Posted on 05/21/2006 11:55:33 AM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
(CBS) CHICAGO It's a trend that some fear may have long-term consequences. More unmarried women over the age of 25 are not waiting for Mr. Right.
As CBS 2's Alita Guillen reports, these ladies are having children on their own.
The fantasy father at their fingertips is a sperm donor with all the right stuff.
Katherine Gehl and April Lashbrook had successful careers and dated, but they didn't have husbands. They heard their biological clocks ticking loudly.
"It was like a time bomb," April said.
"I need to go and have a baby and be a mother, and so I did," Katherine said.
Women used to depend on chemistry in the bedroom to conceive a child. Now, more and more women are turning to the lab and depending more on science than sex.
This twist on the mating game begins at a sperm bank, where donors can earn up to $900 a month.
"These guys are college students. This is a form of income," said California Cryobank Medical Director Dr. Cappy Rothman.
The sperm undergoes testing for diseases, genetic defects and blood type.
"Donor sperm, in many ways, is guaranteed good sperm," said Dr. Lauren Streicher, a gynecologist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
When April chose her donor in 2003, she got a long profile including a medical history and even written answers to questions.
"I knew immediately that was who I was going to choose," she said.
Now, many banks offer much more, including childhood photos and the donors' voices on CD.
Once chosen, the sperm remains frozen and stored until needed. Then it can be shipped anywhere.
While women can inseminate themselves at home, both April and Katherine used fertility specialists.
Many of these donors have already proven their fertility.
"It's an excellent way of getting pregnant because you usually have men who have confirmed pregnancy," said Dr. Brian Kaplan, a fertility specialist with Fertility Clinics of Illinois.
"We are creating a real potential disaster here," said Elizabeth Marquardt with New York City's Affiliate Scholar Institute for American Values.
Some critics are concerned that as this practice becomes more popular, and that with an unknown number of children from the same donor, that two of them might unknowingly hook up.
"In the future, we will have to have a DNA test with anyone we want to have sex with just to make sure we're not related to them," Marquardt said.
Many sperm banks say they try to limit pregnancies based on geographic area to reduce that risk. However, in a transient society, it may be hard to do.
Critics also worry how this might change the definition of family.
"As a society, we're saying fathers don't matter," Marquardt said.
Thirteen-year-old Liz Herzog, whose father is donor number 1002 from Virginia's Fairfax Cryobank, says she's happy with her life.
"I can't even say that once in a while I wish I had a father, because I don't," she said.
Through the Donor Sibling Registry Web site, she has discovered at least 10 half-sibling and has met seven, including Callie from Pennsylvania.
Liz's mother, Diana, thinks these newly forged relationships will last a lifetime.
"You can only hope that your child will be well-adjusted and happy enough when they grow up that they won't feel that they're missing too much," Diana Herzog said.
April's daughter, Julia, is now almost three years old.
"When she was born, it was just amazing," April said.
Katherine's daughter, Alexandra, is eight months old.
Both are enjoying every moment motherhood has to offer.
"It is so much greater than I had any idea," Katherine said.
April, Julia's mom, knows of six half-siblings so far.
All of the single moms we spoke with think the possibility of meeting and dating a half-sibling is very remote because they are very open or plan to be open with their children.
It is interesting to note that back when sperm banks first opened in the 1970s, it was all married couples seeking sperm donors. Doctors say those couples were more likely to keep it secret.
Children need a mother and a father, real actual people, married, that they live with. Of course, sometimes that just can't or doesn't happen. But to purposely create children artificially, for purely selfish reasons, is nothing less than evil.
Sex and children go together for a reason. The more people try to separate this natural law, the worse society becomes and the more misery for countless individuals is created.
Okay, I'll be the first to agree with you on that part of "genetic disaster". I believe that one needs to do backround checks before a relationship gets serious these days. Learned the hard way. It would be nice if "healthcare professionals" touched upon this in middle school, during science class, rather than pollute young minds with hardcore sexual material.
I wasn't clear enough, which happens quite often;-) What I was thinking was half brothers and sisters unknowingly getting together. Chad isn't going to fall in love with the maid's daughter, who was conceived by a career criminal. It doesn't matter how perfectly healthy you are, multiply that by a couple of generations, and we're going to see problems. You can see what inbreeding did to the Royal Houses of Europe. It helped topple the Russian Empire.
Lol, did I explain a little better?
Your cynicism and callous disregard for the cruelty of abortion, and the destruction of embryos necessitated by artificial conception is evidence of the diminution of what makes human civilization human and civilized.
When moral abolutes are eliminated, then nothing has meaning. Except, of course, whatever the big dogs say has meaning. Society turns into "Might Makes Right".
Or, unbeknown to each, the father with one of his daughters.
I don't see this catching on in Arkansas.
Yesterday, another Triple Crown went up in smoke and today a team of surgeons are working to save the leg of a proud stallion while anoter plots to milk his testicles dry; if Barbaro lives, he'll spend his days making bank deposits for his owners.
Surely a horse can't be smarter than a man.
Your dad was #1002?
MY dad was #1002!
Oh my god... you're my half sister!
Eeeeewwwwwwwwwww.
No need to wait a few years, because according to the article:
"Through the Donor Sibling Registry Web site, [Liz] has discovered at least 10 half-sibling and has met seven, including Callie from Pennsylvania.
"Liz's mother, Diana, thinks these newly forged relationships will last a lifetime."
You don't seem to be paying any attention to the rational statements of others.
Feminism is a bunch of total crap, that many men have promoted. "Why keep a cow when you can buy milk in the market" kind of philosophy. Free sex, free mutual exploitation, broken hearts and families, abused, neglected and murdered children. People looking at others as objects for enjoyment, and when the enjoyment is over, discarded.
Your statements seem to say that you don't mind this picture.
I would hope that the records are stored under the control of a third party in some other country who can tell any US judge to get stuffed. But the sperm banks probably are not thinking ahead like that, and the college students supplying the sperm aren't thinking of that either
I left off something to my reply to you. College age women are selling their eggs. Now you have Joe and Susie college selling their reproductive material (sperm and eggs). How tight can these labs control that not only half siblings, but even full siblings don't eventually procreate? Joe and Susie could meet, fall in love and get married. They could have their own naturally created offspring. Scary, yeah?
Joe and Susie could meet, fall in love and get married. They could have their own naturally created offspring. Scary, yeah?
DNA test
These women are going to find out, to their dismay, that they are going to NEED a father to keep their kids under any sort of control once they become teens. A number of divorced/single-mom women I know belatedly discovered that
That only matters if you care what others think. And you certainly don't have to care what others think about it!
Between the ones who kill their own babies and these kind of gals who think there's an endless supply of frozen sperm...hell, the world is just crazy.
Pretty soon they'll just start tossing the boy babies into sperm incubators and just raise the girls.
He disapproves of the choice they made, so he jumps to the conclusion that they've made other choices he doesn't like. Around FR, that's what passes for reasoned analysis.
Nope, I see nothing wrong with raising the child yourself in the case of rape.
No I grew up in a household where the father was in the home and because of social stigma the mother stayed and DV was rampant and it still came out wrong.
I know for a fact that many of these women have crossed the border illegally for the sole purpose of voting democrat and supporting stricter gun legislation, and plan on seeing the Da Vinci Code multiple times.
If I had wanted to be preached too, I would went to church.
"But to purposely create children artificially, for purely selfish reasons, is nothing less than evil."
How do we know it is solely out of purely selfish reasons?
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