To be incredibly pissed off at male sperm donors..

[LexiVexiBear]

Who only offer their 'services' if it's through natural insemination (I.e having sex with the woman) or the woman performing a sex act on them!

I more than likely am but just need a rant! A dear friend of mine and her girlfriend have decided that they would like nothing more than to start a family but since they cannot afford IVF they have went down the route of sperm donation and artificial insemination. The thing is most of the 'donors' they have found that are in the same location (or close) and contacted more or less demand NI which really isn't an option for these two ladies!

I'm sorry I know people have preference and some women pick NI, nothing wrong with that as it can be more affective that artificial insemination but honestly in my opinion these men are completely sleazy and are preying on desperate women for sex! They claim to be offering their services because they want to help and make a difference yet they only want sex?!

Yes, there are numerous sperm donors but unless the women picks NI I don't think men like this should be allowed to take advantage of women or couples who are desperate for a baby!

Acutally, homophobia doesn't come into it:

It's like this: I think ALL people who deliberately deny a child a chance to know it's father (unless the father is a criminal or abusive) are irresponsible.

I don't care what their sexuality is; so don't try the silencing cry of homophobia on me.

It's like somebody saying they don't like alcohol and others crying, 'you don't like vodka! What have you got against vodka?!! Your vodkaphobic.'

Which misses the point that they don't like any booze.

Well I think it's wrong to deliberately deny a child a chance to know its dad regardless of sexuality of the mother.

As a bloke, I'm shocked this even exists.

1. It just seems very sordid of the guys involved. I completely accept that some women are desperate and so take a choice that ultimately works out for them but the guy's behaviour is shameful imo.
2. I don't even get why people are charging so much (if at all). £500 or whatever for sperm is ludicrous. Blood donors give a damn site more blood away for free than some guy knocking one out into a cup or whatever the process is. I know which one I'd prefer and it's not the needle.
3. You'd have to be stupid to open yourself up to the potential financial claim that could ensue. A quick calculation from the child maintenance sit would mean that £500 (assuming i were to bother taking it) would leave me open to paying £132 per week assuming I'd not be liable for anything else. That's 1 kid. Make absolutely no sense whatsoever.

"But legally when you are in a same sex relationship the children born from it - through whatever method - are the women's children. End of."

Velvet, is this the case only if the women are in a CP or is it true in other scenarios?

Hope you don't mind me asking.

Juditz, how's your campaign against delinquent fathers going?

Juditz I will try anything I want to.

It isn't homophobia - no, not as such. It is 'people are different from me'-phobia.

It isn't as cut and dry as 'I hate lesbians' absolutely not. I daresay most people who are anti non-conventional ways of conceiving a child are not technically homophobic: many probably DO have 'friends who are gay.'

But just as sexism can be insidious and can take many forms so can homophobia and I'm afraid this is one way people reveal through the cloak of 'concern for the child' that they may not be against people gay - but gay people being like them? Gay people having families, being - gulp - normal?

The same umbrella actually covers single people. Taking charge of your own life and choosing how and when and with whom you have a family with without a mans 'permission' - people dislike it. Despite the weight of evidence that it doesn't harm and in fact if anything benefits the child people insist on the child as being the reason they are against this.

It isn't. If people were concerned about children they would surely be urging women to avoid men. Men - especially men not related to the child in question - are the most dangerous form in a child's life, statistically speaking. I'm not of course speaking about Mr Jones devoted father of two who is great.

I will say again - save your pity.

And thank you for comments regarding my sense. Trust me I have frequently lacked it in the past! But that's given me a perspective and I can understand why someone would be driven to do this. If it isn't what you would do accept it and move on - but for Gods sake that does NOT mean we should go to this pub you apparently all frequent where men wanting to have sex with lesbian women are so prevalent.

Actually fair point you probably just described my local!

