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Fertility Fraud: Artificial insemination doctors who used their own sperm
- taneq 7y agoIf it was about a couple going to a doctor and the doctor replacing the man's sperm with his own, I'd understand this, but if a woman goes to a doctor and asks for a sample from an anonymous donor with no further stipulations then I don't see why the donor shouldn't be the doctor. Of course, they should have been open about it, but still.
- kuzehanka 7y agoAnonymous yes, random no, at least not that I have ever heard of. You get a catalogue of various physical and socioeconomic traits from anonymous donors and pick the one that you want. Replacing that with any other is certainly fraud.
- taneq 7y agoIf that's the case then yeah, that's absolutely not alright. :S
- bscphil 7y ago> You get a catalogue of various physical and socioeconomic traits from anonymous donors and pick the one that you want. Replacing that with any other is certainly fraud. It's fraud, certainly, but the system you're describing (I'm not familiar with it) seems to be open to abuses that are almost as unethical. Surely genetic health is the only thing it really makes sense to take into account when choosing a donor. Some choices (race?) seem particularly icky.
- matthewdgreen 7y agoI assume married couples generally choose a donor who physically resembles the father.
- taneq 7y agoYou choose all of those things when choosing a partner for making a baby the old-fashioned way. Why is it Ok in that case but not this one?
- bscphil 7y agoChoosing your partner with the intent of having particular genes for your child (other than, as I said, general physical health) seems unethical to me too. People do choose their partners on the basis of particular characteristics, but I would hope not for any reason so crass as manipulating the genes of their future children.
- kuzehanka 7y agoWhy is DNA testing not a mandatory part of the process? I thought embryonic genetic testing for show-stopping diseases was one of the major selling points of IVF. Would that not immediately set off alarm bells for paternity/maternity mismatch?
- H8crilA 7y agoNot necessarily - you don't need parents DNA to do those tests. Also DNA sequencing is one of those areas which experienced incredible cost reduction, much faster than for example general computing power under Moore's law. I.e. it used to be very very expensive. Heck, the first complete human genome sequencing was completed just 16 years ago, and the project took 13 years.
- kuzehanka 7y agoThere was a story a few weeks ago of screwup in IVF involving not-father's sperm combined with mother's egg by accident. The resulting child is now unwanted by the couple. Between that story and TFA, maybe it's time for regulators to step in and force DNA testing as early as possible in the process to positively confirm the match. It already costs an arm and a leg, what's another few hundred dollars to avoid creating black mirror situations.
- njl 7y agoThere are a multitude of different processes and procedures to deal with different kinds of fertility issues. It isn't uncommon to do a "fresh" transfer after a handful of days. Genetic testing is generally only going to be offered if you do a frozen transfer. Not all embryos are of high enough quality to survive being frozen, and a live transfer might be the only option.
- simpsond 7y agoPGS is offered as part of IVF protocols, but not required. There is some risk to damaging the embryo as there is a biopsy.
- knbknb 7y agoIf the adult child finds out what happened, and the insemination doctor is still alive, is the child then entitled to a part of the doctor's (future) heritage? Or if the child finds out when it is still small, or a teenager, will the child be entitled for child support payments from the doctor?
- Scoundreller 7y agoFor the inheritance, not if there’s a will. But not all countries let you disinherit your children.
- tluyben2 7y ago> But not all countries let you disinherit your children. For me it is very weird that some countries do allow it. I did not ask to be born.
- alistairSH 7y agoOn the flip side, once you reach maturity, why should you have any right to the estate of your deceased relatives?
- tluyben2 7y agoBecause they decided to put you here while you had no choice? What does maturity have to do with anything? Many people of whatever age have issues taking care of themselves. Not after being deceased but where would Trump be without getting bailouts from his fathers estate? I guess it depends what you are used to anyway. For me it seems weird as I am born in a country where it is illegal to cut your spouse and kids, for you it does not.
- geggam 7y agoEver thought you werent around to ask about your choice in the matter ?
- jobigoud 7y agoPeople at 23AndMe could run an anonymized query on their dataset to extract networks of lineages and see highly connected individuals. It would be fascinating to see some people with hundreds of offsprings because they are sperm donors. What if their own children become sperm donors, etc. If two persons are born from sperm donors I imagine they have to check in case they are siblings or closely related.
- almog 7y agoSince patients are likely to have geographical proximity, such an effect could be observed even if a Doctor commit that fraud just in just few occasions.
- mhh__ 7y ago> highly connected individuals I believe this is how they caught Joseph Deangelo
- oefrha 7y ago> run an anonymized query ... see highly connected individuals Doesn't sound very anonymized to me.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoAs the genetic sequencing graph grows, the odds of maintaining anonymity rapidly drops to zero. Poor choice of words on parent’s part, but I think one can understand what they were trying to convey (datamining the genotype matrix). Disclaimer: Interviewed at 23andme a decade ago. Good folks.
- bscphil 7y agoI think that commenter was thinking that 23andme would be able to identify many people as children of the same unknown person, but unless that person also submitted their DNA to the service, they would effectively be anonymous. An unknown parent of dozens or hundreds.
