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Hundreds of well-bred rabbits took the opportunity to make new acquaintances and reproduce when a roof collapsed at Sweden's premier rabbit show in Nyköping in February. The Local reported at the time that the Nyköping exhibition, 100 kilometres south of Stockholm, had attracted 1,648 rabbits and their owners to the vast indoor tennis complex. When the roof collapsed in the wake of a spate of heavy snowfalls, many of the prize pets found their cages had opened and they were at liberty to roam as they pleased amid the debris. Workers tasked with clearing the fallen roof soon found that...

When a lesbian couple from Terrace, B.C., decided they wanted a child of their own, they were overjoyed that a good friend agreed to donate his sperm.They were going to have a family. Before the child was born in October 2006, the donor signed an agreement stating that the female couple would be the parents and that he would consent to an adoption of the child. But since the child's birth, things haven't gone according to plan. The donor began making frequent visits to the female couple's home and referring to the child as "his son" in the community. He...

Baltimore, Md., Nov 18, 2009 / 03:41 pm (CNA).- The U.S. bishops have approved a document regarding the moral use of reproductive technologies for couples struggling with infertility yet desire to have children. The document, titled “Life-Giving Love in an Age of Technology,” examines the procreative and unitive aspects of marriage which lead to the creation of children, and analyzes how technology can be used to assist infertile couples.The document  begins by declaring that “in marriage, man and woman are united to each other, body and soul, through a loving physical union.” This union, they explain, is essential to...

As Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar prepare for baby No. 19, they have a big hurdle ahead of them: coming up with another name that starts with the letter J. Let's face it, they're probably running out of good ones! So Jim Bob told PEOPLE that the family would welcome a little assistance: "We'd love to hear from the readers at PEOPLE.com to come up with a special name for this child." While there are many J names still available, many of them might not be the right fit for the newest Duggar. And, we can't have any repeats so...

ATLANTA - THERE aren't just fewer jobs in the US recession. There are fewer babies, too. US births fell in 2008, the first full year of the recession, marking the first annual decline in births since the start of the decade and ending an American baby boomlet. The downturn in the US economy best explains the drop in maternity, some experts believe. The Great Depression and subsequent recessions all were accompanied by a decline in births, said Carol Hogue, an Emory University professor of maternal and child health and epidemiology. And the numbers have never rebounded until the economy pulled...

Six prisoners in British jails have applied to have children with their partners following a landmark European court ruling that their human rights would be breached if they are prevented from becoming fathers. The inmates, all serving long sentences and including at least one murderer, claim they or their partners will be too old once they are released and should be allowed to donate sperm now for artificial insemination. It follows a long legal battle over whether their right to fatherhood is guaranteed by the Human Rights Act. The case was brought by Kirk Dickson, 34, who is serving a...

A beaming Dr. Karen Mapes appeared on "Larry King Live" this week to discuss the epic birth of octuplets she supervised at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Bellflower, but the ticker at the bottom of the screen said it all: "OCTUPLETS OUTRAGE." The story of Whittier mom Nadya Suleman has quickly turned from medical miracle to public fury -- so much so that Suleman herself complained in an interview that aired Friday on NBC's "Today" show that society is unfairly judging her. [Snip] Suleman is an unemployed graduate student, lives with her parents and already had six children under...

Eating a half serving a day of soy-based foods could be enough to significantly lower a man's sperm count, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday. The study is the largest in humans to look at the relationship between semen quality and a plant form of the female sex hormone estrogen known as phytoestrogen, which is plentiful in soy-rich foods. "What we found was men that consume the highest amounts of soy foods in this study had a lower sperm concentration compared to those who did not consume soy foods," said Dr. Jorge Chavarro of the Harvard School of Public Health in...

NEW YORK: News that scientists have for the first time genetically altered a human embryo is drawing fire from some watchdog groups that say it’s a step toward creating "designer babies". But an author of the study says the work was focused on stem cells. He notes that the researchers used an abnormal embryo that could never have developed into a baby anyway. "None of us wants to make designer babies," said Zev Rosenwaks, director of Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. The idea of designer babies is that someday, scientists may insert particular genes...

'Might our religion be killing us?' That's what a Baptist minister was asking recently in an editorial in USA Today. Rev. Oliver "Buzz" Thomas writes: Be fruitful and multiply," says the book of Genesis, and Lord knows we have. To the tune of more than 300 million at home and more than 6 billion abroad. But as we go about the heavenly task of multiplying, a poignant question arises: Might our religion be killing us? Insert the deep dark foreboding music. We all remember the Aztecs. Some say their religion, with its penchant for violence and human sacrifice, played a...