ABland - it depends on their wishes. If you're in a relationship, even if you aren't married or in a CP you can I am fairly sure have your GFs name on the birth certificate - actually you definitely can as two friends of mine weren't married when their son was born (they were the ones spending £28000 to get him.) He's worth it! But - yowch!

Thanks!

ABland Velvet is wrong on this one.

If a same sex couple, who are married or civil partnered, have a child via an anonymous or known donor at a licensed clinic, or a known donor via an AI arrangement, yes then the same sex couple will be the legal parents of the child.

If a same sex couple is not married or civil partnered and have a child via an anonymous or known donor at a licensed clinic they will then be the legal parents as long as the correct consent forms are completed prior to conception occurring. However this is an evolving area of law and so dependent on the circumstances it could be argued that the known donor might have some rights regarding a relationship with the child and so consulting a specialist fertility lawyer is highly recommended.

If any same sex couple, either married, civil partnered or not, enter into a NI agreement with a sperm donor then the woman who carries the child and the sperm donor are considered the legal parents of the child.

This is why really considering the implications, having specialist fertility counselling [whereby all these legal issues and others are flagged] and probably also consulting a specialist fertility lawyer are so important.

It staggers me to think that there are women having children with known donors having none or very little understanding of the long term implications, especially legal ones.

I can understand the longing to have a child but just please make sure you do your research and make good use of specialist advice and information before proceeding.

You only need to google to bring up cases whereby this sort of donation has gone horribly wrong... for the recipient, for the donor and perhaps especially for the resulting child/children.

Sorry, and I should have added that if a married/CP same sex couple use a known donor at home in an AI arrangement they should be both considered the legal parent of the child so long as a donor contract is in place [drawn up by a fertility lawyer].

Basically, the only people who really understand are those who have no other option, bit like me and my surrogate baby.

I have a relative who is in a lesbian relationship who decided she wanted a child, so she went on a single holiday, came back unpregnant so continued seeing him until she was .... Then ditched him and told him when the child was 4 and she wanted to send her to a private school .....

Poor fella, he was a sperm donor who didn't even get the choice, if these sorts of options were about 28 years ago, then the father would have been aware of his offspring and not shocked to his very core (as was his wife and other child that had come along after his "holiday romance" )

If there are women desperate enough to agree to this and men desperate enough in another way to want it, well, they deserve each other.

But the man should think of CM. He will be liable. He had better create a fake name and make himself untraceable. Since by definition he is a shit that won't bother him.

Or of course we could reverse the foolish decision to allow donor babies to find bio-daddy at 18 and get more donors again. If I had ever been a donor I would be afraid, be very afraid, of some bloody Minister deciding that if the mother fell on hard times and benefits I should be sent the bill for my act of altruism.

Andrew there are no shortages of male sperm donors but people choose sometimes to go a different route.

Thank you for that information Nutcracker. My friends certainly were on the birth certificate in 2011 but that was of course done via a clinic.

Velvet the supply dried up (as it were) when the law changed - if it has recovered I am glad to hear it. But the different route sounds full of danger, physical, emotional, legal, financial, to both adults and the child.

Or of course we could reverse the foolish decision to allow donor babies to find bio-daddy at 18 and get more donors again. If I had ever been a donor I would be afraid, be very afraid, of some bloody Minister deciding that if the mother fell on hard times and benefits I should be sent the bill for my act of altruism.

Yep. That puts me off too. I'd otherwise be quite happy to help parents who need a donor, but I wouldn't want to be contacted in future, nor would I want to take the risk of being chased for maintenance.

Andrewofgg I'm sure that most donor conceived people appreciate that there are now records whereby they can potentially contact their donor if they wish or need to do so from the age of 18.

It's not only the wishes of some donors and recipients that are important here.

You have to remember that donor conceived babies and childrens grow into adults and should have the right to information about their genetic history. However it is also not forced upon them, it is their choice whether or not to obtain the identifying information of their donor and any donor conceived half siblings.

Then don't do it. Simple.

