More adventures in the Reproductive Revolution: sperm donation
by Michael Cook | 12 May 2019 |
Hannah and her suitors
“Bachelorette” is a reality TV show on the ABC network featuring Hannah Brown, Miss Alabama 2018, and 30 suitors vying for her hand in marriage.
It may not be your cup of tea, but it draws in millions of people. The young men all have a four-day-growth, a friendly smile with perfect teeth, and tight shirts to show off their pecs. Very little detail is given about their professions. They include a political consultant, a sales manager, a pilot, real estate broker, a tech engineer ... and a professional sperm donor.
According to his ABC bio, Matteo Valles, from Atlanta, is an IT entrepreneur who moonlights as “'a sperm donor who has helped create 114 children for all types of families.”
As the Bachelorette website puts it, “talk about an ice breaker!”
What does this mean? The normalisation of sperm donation?
Ms Brown’s bio says that she has a “desire to be deeply and fiercely loved”. Good luck with that, Hannah!
A skirmish on the Dutch front. DNA results have confirmed that a Dutch fertility doctor, Jan Karbaat, fathered at least 49 children. Karbaat died in 2017 at the age of 89, but his offspring were only able to identify him recently. According to AP, the case has electrified the Dutch media, with its mixture “of unethical medical behavior, privacy issues, DNA testing, legal wrangling and the rights of children to know who their parents are”. The real number of Karbaat’s progeny could be higher and might even extend as far as the United States.
Michael Cook is editor of BioEdge
In our lead story today we focus on an apparent, and surprising, rift over euthanasia in Belgium. On the one hand the medical association recently issued guidelines which tell doctors to be more cautious about granting euthanasia for psychiatric reasons. On the other, the country’s leading right-to-die association is campaigning vigorously to grant euthanasia to patients with dementia. Apparently, even supporters of the country’s euthanasia law differ on the wisdom of making a liberal law even more liberal.
My feeling, however, for what it's worth, is that Belgium will keep relaxing its 2002 law until it becomes effectively euthanasia on demand. Doctors will become mere suicide enablers.
There may be one way to stop this process, or at least to slow it down. And that is to fire the chairman of the Federal Euthanasia Commission, Dr Wim Distelmans. This gentleman is not only the senior regulator of euthanasia in Belgium. He is also a media star as the chief spokesman for the right to die and one of the main practitioners of euthanasia. In other countries, this would be regarded as an egregious conflict of interest.
A new chairman who is not immersed in the world of Belgian euthanasia politics would be in a better position to identify abuses and refer doctors who fail to comply with the law to the public prosecutor.
My feeling, however, for what it's worth, is that Belgium will keep relaxing its 2002 law until it becomes effectively euthanasia on demand. Doctors will become mere suicide enablers.
There may be one way to stop this process, or at least to slow it down. And that is to fire the chairman of the Federal Euthanasia Commission, Dr Wim Distelmans. This gentleman is not only the senior regulator of euthanasia in Belgium. He is also a media star as the chief spokesman for the right to die and one of the main practitioners of euthanasia. In other countries, this would be regarded as an egregious conflict of interest.
A new chairman who is not immersed in the world of Belgian euthanasia politics would be in a better position to identify abuses and refer doctors who fail to comply with the law to the public prosecutor.
 Michael Cook Editor BioEdge |  |  |  |
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