is going to donate sperm anymore if this is the kind of thing that happens. Okoli's case may be unique in that he was once married to the mom, but in the end, he is a donor and just a donor. Just like the anonymous ones in a sperm bank. Here is a man thinking he is doing a good thing and he gets sued for child support. It's so wrong.
The bottom line is that a single woman shouldn't have children she can't afford on her own. Part of good parenting is making good decisions for your family. Why would you have kids you can't afford?
An anonymous sperm donor -- or any sperm donor -- is not a father and no amount of child support can make him one. In the family court, every decision is made in the best interest of a child, but parents are people, too. They have rights. This tramples on men's rights and it makes women look incompetent. If you can't afford a child, for God's sake, don't have one.
Child support may make sense legally, but morally it's an absolute mess.
Tuesday, 6 September 2011
Single sperm donor in the US gave rise to 150 children
A 48-year old woman who gave birth to a son through artificial insemination was shocked to learn that he has 149 siblings, with more on the way, the New York Times reported.
Cynthia Daily used a Web-based search to connect with other families who had used her sperm donor, with the thought her son might be able to connect with a few siblings one day. But she could not have imagined the extended family would amount to the size of a typical high school graduating class in the U.S.
Daily's son is not alone - more and more parents who conceived using a sperm donor are learning their children have dozens upon dozens of siblings. The sheer volume of offspring from a single sperm sample, coupled with the high likelihood that the offspring will be close in age and live in close proximity to one another, is raising concerns about the possibility that some of these children -- many who are reaching adulthood -- may unknowingly become romantically involved with a half-sibling.
The threat of accidental incest sounds like a setup for a Farrelly Brothers comedy, but for children born of active donors, the possibility poses serious risks besides the eew factor.
Inbreeding - and for that matter, large numbers of children with the same parent - can spread genes responsible for rare diseases, potentially increasing the prevalence of those diseases. And children born of incest have a much higher rate of birth defects and health complications.
"My daughter knows her donor's [registry] number for this very reason," the mother of a teenager conceived via sperm donation in California told the Times. "She's been in school with numerous kids who were born through donors. She's had crushes on boys who are donor children. It's become part of sex education" for her.
Does the Father Abraham factor point to a need for more sperm donors? It's hard to say...the issue seems to be one of perceived quality, not quantity. In sperm, as in life, some specimens are simply more attractive than others.
According to the Times report, critics complain that clinics and sperm banks "are earning huge profits by allowing too many children to be conceived with sperm from popular donors." In some countries, there are limits imposed on how many offspring a single sperm donor can produce, but so far, no such restrictions exist in the U.S.
Because women who give birth through sperm donors are not required to report the child's information to sperm banks and fertility clinics - though some do voluntarily - the most reliable resource for families who conceived through a donor is Donorsiblingregistry.com, a resource created by Wendy Kramer and her son Ryan to provide children with information about their genetic origins. Here, parents and children can connect with unknown half-siblings by entering in their donor's registry number.
"They [parents] think their daughter may have a few siblings," Ms. Kramer told the Times, "but then they go on our site and find out their daughter actually has 18 brothers and sisters. They're freaked out. I'm amazed that these groups keep growing and growing."
Some donors complain that sperm banks willfully misled them into believing the number of children they might produce. One California-based donor, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Times that he discovered he had fathered dozens of children after his sperm bank promised him the number would be no more than give.
"It was all about whatever they could get away with," he said of the sperm bank. "It is unfair and reprehensible to the donor families, donors and donor children."
Cynthia Daily used a Web-based search to connect with other families who had used her sperm donor, with the thought her son might be able to connect with a few siblings one day. But she could not have imagined the extended family would amount to the size of a typical high school graduating class in the U.S.
Daily's son is not alone - more and more parents who conceived using a sperm donor are learning their children have dozens upon dozens of siblings. The sheer volume of offspring from a single sperm sample, coupled with the high likelihood that the offspring will be close in age and live in close proximity to one another, is raising concerns about the possibility that some of these children -- many who are reaching adulthood -- may unknowingly become romantically involved with a half-sibling.
The threat of accidental incest sounds like a setup for a Farrelly Brothers comedy, but for children born of active donors, the possibility poses serious risks besides the eew factor.
Inbreeding - and for that matter, large numbers of children with the same parent - can spread genes responsible for rare diseases, potentially increasing the prevalence of those diseases. And children born of incest have a much higher rate of birth defects and health complications.
"My daughter knows her donor's [registry] number for this very reason," the mother of a teenager conceived via sperm donation in California told the Times. "She's been in school with numerous kids who were born through donors. She's had crushes on boys who are donor children. It's become part of sex education" for her.
Does the Father Abraham factor point to a need for more sperm donors? It's hard to say...the issue seems to be one of perceived quality, not quantity. In sperm, as in life, some specimens are simply more attractive than others.
According to the Times report, critics complain that clinics and sperm banks "are earning huge profits by allowing too many children to be conceived with sperm from popular donors." In some countries, there are limits imposed on how many offspring a single sperm donor can produce, but so far, no such restrictions exist in the U.S.
Because women who give birth through sperm donors are not required to report the child's information to sperm banks and fertility clinics - though some do voluntarily - the most reliable resource for families who conceived through a donor is Donorsiblingregistry.com, a resource created by Wendy Kramer and her son Ryan to provide children with information about their genetic origins. Here, parents and children can connect with unknown half-siblings by entering in their donor's registry number.
"They [parents] think their daughter may have a few siblings," Ms. Kramer told the Times, "but then they go on our site and find out their daughter actually has 18 brothers and sisters. They're freaked out. I'm amazed that these groups keep growing and growing."
Some donors complain that sperm banks willfully misled them into believing the number of children they might produce. One California-based donor, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Times that he discovered he had fathered dozens of children after his sperm bank promised him the number would be no more than give.
"It was all about whatever they could get away with," he said of the sperm bank. "It is unfair and reprehensible to the donor families, donors and donor children."
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