But don't come on here talking ill-informed nonsense.

Not as many men offered their sperm after 2005. It still left plenty.

You wouldn't be chased for maintenance because the woman would have no idea who you were and because legally you are not the child's father.

Velvet I know a donor is not the child's father and the mother does not know who he is.

But the law could be changed to make him liable, and to make the clinic disclose his identity to CMEC or whatever it is called this week. That's a risk which must put off many young men.

As for disclosure to the now-adult; as long as the line is held that it does not apply to donations before the law was changed I don't feel strongly about it.

The law could hardly make them liable after donation. That isn't even an argument: it's a superstition. A silly one at that.

People who do not want to donate don't have to. The lesbians and singles of the UK will cope.

BBC article from June this year on the shortage of donated sperm in UK and the need to import it.

I read the first line and eye rolled.

Clinics rely on success rates. They need the strongest possible sperm. Certainly for the London Women's Clinic, out of every 100 men who 'apply', 90 are turned away.

Some women choose to have imported sperm, either because they don't want any of the UK ones for whatever reason or because of some other reason. This still has to have UK laws regarding anonymity.

If I wanted to have IVF or IUI tomorrow fear not, I could. Or at least start the process.

It's basically prostitution, except that instead of doing it for money the women are doing it for the chance to be a mother.

I don't really see the difference.

If they were that opposed to it, they'd do it through the normal (clinic) channels

clearly they have made a decision to do it the cheaper and easier way, the price of this is to prostitute themselves for a free shag

If both parties consent I suppose it's up to them

I'd be more worried about getting a STD than anything else

Velvet Before the Child Support Act great numbers of men had reached agreement with their ex-wives approved by the court to hand over their houses in exchange for no maintenance.

When the Treasury decided to try to get more money out of fathers (quite right in itself and for the future) those arrangements were cynically torn up by Act of Parliament. Perhaps I should say that I was not one of the men concerned!

So don't be sure that the same thing could not happen again. It only takes one case of a donor child reaching adulthood and finding that Sperm Daddy has got rich while s/he was growing up in poverty and HMT will be onto it.

andrewofgg fertility law cannot be changed retrospectively.

For example, that is why it is only donor conceived people conceived after 2005 who will be able to access identifying information about their previously anonymous donors.

Donor conceived people conceived prior to this and after 1991 when the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act was enacted can only obtain non identifying information about their donor... unless their donor has informed HFEA that they are willing to be known. All other donation is non identifying.

It is a fallacy that the law would and could be changed to contradict the conditions under which donors donated in good faith at that current time.

It can only be changed applying from that date onwards.

You don't really see the difference, do you?

If we take that line, then a woman who wants sex is akin to a prostutute because instead of wanting money, she's wanting sex.

Stop press. Woman who wants a baby has sex.

I'll try again to explain that there are a myriad of reasons a woman might decide a clinic is not for her. One of these is financial. As discussed, IUI (generally seen as the cheapest method) still costs well over a thousand pounds for even one attempt. IVF is more like seven or eight thousand.

Fertility treatment is not risk free. It is also invasive and uncomfortable as well as expensive. It is time consuming and it is remote. You know next to nothing about the man who will share half your child's genes.

Some people opt to save thousands, to not put their body through the gruelling demands of fertility treatment and to know something about the donor. And they're like prostitutes. Lovely. What a tolerant country the UK indeed is!

Andrew why are you here?

What do you have against women accessing donated sperm?

The law, as nutcracker has already explained, cannot be changed retrospectively. The reason the laws around fertility treatment and donated sperm and egg have changed is NOT so father and child can have an emotional reunion at 18; it is so a child, when they are an adult of course, can trace their medical history.

The law does not recognise donated sperm as a father. It makes no difference if Bill Gates donated his sperm; the fact still stands.

There are many things to consider when deciding to have a family in a same sex partnership or as a single woman but idiotic scaremongering is unhelpful and unbelievably annoying.