HeyReprotech's May roundup
HeyReprotech's May roundup
Read, listen, attend, participate...
Updates
Last year I wrote about a gay man who brought a constitutional challenge over Canada's sperm donation rules, which he argued were discriminatory. The rules stated that any man who had had sex with a man (MSM) in the previous three months was ineligible to donate.
On May 8, the rules around sperm donation changed — a bit. "The amendments remove the previous MSM-related donor screening criteria for both sperm and ova donors," Health Canada announced in an email. "Sperm donors will instead be asked gender-neutral, sexual behaviour-based donor screening questions."
All donors, not just gay and bi men, will now be questioned about whether they have had anal sex with a new partner in the preceding three months. They will also be asked if they have had more than one sexual partner in the preceding three months.
Gregory Ko, the lawyer representing the man bringing the challenge, says that's not quite good enough. "[T]here is no reasonable scientific basis to maintain blanket prohibitions based on sexual activity when the quarantine and testing procedures are already sufficient to detect individual donors with relevant infectious diseases and thereby safeguard the sperm supply," he wrote in an email to me earlier this month. "Specifically, all sperm donors are required to be tested at the time of their donation, their donation is held for 6 months, and then the donor is retested before a donation can be released."
Their challenge will continue.
Reads
Ellen Trachman. "Will Texas Follow Alabama’s Rocky Path For IVF And Embryos?" Above The Law. 22 May 2024.
Carl Zimmer. "Scientists Calculated the Energy Needed to Carry a Baby. Shocker: It’s a Lot." The New York Times. 16 May 2024.
Anya Kamenetz. "Inside Facebook’s Free-Sperm Economy Frustrated with the industry’s high fees, some women have gone online to meet men eager to donate their semen." The Cut. 14 May 2024.
Arthur Leader. "Fertility add-ons in Canada: Is it time to end the silence?" BioNews. 07 May 2024.
Emi Nietfeld. "The Parents Who Want Daughters—and Daughters Only." Slate. 07 May 2024.
Antonio Regalado. "Scientists are trying to get cows pregnant with synthetic embryos." MIT Technology Review. 06 May 2024.
Emi Nietfeld. "America’s IVF Failure." The Atlantic. 02 May 2024.
Listens
Steve Inskeep. "No One's Children: America's long history of secret adoption." The Atlantic. 10 Mar 2024.
"Learning the truth of my secret adoption. Adoptees have a right to know their stories. Why did the state keep my past a secret?"
Events
05/06 Jun - Monash Bioethics Centre online seminar - Genetic Screening in Gamete Donation: Perspectives from Stakeholders
11 Jun - Cambridge Reproduction's in-person forum - Transpositions - Interdisciplinary Conversation: Queer Reproduction
12 June - British Sociological Association Human Reproduction Study Group Annual Conference, in-person - Education on the Life Cycle of Fertility and Reproduction
29 Jun - Donor Conception Network virtual conference - London 2024 Revisited
5 Jul - online-only conference, day one - Broadly Conceived Conference 2024
6 Jul - in-person-only conference, day two - Broadly Conceived Conference 2024
7-10 Jul - ESHRE - 40th Annual Meeting
Studies
University of Bristol, University of Kent, University of Liverpool - Children's Voices in Surrogacy Law
University of Sheffield - The Digital Donor Conception Study
Fertility Alliance - Patient Survey
Universite du Quebec en Outaouais - Contact Project: The experience of gamete donors contacted by their donor offspring
Queen Mary University of London Remaking Fertility online survey
University College London - Survey about long-term health of men affected by fertility problems
University of Ottawa, University of Waterloo, University of Manitoba and others - Surrogates' Voices
University of Kent - Egg freezing for social reasons
University of Birmingham - Survey of LGBTQ+ parents
Leeds Beckett University - The online sperm donation project