This could be reality, according to Bryan Sykes, an eminent professor of genetics at Oxford University and author of "Adam's Curse: A Future Without Men."

London, England (LifeNews.com) -- A new report indicates artificial reproduction could take place with a capsule inside a woman's body rather than using traditional treatment at a fertility clinic. Pro-life groups are concerned that the "progress" in fertility treatment continues to commodify human life. The Invocell technique involves the mixing of eggs and sperm in a pill-like container that is placed inside a woman's vagina for three days. Full Story at http://www.lifenews.com/bio2414.html

Over at the Corner, they’re quoting Bruce Thornton: [Europe is not reproducing because] “children are expensive. They require you to sacrifice your time and your interests and your own comfort. If your highest good is pleasure, if your highest good is a sophisticated life, then children get in the way. Why would you spend so much money and so much energy on children if your highest good is simply material well-being? That’s sort of the spiritual dimension of the problem.” Read Dr. Melissa Clouthier on the news that she was pregnant with twins at challenging time of her life H/T...

For procreation, it has always taken two to tango. But scientists from the UK's Newcastle University have taken reproductive biology where it has never gone before - creating a human embryo from three parents, two women and a man. The scientists believe the technique will help prevent women with diseases of the mitochondria - tiny batteries within each cell that provide energy - from passing on the defects to their children. Mitochodrial DNA is carried from mother to offspring and faults in it can cause about 50 known diseases, some of which lead to disability and death. Researchers from Newcastle...

ANAND, India - Every night in this quiet western Indian city, 15 pregnant women prepare for sleep in the spacious house they share, ascending the stairs in a procession of ballooned bellies, to bedrooms that become a landscape of soft hills. A team of maids, cooks and doctors looks after the women, whose pregnancies would be unusual anywhere else but are common here. The young mothers of Anand, a place famous for its milk, are pregnant with the children of infertile couples from around the world. The small clinic at Kaival Hospital matches infertile couples with local women, cares for...

SOMETIMES when the earth shudders it doesn’t make a sound. That’s what happened in Harrisburg, Pa., recently. On April 30, a state Superior Court panel ruled that a child can have three legal parents. The case, Jacob v. Shultz-Jacob, involved two lesbians who were the legal co-parents of two children conceived with sperm donated by a friend. The panel held that the sperm donor and both women were all liable for child support. Arthur S. Leonard, a professor at New York Law School, observed, “I’m unaware of any other state appellate court that has found that a child has, simultaneously,...

DUBLIN -- Female sharks can fertilize their own eggs and give birth without sperm from males, according to a new study of the asexual reproduction of a hammerhead in a US zoo. The joint Northern Ireland-US research, published today in the Royal Society's Biology Letter journal, analyzed the DNA of a shark born in 2001 in the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha . The shark was born in a tank with three potential mothers, none of whom had had contact with a male hammerhead for at least three years. Analysis of the baby shark's DNA found no trace of any...

An article in The Wall Street Journal (April 12) breathlessly informs us of the latest fad on the Incredible Shrinking Continent -- "As Religious Strife Grows, Europe's Atheists Seize Pulpit: Islam's Rise Gives Boost To Militant Unbelievers; The Celebrity Hedonist," the headline teases. The "Celebrity Hedonist," isn't geriatric frat-boy Hugh Hefner, but Michel Onfray, a 48-year-old author dubbed "France's high-priest of atheism" in the Journal piece. Reporter Andrew Higgins describes the doyen of disbelief -- commander of the faith-less -- strutting onto the stage of Caen's 500-seat Alexis de Tocqueville auditorium, dressed in black from head to toe, to deliver...

January 26 2007 The Times January 18, 2007 Mother wins a grandchild from tomb of soldier son David Sharrock in Ramat Gan Rachel Cohen was praying at her son’s grave when a call on her mobile phone brought news that she had been awaiting for four years. An Israeli court had cleared the way for her to become a grandmother. The legal decision is unprecedented because her son, Keivin, who was shot dead by a sniper in Gaza in 2002, never knew the woman who will become the mother of his child. She was selected by a family charity and...

In a remarkable op-ed appearing in the Washington Post, a young woman named Katrina Clark explains what it's like to know that you are the child of an anonymous sperm donor. It's not fun. The essay could be Exhibit A in any argument about the morality of artificially assisted human reproduction. The child of a loveless, sterile union between gametes speaks with authority when she reminds us that nobody asked for her opinion on the circumstances of her birth. Her mother (whom she still admires) got the baby she wanted. But the baby didn't get a father she could know....