Reproductive Technology Responsibilities

It hardly appears too much to expect that those engaged in providing artificial insemination services engage in reasonable, moderate business practices. They are, after all, dealing with human life and human lives. But then while this is an important issue for women wishing to conceive, fertility clinics are in the business to make money. They wouldn't be eager to impose a bottom line curb on profits.

One supposes that semen donors are a special breed. Not at all squeamish about the fact that they will have sired children through the use of their semen, and have no knowledge of the resulting children - and, of course, no responsibilities. It might be an ego thing for those men who supply their semen for this purpose; quite aside from the commercial aspect.

The knowledge that they have passed on their DNA seamlessly, painlessly, and without much of an effort to prepare the event by acquiring a life partner and investing much in the way of emotion and work to raise a family of young in a well-balanced household might seem attractive.

It seems strange to the onlooker that some men must simply be uncurious about the process, viewing it as a business arrangement, nothing more nothing less. Perhaps they take pride in the knowledge that there are many children brought into the world who resemble them, who have inherited some of their genetic qualities, including personality traits and physical appearance.

Things are not all that complicated for the donor, actually; it's an agreed-upon exchange. It's far more complex with respect to the clinics, those in the infertility industry who make up their own rules, make their own arrangements, operate their business for profit and gain. Operating guidelines, one might imagine, include medically vetting the health condition of the donor.

Other vital guidelines one might imagine, would be to ensure that no single donor is over-represented in the largesse of his semen distribution. Yet this vital area seems to have been casually overlooked. Although it's hard to believe that not much thought has gone into the potential of a single door, ultra-replicated through resulting offspring passing on genetic malformations as a possibility.

And when, as has recently been revealed, some sperm donors have been responsible for large numbers of offspring, anywhere from one hundred to a whopping unheard-of-thousand, accounting for years of donations, the potential prospect of half-siblings meeting without knowing their respective backgrounds, falling in love, marrying and having offspring of their own.

This does not result in healthy genetic exchanges; it does lead the way to inadvertent incest and tragic genetic mishaps. Even where a clinic and sperm bank does impose what seems like reasonable restrictions where donors can be limited to three live births per 100,000 population in a geography, in a bustling metropolis of millions, that can result in 75 offspring.

It's time that the federal government steps in to the situation to enact useful guidelines backed up by legislation reflecting best-practise rules on the limits of offspring to result from one donor.