- hirundo 7y agoIn its long term effect this fraud is similar to serial rape. But that's also true of serial seduction under false pretenses. Should the punishment for these things also be similar? I don't know. From a Darwinian perspective even the death penalty is insufficient, since reproducing copiously is worth dying for. The only effective punishment would involve also killing or sterilizing the resulting children ... which is entirely unacceptable from our cultural perspective. So to a Darwinian insemination doctor this may be something like a perfect crime, in that there is no prospective punishment that outweighs the benefits.
- buboard 7y ago> From a Darwinian perspective even the death penalty is insufficient, Darwinism has no bearing on legal matters. In fact the entirety of laws are opposed to darwinism Plus we re probably the last generations that care for darwinism? It won't take long before it becomes normal to engineer your children.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- hirundo 7y ago> Darwinism has no bearing on legal matters. To a Darwinian rapist / insemination fraudster / seduction fraudster, this is a kind of loophole that he can slip through. Modern law doesn't sufficiently incentivise him to desist.
- kensai 7y agoI guess when these grown up kids face their doctors with a big axe in hand asking explanations about this fraud, they can yell to them the proverbial phrase: "Surprise motherfucker!" :-/ (it would have been funny if not so wrong...)
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- sooheon 7y agoCan't imagine what it's like to find this out as the offspring. On one hand it's a crazy violation of their very identity, on the other, they would not exist if not for that deception.
- buboard 7y agoThe white lies we tell each other to make society work are coming out one at a time. That's why france disallows paternity tests. Then again is society ready to move beyond the nuclear family? i dont think so
- wtdata 7y agoCan you clarify your rationale about why France banned paternity tests?
- leftyted 7y agoFrance banned paternity tests for the sake of filation, i.e. to protect the rights of children and to promote stable families. I differ with the previous poster in that I don't think that many men are unknowingly raising children that are not theirs. I've seen estimates that vary between .6% and 5%. I do think that a man ought to have the right to know if he's the biological father and I think it's understandable if he wants to leave if he isn't. Yes, familial bonds are important but what kind of family do you have if the lies run that deep?
- bscphil 7y ago> I do think that a man ought to have the right to know if he's the biological father and I think it's understandable if he wants to leave if he isn't. Yes, but I've always assume reasonable people want to know this because it would prove infidelity by their spouse, not because they specifically care that their child shares their genes.
- toasterlovin 7y agoMany of us have no interest whatsoever in raising other people’s children. Infidelity is a separate, though sometimes related, issue.
- bscphil 7y ago
- lota-putty 7y agoWomen who received Doctor's sperm instead of 1. Husband's sperm(low count) 2. Healthy stranger's sperm (Stranger was chosen) 3. Random donor's sperm 4. ? For 1 & 2 Doctor ought to be stripped from IVR practice, children should get 20y alimony. Additionally, in case of 1 children should also get inheritance.
- Kecelij 7y agoI am glad this happened, only shows that you shouldn't fuck with nature. If you are not supposed to have children, don't. Not like it matters anyway - why? To spread your genetic material and make another instance of a human producing toxic waste damaging the planet (in multiple ways - another consumer supporting the cancerous growth of FB, Instagram, Google, Tinder and Apple)? Is it not enough of us here? Spreading like a virus. Well, nature doesn't care anyway, and will kill us if this continues and then will carry on without us. Natural way is the only way. Fuck technology.
- tasogare 7y ago> Natural way is the only way. Fuck technology. Why are you not running in your primal forest instead of posting here? Genuine question.
- Kecelij 7y agoI am aware of my hypocrisy, but I would honestly rather live with primal tribes and not stress about all the shit happening with the world. I mean, what kind of a society will my eventual children grow into? 1984-Big brother world. Jesus. I would rather hunt a bear, then eat it for a week with my tribe, and then dance around the fire while drinking some psychedelic drink in the warm night, seeing all the stars and milky way without all the light pollution. Oh wouldn't that be just stress-free life?
- geggam 7y agoYou should try that for a week or two. Take an alaskan sabbatical or something. You will likely gain a new appreciation for modern society. That or be bear food.
- krapp 7y agoAt the very least they would gain a new appreciation for modern sanitation and medicine when eating that bear meat or drinking some water gives them a parasite or cholera - wait, sorry, we can't have the insight of modern education and technology - when the land has cursed them with an evil spirit.
- turtlecloud 7y agoSimple solution is to just work with a fertility doc who is female or a person of a different race than picked sperm. Will be obvious if child is mixed. I am worried about future ethics of DNA sequencing. Esp if lab techs are corrupted. That will prob be the future - bastard children at scale.
- arkades 7y ago> Will be obvious if child is mixed. You have misidentified the problem.
- faissaloo 7y agoI mean, that's a pretty damn effective way to ensure you reproduce on a grand scale, but I seriously question the impact it will have on the world. I'm already against sperm donation in general partly because of how much it can reduce genetic diversity, but I never factored this sort of rape-fraud (raud? fraupe?) thing into it
- keiru 7y agoI've posted several times about law lagging behind technology, and this is what I mean. If a new tech is in the horizon, you should already be able to realize what can be done with it, what damage it can cause. I can't believe they call it sexual assault. It's as if it was beyond the realm of possibility to create new lexicon and they had to use only existing terms.