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Golly gosh, you learn something new every day about the IVF industry. And you thought it was just about gurgling, picture-perfect infants. IVF porn is one of those sordid things that everyone knows about but no one has the stomach to talk about. Last year’s “Private Life”, a highly-praised Netflix film about a middle-aged couple going through IVF, is typical. Equipped with a cup, the exasperated husband enters a cubicle where a wall-mounted screen is playing hard-core porn. It’s part of the fertility furniture. Back in 2010, a British health think tank, 2020Health published a brief report, Who Said Pornography...

When Benedicte Blanchet, a 40-year-old who lives in a Paris suburb, decided that she wanted to have a child on her own and not wait to meet the right man, nothing prepared her for the costly obstacle course that was to follow. Under existing laws in France, which are among the strictest in western Europe, only heterosexual couples who are married or have been living together for at least two years and have difficulties conceiving a child, are given access to medically assisted reproduction, such as sperm donation or in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments. “It’s really hard. Since the French...

In a major win for the LGBTQ community, Switzerland lawmakers approved the legalization of same-sex marriage last week. At the same time, the law also allowed transgender people to alter their legal gender at civil registry offices in the country and allows lesbian couples to conceive children using donated sperm, Reuters reports. Despite passing parliament, the same-sex marriage law may have to pass a national referendum in the coming year. However, activists expect a potential referendum to succeed, after a recent survey found support for marriage exceeding 80% in Switzerland. Campaign group Marriage For All posted a statement on their...

No country should allow the sale of children or the intentional creation of orphans, which, make no mistake, is exactly what is happening with surrogacy. A British man living in the United States who has recently begun a romantic relationship with his daughter’s ex-boyfriend bought a baby and is being praised by media for it. Barrie Drewitt-Barlow paid about $100,000 for his new daughter, Valentina Willow. He is most proud of the baby girl’s looks.“Every parent thinks their baby is the best-looking baby in the world, but the truth is Valentina Willow is the best-looking baby in the world,” Drewitt-Barlow...

The state Senate on Wednesday voted to no longer make it a felony for someone infected with HIV to knowingly expose others to the disease by having unprotected sex without telling his or her partner about the infection.The crime would be downgraded to a misdemeanor, and the bill would also apply to people who donate blood or semen without telling the blood or semen bank that they have acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, or AIDS, or have tested positive for human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, the precursor to AIDS.The measure, which next goes to the Assembly for consideration, was introduced by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco),...

Sitting in her basement den, 12-year-old Danielle Pagano looked expectantly at her parents as they walked into the room. Their body language was awkward, she recalled. "There's something we need to talk to you about," said her mom, in a serious tone. The next few sentences made Pagano's head spin: Her dad was not her biological father. Instead, she was the product of donor insemination. "They said they'd had fertility problems and used an anonymous donor," recalls Pagano, a 22-year-old international relations student from Seaford, L.I. The soon-to-be teenager took the news badly. [...] "Parents who don't tell the truth,...

MICHIGAN, United States, May 23, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Demonstrating again the dangers of artificial procreation, doctors reported last week on the case of five children fathered by the same sperm donor have inherited a rare and often fatal disease from him. The rare disease naturally affects only about one child in five million, said Dr. Lawrence A. Boxer, director of paediatric haematology and oncology at the University of Michigan, who discovered the cases. When four families with affected children came to him in one year, "it became pretty striking," he told the AP. The families had seven children, including...

http://www.canadiancrc.com/articles/Patriot_News_Sperm_donor_loses_appeal_child_support_23JUL04.htm Sperm donor loses appeal on child support The Patriot News, Friday, July 23, 2004, BY REGGIE SHEFFIELD of The Patriot-News, Harrisburg, PA, U.S.A. The state Superior Court yesterday ruled that a man must pay child support to a woman who conceived twin boys with his sperm through in vitro fertilization.The opinion upholds a Dauphin County Court order filed in 2002. Joel L. McKiernan now must pay up to $1,500 each month, but he argued that an oral agreement he had with Ivonne V. Ferguson protected him from any payments, according to court papers. When McKiernan agreed to be a...

His name is Mike Rubino, but until recently none of the women who bought his sperm to get pregnant had ever seen him or known him as anything other than Donor 929. Rubino left the sperm business for good a few years ago, thinking it would be another decade at least before any children found him. Now he is standing inside the Los Angeles International Airport, staring at an arrivals gate, awaiting the appearance of two children he has fathered but never met, along with their single mother, a Massachusetts psychotherapist named Raechel McGhee. At that moment, 44-year-old McGhee and...

If you think that comparing Evangelical Christians to the Taliban sounds extreme, you might just be a normal American. But if you think that the comparison is valid, you might just be a supporter of North Carolina Senator Julia Boseman. In fact, Boseman’s supporters have just launched a new website making that very comparison. Even worse, they go on to say the following of both Republicans and Christian Fundamentalists: “Hate is their currency. Ignorance is their sacrament. Racism is their communion.” Julia Boseman’s attacks on Evangelical Christians began months ago in one of the most disgraceful episodes of political passive...

