'Cryo kids' : sperm donor children lobby to end anonymous donors

They often can’t find their dad and if they do, chances are he’s moved on.

Now, though, sperm-donors’ children are banding together to try to ban anonymous sperm donation in hopes of saving future generations from the frustrating search that all too often ends in heartbreak, according to the Associated Press.

Using Internet-based social networking sites and other timely events, they’re banding together to reach their goal.

Earlier this summer, the film, "The Kids Are All Right," hit movie screens, telling the story of two siblings who track down their sperm-donor dad. And weeks earlier, a study from the Commission on Parenthood���s Future entitled, "My Daddy’s Name is Donor," looked at nearly 500 donor offspring and found that they were more prone to depression than other young people.

The commission called for an end to anonymous sperm donation. Meanwhile, newspaper op-ed articles and blogs have been both pro and con on the anonymity issue.


For more on this story follow the link: http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/health/2010/08/17/2010-08-17_family_matter_sperm_donor_children_lobby_to_end_anonymous_donations.html#ixzz0wz1jmMqp

Meet The 25-Year-Old Sperm Hunter

Lara Carter has slept with 20 strangers in the past year - in a desperate and reckless bid to get pregnant.

The self-confessed "sperm hunter" uses ovulation kits to tell her when she is most fertile then pretends to be drunk, throwing herself at unsuspecting fellas and making it obvious she wants sex.

If Lara, 25, meets a man who wants to use a condom, she will offer one from her purse - which she has already pierced a hole in.

Lara, an assistant office manager, says: "This is absolutely the right time for me to have a baby and nothing is going to stand in my way. "All my friends have babies and I desperately want to be a mum. "I don't have a steady boyfriend and feel my time to have a baby is running out. I only need a man to provide his sperm - I would have no interest in seeing him again. That is why I'm a sperm hunter."

Her obsession with getting pregnant started a year ago, when she attended the birth of a friend's baby. She says: "The moment I saw my friend hold her newborn child, I had a huge desire to feel that love too. "I've always loved babies and wanted to be a mother from a very young age but from that moment it become an obsession. I have made it my mission in life to get pregnant."

For more on this story follow the link: http://foreign.peacefmonline.com/entertainment/201008/71834.php

Offspring of sperm donors seek changes so they can find their fathers more easily

Katrina Clark and Lindsay Greenawalt have much in common. Bright women in their 20s, raised by single mothers, keenly curious about the men whose donated sperm helped give them life.

Clark's search for her father succeeded after only a month, though with a bittersweet aftermath. Greenawalt is still searching, seven years after she started — persisting despite doubts and frustrations.

"I've dreamt of you since I was a little girl," Greenawalt wrote to her unknown dad in a Father's Day blog posting in June. "There are so many things I want to know about you."

Greenawalt, who lives near Cleveland, and Clark, a college student in Washington, D.C., are part of an increasingly outspoken generation of donor offspring. They want to transform the dynamics of sperm donation so the children's interests are given more weight and it becomes easier to learn about their biological fathers.

One specific goal — a ban on anonymous sperm donations — seems far-off in the United States, although Britain and several other European countries have taken that step.

But the voices of donor offspring are being heard more widely and clearly than ever, thanks to Internet-based social networking and other recent developments.

For more on this story follow the link: http://www.wtvr.com/sns-ap-us-sperm-donor-dads,0,321887.story

Jennifer Aniston branded 'destructive to society' after saying women don't need a man to have a child

Jennifer Aniston has lost a friend in right-wing news pundit Bill O'Reilly.
He's said she was being 'destructive to our society' for saying that women don't need to wait for a man to have a child.
The 60-year-old Fox News TV rottweiler lashed out on his show at the remark by the 41-year-old actress.

'Aniston can hire a battery of people to help her, but she cannot hire a dad, OK? And Dads bring a psychology to children that is, in this society, I believe, under-emphasized. I think men get hosed all day long in the parental arena.'

