What a Woman Can Do With Your DNA

There are some simple facts of biology. Men usually produce millions of viable sperm cells on an ongoing basis. A man is able to do so starting in puberty and lasting most of the rest of his life. Sperm cells can leave his body while he's asleep. He doesn't have to have an orgasm to expel sperm cells.  New human life takes place inside women. Women get pregnant, men do not.

There are some basic realities of current law. Once a woman has possession of a man's sperm cells, he has lost any control, legally, he has over them.

When a sperm cell leaves a man's body, he loses all control of his own DNA.

Here are the things a woman can do with YOUR sperm cells, men:

Train Wreck Thrills Dennis Prager

Dennis Prager was so thrilled with an article that he happily read it and touted it on his radio show, had the writer on his show, and linked to the article on his website. Dennis Prager was downright giddy about it.

Turns out this guy is his friend. Now, I don't expect Dennis to trash his friend, especially on the air. Instead, he simply should not have mentioned the article. But Dennis couldn't help himself, because he's so obsessed with advocating that people marry and have children that he lauds it even if it is clearly a train wreck.

Dr. Laura and Dennis Prager would both be called conservative talk show hosts. Yet I  think Dr. Laura would, in most of my points below, agree with me. If Dennis' friend had called Dr. Laura on the air and proposed what we'll see below, Dr. Laura would have probably ripped him a new one.

Enough intro.

Joel Alperson wrote at Medium "How to Marry and Have Four Newborns at 60."

Right off the bat, that's a huge NOPE!!!

A Chinese woman in her late 40’s and an American man of almost 60 were finally living their dream.

Over ten years of age difference. Not good. Of course Dennis, being married to a woman 15 years his junior, has no qualm about that.

Wei (my wife) was a perfect fit and throughout the nine years she worked for us, there was never a flirt or hint of anything romantic between us. That was more my doing than hers.

After all, she wasn’t Jewish (and I wanted to have a Jewish family), she was an employee, she lived in China and was married. What’s more, it was around the time I hired Wei that I met the woman I would marry.

So this a second marriage (at least) for each. Most second marriages divorce. Different country, different culture, was an employee, different religion... how many red flags can there be?

But, as life is rarely predictable and sometimes horribly unfair, this seemingly impossible-to-marry single, who married for the first time at 47, saw his marriage end in divorce after only seven years.

That was to be expected since you married at the first time at 47.

I was shattered. The part of my life I most wanted was now over.

After finally starting a race that almost everyone else I knew was running, I found myself behind the starting line again.

Getting married and popping out kids is a race?

But it’s funny, things can happen when one is running out of time. As options narrow, choices that once seemed crazy can seem perfectly reasonable.

That's called desperation.

Who would help me start my search for a wife in China? It was Wei.

The woman who became his next wife. Conflict of interest?

It was only after months of meeting other women in different parts of China, usually after Wei had traveled to, yes, meet and pre-qualify them, that I finally noticed her.

This isn't romantic. It's a mess.

After over ten years of employing her, I told Wei that of all the women I had met in China, the one I most wanted to be with was her. She was stunned — both for the reason I expected and for one I hadn’t: she had committed to marry another man.

I felt even worse when she added that she had been interested in me for years. But, like a professional poker player, she’d had no “tells”. She never betrayed her feelings even slightly.

This is so painful!!!!

But Wei’s marriage was troubled from the beginning. Though married, they lived in different cities, seeing each other and communicating with one another rarely. The last straw was when Wei learned her husband was communicating with other women via a Chinese chat service.

Is she bad at picking men? Or does she neglect them?

She separated from him and virtually all contact between them ended.

That what she told you.

It was after this separation and her plans for a divorce that we started talking about our future together.

Why include a detail like this? Maybe you're protesting too much?

Given that a divorce in China can be appealed and the extreme acts some in China will take to save face, Wei’s escape ultimately involved her hiding from her husband for almost two years.

Yeah, this is a way to start a marriage.

Another challenge was how we could quickly have the two or three children we wanted (yes, we have four . . . remember that part about life being unpredictable?). As Wei was still living in China, we chose to have our children in Asia.

Remember, she was in her 40s. He was in his 50s. They rented wombs, which, especially in other countries, can be fraught with ethical issues.

And as she was too old to have them naturally, we used surrogates. The laws surrounding this type of childbirth forced us to operate in multiple countries.

Maybe that should have been a clue!!!

A friend helped us find two surrogates — in Thailand of all places. And the embryos were implanted in Cambodia (don’t ask about the room where I gave my sperm sample. The awful porn DVD they were playing was, to put it mildly, not helpful).

So it was ALLEGEDLY his sperm. Has he done a DNA test? Whose eggs were used? Another ethical consideration.

How many human beings were discarded in this process? ("Extra" embryos)

As their due dates approached, the surrogates traveled to China where our children were born. You’re probably thinking, “Wasn’t there an easier way to do this?” Maybe, but I don’t regret our choice because the result was four happy, healthy children.

