Super donors

[EBearhug]

Radio 4 Desperately Seeking Sperm

the world of the "super donor" - men who compete to inseminate as many women as possible, in an acknowledged bid to spread their genes as widely as they can. Their activity can border on the obsessive."It is a bit like stamp collecting really," says one. "I devote three hours per day to it, through travelling to donate or arranging my spreadsheets or doing my photo albums of the children".

I don't know why I am so taken aback by the arrogance of some men - but listening to this programme, I was.

[PenguinsandtheTantrumofDoom]

I heard bits of this and found it horrifying. Yet somehow unsurprising. There was a guy with a wife who didn't know (or was that the similar women's hour segment )?

[Hakluyt]

It was one of those things where I suspect the men of being fantasists- and eager BBC researchers are taken in by them. Do we have any evidence at all that any of it's true?

[PenguinsandtheTantrumofDoom]

I didn't hear enough to know if there was evidence Hak. interesting point.

[EBearhug]

But even if they are fantasists, they're still coming over as arrogant egotists. All the guff about being quite intelligent (not sure there was evidence of that!), so reasonable to spread their seed as widely as possible. I suspect there are a lot of men for whom that thought is not just fantasy, but seems a perfectly reasonable belief, even if they don't act in it to the extent of having to maintain a database or even having sex (or a turkey baster) with another human being.

[Amethyst24]

I haven't heard the programme, which sounds fascinating, but surely there is some kind of register they have to go on, and some kind of control over how many times they can donate? Otherwise the risk of a future couple having the same father would be significant.

[AuntieStella]

In UK (I think it's the same for all parts), if you are a registered donor then the number of recipient families is limited (though they can each have siblings from same donor).

That is much safer than buying online sperm, which is unregulated in terms of number of recipients and STI testing. Also, unless through registered clinic, the donor could be pursued for CM or could claim and excercise PR.

[EBearhug]

I think they said registered donors can only have 10 (donations? Successful donations? Wasn't fully listening.) These superdonors do it themselves, by advertising on the internet, so are unregulated.

[PenguinsandtheTantrumofDoom]

10 families I think.

[OmnipotentQueenOfTheUniverse]

Didn't hear it.

Reminds me of that doctor in (us? uk?) who got done for telling women he was using donor sperm and he was nipping out to the bog and getting a nice fresh sample of his own and using that.

There was a cartoon with whatever town it was and all teh children looking like him, which stuck with me for some reason.

He argued that he was super-clever and amazing and the women were lucky they were getting his genes + his super fresh superior sperm...

Will google.

[OmnipotentQueenOfTheUniverse]

famous case

"During the course of the criminal investigation, another type of fraud came to light. For a variety of reasons, some patients had arranged to be artificially inseminated with sperm provided by screened, anonymous donors arranged by Jacobson. In order to preserve the anonymity of the donors, Jacobson explained, he identified them in records using code numbers; only Jacobson was to know their true identities. Investigators found no evidence that any donor program actually existed. Some of Jacobson's patients who had conceived through donor insemination agreed to genetic testing. At least seven instances were identified in which Jacobson was the biological father of the patients' children, including one patient who was supposed to have been inseminated with sperm provided by her husband. DNA tests linked Jacobson to at least 15 such children, and it has been suspected that he fathered as many as 75 children by impregnating patients with his own sperm."

How on earth do I remember all this stuff!