In The Switch, Aniston plays Kassie, a single woman who is desperate for a baby and decides to have artificial insemination to fall pregnant.
Her best friend Wally (Jason Bateman), who is in love with her, drunkenly switches the donor sperm with his own, and doesn't tell her.
Speaking at the Four Seasons hotel in Beverly Hills, Aniston said she still wishes for a family of her own.
'Yeah, I have said it years before and I still say it today,' she said. But will she turn to the 'turkey baster' method, like Kassie?
'I don't have plans on that, no,' says Aniston. But speaking to Entertainment Weekly recently, she hinted 'I'm on the verge of it in some way... it's something I long for.'

People magazine quotes Jennifer saying, 'the point of the movie is what is it that defines family? It isn't necessarily the traditional mother, father, two children and a dog named Spot.

'Love is love and family is what is around you and who is in your immediate sphere.
'That is what I love about this movie. It is saying it is not the traditional sort of stereotype of what we have been taught as a society of what family is.'

For more on this story follow the link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1302526/Jennifer-Aniston-destructive-saying-women-dont-need-man-child.html

Complaints against Marie Stopes TV ad rejected

Despite 1,054 complaints from the public, GPs and MPs, the advisory watchdog has quashed criticisms against the first televised abortion advertisement in the UK.

The campaign, which was broadcast throughout May and June of this year, was condemned by some as misleading, offensive and harmful for its advice surrounding unplanned pregnancy.

A spokeswoman from the ProLife Alliance said, ‘It is preposterous to assert that the ad was not misleading.’

The television commercial was criticised for promoting abortion, for failing to take in to account the views of fathers and for offending religious beliefs.

For more on this story follow the link: http://www.marieclaire.co.uk/news/health/494386/complaints-against-marie-stopes-tv-ad-rejected.html

The old ones are the best - survey shows older generation have higher quality sperm

The results of a recent sperm investigation come as no surprise to many experts. They warn that older generations may actually be more fertile than younger guys.

Environmental influences and increasingly unhealthy lifestyles, they say, may be triggering these plummeting sperm counts.

We've recently seen this theory in action, with two men becoming fathers in their 70s. The Sun told last month how Raymond Calvert, 79, was overjoyed at having son Jamie Rai with partner Charlotte, 25.

Meanwhile, pensioner Richard Roden, 72, announced in June that his wife Lisa, 26 - with whom he has 18-month-old twins Emily and Ruby - is pregnant again.

But these super-fertile old chaps may be a dying breed, warns sperm expert Dr Allan Pacey from the University of Sheffield.

He says: "We think sperm counts have declined in recent years. For some reason, today's men are not as fertile as their fathers. The main theory is that something in the environment - we don't know what - is affecting the development of the testicles in the womb.

"When men reach adulthood, their testicles perform less well and produce fewer sperm."

Bulging waistlines and unhealthy diets may also be contributing to lower sperm counts.

But older sperm is more likely to have genetic defects, he cautions, with babies born to older dads more likely to have health problems.

For more on this story follow the link: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/woman/health/health/3082192/Older-generation-are-more-fertile.html#ixzz0vj77hkPc

Sperm donor inquiry to close

A Senate inquiry into rules governing sperm and egg donation in Australia will stop accepting submissions on Friday.

Issues up for discussion include payments for donors, the number of offspring born from each donor, and the rights of donor conceived persons.

A same-sex couple wrote to complain about time constraints placed on using sperm from the same donor, as well as the number of women that could use sperm from the same donor under NSW’s Assisted Reproductive Technology Act.

“As of January 1 2010 the definition of how many people were allowed to use the same donor in Australia [changed to] ‘how many women’ rather than … ‘how many families’,” the couple wrote.

“I cant see any reasonable reason for this change in legislation which would only affect lesbians. It seems very homophobic.”

Most submissions to the inquiry have been from donor-conceived children calling for the same rights to information about their donors as adopted persons have about biological parents.

For more on this case follow the link: http://www.starobserver.com.au/news/2010/07/28/sperm-donor-inquiry-to-close/28603