Sperm Drought

Thanks to recent laws that donors have to be contactable once the child they have helped to conceive turns 18, there has been a massive shortage of sperm in australia. The Colbert Report even did a riff on it.

So what are your views on sperm donation? Being a clivic minded individual who has been blessed with obscenely good health the thought of 'giving the greatest gift' to the childless did appeal to me. But I ultimately decided that doing a great service to a women would be doing a great disservice to a child conceived in such a manner. Giving a single woman a kid means robbing a child of their father, and I don't bide with that.

But what is your opinion?

edited 2nd Jan '11 6:28:32 AM by joeyjojo

hashtagsarestupid

AFAIK most people who come in for sperm are couples who can't have kids together.

My opinion on the law is that it's stupid.

Fight smart, not fair.

I'm all for sperm donation. I think that forcing the donors to be contactable is probably a mistake for the market, but it means that sperm has a higher premium, so for those guys who want to go to a spank bank and get compensated more for it, if they're willing to get calls from the kid when he's 18, by all means.

"But I ultimately decided that doing a great service to a women would be doing a great disservice to a child conceived in such a manner. Giving a single woman a kid means robbing a child of their father, and I don't bide with that." - joeyjojo

... so why exactly does a child need a father here?

That said, I wouldn't donate sperm because I have type 1 diabetes and am afraid to even risk passing on my type 1 diabetic genes. I feel I should leave reproduction to the genetically healthier... and yet, I have yet to get a vasectomy. o.o

No love then for all the Gene Hunting bastards and their quest to find their lost kin?

edited 2nd Jan '11 7:53:24 AM by joeyjojo

hashtagsarestupid

'tis indeed a fools errand.

You don't happen to know any one who tried by any chance?

hashtagsarestupid

Well, I also think that it's kind of messing up your priorities. One's father is the one who raises one. Zero one one. Err-you know what I mean.

Genetics is good for knowing whether you're likely to go bald and everything, but I find it kind of odd to seek emotional attachment to someone you've never met. And the attitude that encourages it makes adoption and sperm donation wrought with peril. And when you have a law that reinforces that attitude, it's just a bad policy in my mind.

Not exactly a huge hot-button issue and, like I said, it has the potential to make those willing to put up with it marginally richer people.

edited 2nd Jan '11 8:08:14 AM by TheyCallMeTomu

Donating sperm enables people who otherwise couldn't have children to ... well, to have children.

And That's Terrible!.

Oh, wait...

This just in:

Enabling people to have children - especially with the extra effort that's required for people to get their hands (or other things) on donor sperm making sure that they really are willing and ready to become parents - is a good thing.

edited 2nd Jan '11 8:16:04 AM by BestOf

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

Indeed. It's just DNA. The only useful thing that comes from Gene Hunting is that one might gain additional knowledge about your families medical history.

Now if you excuse me, Starfleet is about to award the Christopher Pike Medal to my dick. — SF Debris

Which could be resolved with genetics research anyway, then we can just analyse the DNA itself to determine medical issues (also keep it private so that insurance companies can't get at it)

it has the potential to make those willing to put up with it marginally richer people.

It's very marginal in Oz. There are strictly laws forbidding the trade of living tissue. similar to adoption they can only legally pay the donor for his time and expenses. So you never get the quadruple digits for sperm that you see in the US. There is a up shot but that any donated sperm is legally property of the donor till it enters the recipient's body and he is free to place any vetoes he's see as appropriate.

edited 2nd Jan '11 8:43:51 AM by joeyjojo

hashtagsarestupid

Wait wait wait.

Wait.

Wait.

Wait.

Quadruple digits for sperm? Will someone tell me why I haven't tried this yet?

Quadruple digits might be an exaggeration for what, from what I know, is essentially masturbation for a good cause.

Also: that is a really stupid law. If I decide to donate sperm, I do not want someone who I will, as likely as not, detest coming around to my house and presuming that I'd want to have anything to do with him-or-her.

It's not for your benefit. It's to keep your medical history after the time of the donation from becoming a blank spot for them. The donation place will have it available up to the time you donated, but what about things that may show up after that — The argument is that things like Huntington's Chorea don't generally show up until middle age, and most sperm donors are younger than that, so it probably won't be in the medical history the kid got, and they have a right to know it's in the family medical background.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

I considered doing this, but I was rather pissed off about how they don't want to pay you to do it unless you have a bachelors and above.

I'm a physically fit, intelligent, and healthy male. I don't need a bachelors degree to be a good donor god damn it.

They could just make a law to have sperm donors update thier medical history with the sperm bank so they can pass it on with the name removed.

Now if you excuse me, Starfleet is about to award the Christopher Pike Medal to my dick. — SF Debris

[1]

[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.

You can get that high with Nobel Prize donors, but they are elite super men who are better then us.

hashtagsarestupid

You can get paid money with a bachelor's degree? Hot damn! This piece of crap will finally be worth something! Quick: sign me up!

I read somewhere that they actually only want someone willing to make repeated efforts or something.

"I considered doing this, but I was rather pissed off about how they don't want to pay you to do it unless you have a bachelors and above." - Barkey

Really? Any proof of this?

/Phoenix Wright style music plays.

It doesn't necessarily mean that the child would be raised by a single mother. The mother could be a lesbian, a woman planning to raise the child with a man she is not sexually/romantically involved with, or have a husband who is sterile for whatever reason.

Because two parents are better than one? Because Boys Need Role Models?

"All pain is a punishment, and every punishment is inflicted for love as much as for justice." — Joseph De Maistre.

girls need dads too

hashtagsarestupid

I honestly thought about donating just encase I gt killed or something came up. Not sure what the laws are in my state though.