GESTIÓN EN SALUD PÚBLICA: Man discovers that partner had sperm swapped for lover’s during IVF

domingo, 9 de septiembre de 2018

Man discovers that partner had sperm swapped for lover’s during IVF

Man discovers that partner had sperm swapped for lover’s during IVF

Bioedge

Man discovers that partner had sperm swapped for lover’s during IVF

by Xavier Symons | 8 Sep 2018 |

A Russian man has successfully sued an IVF clinic in Moscow after his wife secretly had his sperm swapped for a lover’s during an IVF procedure.

Maxim Anokhin and his wife Yana Anokina, 38, approached doctors at Kulakov Medical Centre in Moscow to receive IVF last year. While she underwent IVF treatment, Anokina arranged with a fertility specialist to have her husband’s sperm swapped without him knowing. Anokina had reportedly told the clinic she wanted the man she loved to be the father, but had let her husband pay for the treatment and kept him in the dark for the child’s first year.

Anokina only revealed the truth to her husband after their relationship went sour. The two are now in new relationships, but Mr Anokhin has sued the clinic that allowed for the secretive exchange to take place.

DNA tests proved that Mr Anokhin was not the father. Mr Anokhin's lawyer Olga Nemtseva said the clinic had a duty to her client and could not solely follow the wishes of his wife. The court found that clinic staff assisted the woman in swapping the sperm, and Mr Anokhin was awarded approximately US$6000 in compensation for his moral and financial damages.

The doctor involved in their case, Liya Kazaryan, mentioned in the lawsuit, has refused to speak in detail.

“I am not giving any interviews… I do not want to say a word on this matter,” she said.

But asked how a man could be certain he was the real father, she laughed: 'Only a woman can be sure”.

Anokhin said that the case was not about money, but about justice. He told reporters that he hoped that no men in the future were deceived as he had been.

Sunday, September 9, 2018

John Robertson was an American scholar in law and bioethics who died last year. He is best known for making a strong case for “procreative liberty”, whether procreation takes place naturally or with the help of technology. As a tribute to his influence, the current issue of the Journal of Law and the Biosciences contains several articles about this theory.

Robertson’s theme was that reproductive choices which do not harm the interests of others should not be subject to regulation or prohibition. In his best-known book, Children of Choice, published in 1996, he discussed abortion, IVF, surrogacy and pre-natal genetic modification. But time has moved on. The principle of effectively unconstrained “procreative liberty” is being used to justify other developments, some of which are discussed in the Journal, including unisex gestation.

What I found interesting was that Robertson, in a paper written not long before his death, agreed that a male pregnancy (after a womb transplant) could be ethically justified, but only if it were necessary for genetic reproduction. Even he wanted to draw a line somewhere.

However, the author of one of tribute essays questions this restriction. Enjoying the experience of gestation is reason enough, she says. (See below). I suppose that this raises the question of whether it is possible to draw any lines, anywhere, once we agree that reproductive rights should not be limited.