KOLKATA: A childless couple's quest for a baby has ended in the hopeful mother contracting HIV. In what is being termed by doctors as Asia's first case of HIV from artificial insemination, a woman fertilised with sperm from an unknown donor has contracted the dreaded virus. The woman discovered she was carrying the virus when she underwent a medical examination in August 2002 as directed by an NGO from which she wanted to adopt the child. The woman and her husband approached the adoption agency after six attempts at artificial insemination since 1997 failed. The case has stunned doctors of...

It's not the physical attributes or medical history of sperm donors that worry many Indian couples opting for assisted reproduction. Their main concern is religion, a report said yesterday. Infertility specialists in the western city of Bombay said two in every 10 couples contemplating in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) insisted on knowing the religion of the donor, the Asian Age newspaper reported. Gynaecologist Hrishikesh Pai said: "Recently a couple insisted the sperm be from a Catholic donor. After a lot of counselling, they agreed to a general donor. Muslims, too, are particular about the religion of the donor." One couple from the...

<p>The U.S. Supreme Court denied Monday an unusual request by a California inmate to impregnate his wife through artificial insemination.</p> <p>The justices left intact a federal appeals court ruling that inmates do not have a constitutional right to procreate.</p> <p>The action dashes the parental hopes of William Gerber, 42, who wanted to ship a special overnight package to his wife, Evelyn -- via a sperm bank -- containing a semen sample. He was willing to pay all costs.</p>

DAVAO CITY — Over 300 Muslim religious leaders from all over the country announced on Wednesday the official Islamic canonical decision (fatwah) on reproductive health and family planning. The new fatwah allows the use of both natural and artificial contraceptive methods, except for tubal ligation and vasectomy. "The assembly finds reproductive health and family planning program, as practiced under valid reasons and recognized ancestries, are in accordance with the teachings of Islam," the fatwah stated. However, it stressed that family planning for the Muslim community in the Philippines should be anchored on the principles of non-coercion, responsible parenthood, and informed...

Italy bans donor sperm and eggs Italy's Senate has overwhelmingly approved a law which bans the use of donor sperm, eggs or surrogate mothers. It also limits the right to artificial fertilisation to "heterosexual couples in stable relationships", excluding gay couples and single women. The bill, one of the most restrictive in Europe, has drawn support and criticism from across the party lines. BBC Rome correspondent Frances Kennedy says that the bill has pitted Catholics against liberals and men against women. The legislation, passed in the Senate by 169 votes to 90 on Thursday, will now be sent back to...

CALGARY, Alberta, Dec. 16 (UPI) -- An Australian fertility clinic is advertising for Canadian sperm donors at the University of Calgary, Alberta ,in exchange for a trip down under. The New South Wales clinic reportedly can't find enough donors in Australia, so is offering a two-week, all-expense paid trip to Australia for those that pass pre-screening blood tests. The Albury Reproductive Medicine Clinic blames the shortage on a recent Australian law compelling donors to disclose their names. Previously, they could remain anonymous. Calgary was chosen because an employee grew up in the city, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. said. Ruth Keat,...

lesbian who conceived a baby after buying sperm on the Internet has given birth to a boy, it was reported today. Jaime Saphier, 26, from Merseyside, gave birth to her first child by emergency Caesarean section at Liverpool Women's Hospital. Her mother Susan Saphier told the Liverpool Daily Post: "Jaime went in to hospital on Monday, but the baby failed to arrive and the doctors were so concerned they decided to perform an emergency Caesarean. "Jaime said to me 'I can't believe I'm a mum'. I told her I loved her and felt proud she was a mother. "The...

Sperm donor clinic for lesbians Website entrepreneur to open centre for single and gay women as calls grow for changes to fertility act A controversial fertility clinic, which will focus on helping lesbian couples and single women to become pregnant using donated sperm, is to set up in Britain. In a direct challenge to moral conservatives and fertility regulators, the businessman behind two websites offering sperm and human eggs is taking over an existing clinic in Bristol, which will be renamed the Man Not Included New Life Centre. John Gonzalez will target his services at lesbians and single women despite...

She has her father's cheekbones, his high energy, his height and his affable nature. But for 6-year-old Sayana Chappell- Lombard, daddy died several years ago and is in heaven. Sometimes, says her mother, Victoria Chappell, a Renton schoolteacher, Sayana goes to the back yard, looks up at the sky and shouts: "Daddy, can you hear me? I love you Daddy." In 1993, Chappell was engaged to Sayana's father, former UW Husky linebacker Arlando Lombard, who was dying of brain cancer. Before he began chemotherapy, which can leave a patient sterile, he had some of his sperm frozen. Lombard died in...

The Gay Gamete Project was developed as a means to ensure the genetic survival of homosexuality;to assure that the decline in homosexual procreation does not result in our eventual extinction. Homophobic Guidelines: The FDA has been in the process of promulgating national regulations that would prohibit clinics from accepting sperm from homosexual applicants since 1999. The decision will likely be finalized before 2003. Due to these homophobic guidelines as well as those proposed by the ASRM, it is unfortunately necessary for gay men to lie about their sexual preference and sexual history in the application and interview process. Gay men...