Fertility isn’t easy. It’s assumed. We feel that as humans, it’s our God-given right to reproduce our own offspring. But then, as life would have it, biology doesn’t always work. A close friend once related to me in a whispered phone conversation, “I never thought that this would happen to me. I never thought that I would be one of these people.” Unable to conceive, she turned to In Vitro Fertilization (IVF). The CDC reports that in the United States the number of women between the ages of 15 and 44 with impaired ability to have children is now 7.3 million or 11.8%. This number is the same for those who have used infertility services.
Men can also be infertile. Sperm depletion is affected by:
- Infections
- Genetic conditions
- Age
- Lack of healthy food
- Stress
- Alcohol
- Drugs,
- Marijuana
- Cigarettes
- Chemicals
- Tight underwear
- Hot tubs
- Saunas
In vitro fertilization (IVF) has steadily grown in use during the last few decades due to public awareness, IVF insurance, and accessibility. Previously, before doctor-perfected techniques existed, there was only sperm donation, also known as artificial insemination or donor insemination (use of another’s sperm).
In the United States, sperm banks are regulated by the CDC, the FDA, and other legal associations. The
first clinical sperm donation took place in 1884 at the Philadelphia Medical School. A chloroformed woman was inseminated with the sperm of the “best-looking” medical student (with the knowledge of her husband). She conceived and later gave birth.
Author Lennard J. Davis chronicles this story as part of his brief history of sperm donation in his new book Go Ask Your Father. It is his obsession with finding his origin of paternity long after the deaths of his parents and Uncle Abie—who claimed that he himself (as a sperm donor) was the biological father of Davis. The father who raised him, Morris (Abie’s brother), had an episode of mumps and later suffered a bout of gonorrhea, probably leaving him sterile.
He writes, “In 1941, Seymour and Koerner published a highly influential article about artificial insemination in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The article, which noted the exponential increase in the number of children born as a result of artificial insemination, caused an uproar and resulted in a public debate about the morality of the procedure. Doctors such as Alan Guttmacher, who was president of Planned Parenthood, became major supporters of the technology, seeing it as part of an overall plan to give parents and doctors more control over reproduction. In that same year, one survey estimated that ten thousand pregnancies had been brought about by artificial insemination, two-thirds of which used the husband’s semen alone. If the survey was accurate, that means that by 1941, about thirty-three hundred babies had been conceived by donor insemination. Within the same decade, if what Abie {his uncle} said was true, I would join their numbers.”
Once looked upon as immoral, “the Roman Catholic Church still disapproves,” donor insemination has become legally and socially acceptable—it’s taken 100 years. Though many moral and legal issues surrounding sperm donors have dissipated, remaining problems for offspring deal with abandonment, identity, and genetic diseases.
Today’s generation of sperm donor children are, like Davis, turning to DNA identification, when applicable. DNA identification is also being used to determine paternity from possible known fathers. A good example of its use Davis says is the case of Mick Jagger and the Brazilian underwear model Luciana Morad. Jagger was found to be the father of a seventh child and he agreed to pay $35,000 monthly to Morad. Likewise, Larry Birkhead, after DNA testing, was found to be the father of the deceased Anna Nicole Smith’s child. He was given custody of his child.
Pointing out the problems with today’s bioethics, Davis, also a professor of Medical Education, mentions that today “there are now upward of a million children who have been born by donor insemination.” He adds that this business has grown substantially, with an estimated 30,000 babies conceived each year through donor insemination. The first generation, like Davis, have reached adulthood, some wishing to know who their biological fathers are. But like the opening of adoption records, “the culture of secrecy shifts” and donors are beginning to be identified. In 2005, donor anonymity was done away with in the United Kingdom.
Go Ask Your Father is an enticing, minute memoir embodying the short time period of the author's search for his roots and identity, but the book also embraces Lennard Davis's pursuit of his entire existence.
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