You could have adopted embryos or born children, you know, instead of intentionally creating children whose parents will be elderly before long.

The moral of this story? Actually, there are three.

Don't marry. Don't have kids. Avoid working with women.

The first is that fear can destroy one’s life and it had seriously compromised mine. It was fear that kept me from confronting my dad over the very poor relationship we had.

Oh, hello.

Adoption is a Beautiful Thing

Do you know where your children are?

DEADLOCKED IN NEW JERSEY wrote in to Dear Abby:

My husband and I have been married 11 years.

So far, so good.

We went through eight years of fertility treatments before having our twins.

Hmmm.

When they were a year old, we discovered I was pregnant with our third child.

Surprise!

We have two embryos left and need to decide what to do. We either use them or destroy them.

Those embryos are human beings. Think about it this way: "We have two toddlers left. Do we raise them, or do we destroy them?" Fortunately, adoption is a more realistic option when it comes to children who are still embryos.

I think we need to give the embryos the chance they were meant to have. However, my husband is concerned only with the financial side of it as we have been living on one salary and things are tight.

Gee, better hope you don't get sick, if your husband puts money ahead of human life.

My heart aches over this.

If only there was some way people having trouble conceiving becoming parents that didn't involve creating more embryos than they were both willing to give a reasonable chance at living.

Do I do what I believe is right and stand by my religious and moral beliefs, and take the chance my husband will resent me for the rest of our marriage?

Guys, think about this. She can go ahead and have those children implanted whether he likes it (or knows about it) or not, and he can be held financially responsible for them. She can adopt them out, and he can still end up financially responsible for them. I say men should not donate sperm and should be very cautious about banking it for themselves, and that applies here as well. He needed to give his sperm (unless they used donor sperm) for this to happen. Which also brings up the point that even if they did use donated sperm (or some creep at the lab decided to secretly use his own sperm) and her husband doesn't want more children, he can still be held financially accountable by a court. All it takes is one judge.

But I digressed. What she is apparently talking about is going ahead and having them implanted over his objections. She should not do that. What she should do is donate them. I was happy to see Dear Abby give information about doing just that:

Your embryos could be donated for embryo adoption by a couple who have been unable to conceive, and who would love to raise them. For more information, you should contact an attorney who specializes in family formation, or contact the Snowflakes Frozen Embryo Adoption and Donation Program. Its phone number is 714-693-5437 and its website is www.nightlight.org.

Thank you, Dear Abby!

Unfortunately, it seems that some people in the fertility/reproductive assistance business want to increase their "success" rates, and so they will create more children than will be given a reasonable chance at life, pick the most promising embryos (discarding or experimenting on the others - killing them either way), implant multiple embryos, and selectively kill any that make it to the fetal stage that might have a medical problem or are the weakest if "too many" of them have made it to that stage. Too many parents don't need much arm twisting to go along with any of that. The result? Innocent human beings are being killed by other human beings, and even those who aren't killed are being treated like commodities.

Ladies, if you spend your twenties and early thirties partying and having sex with bad boys you wouldn't want to be the (financial) father of your children, or you spend that time getting graduate degrees and climbing the corporate ladder... rather than learning what kind of man would make a good husband and dating and then marrying such a man... so that you find yourself marrying in your mid or late thirties, expect that your're going to have trouble conceiving.

I realize it is emotionally easy for me to discourage or be cautious about fertility treatments, IVF, third-party reproduction, etc., since my wife and I conceived the children we wanted to have, without aid, in two months and in three months, and those children have survived. But that it is easy for me to write does not make what I write false or wrong. I value human life. I also appreciate that I was conceived in a loving act of passion rather than in lab equipment and stuck in a freezer. Even if a child was conceived in rape, it is better for an adoptive set of parents to give someone else's biological offspring a good life rather than killing their own biological children in an attempt to have a biological connection to the children they end up raising.

A Reminder: Don't Donate Sperm

For various reasons, I say men should not donate sperm. In no particular order, here are some reasons why:

1. If someone wants to raise a child, they can adopt. If someone wants the experience of pregnancy, they can adopt a very young child ("extra" frozen embryo).

2. If donating to someone you know, you’re going to feel some sort of "ownership" of that child, which will cause parenting conflicts.

3. Human life should not be treated like a commodity.

4. You should have more influence over and responsibility for someone created with your generic material. You know what it is like to grow up with your genes already.

5. If you bump into your offspring or your offspring bump into each other many years down the line, there is no small chance there will be an intense physical attraction of the sexual sort. Pregnancies can result long before the biological relation is known.

6. Your sperm may be used to make human beings for the purpose of killing them.

7. In man cases, donated sperm is used to condemn a child to a fatherless life, either to be raise by a woman who doesn't have enough time or social skills to do it the natural way, or two women (or perhaps four or more, should the original two split up) – none of these people recognizing the importance of fathers, and perhaps men in general.

8. You may end up on the hook for child support. Yes, it has happened.

9. Resulting children could show up later to wreak havoc in your life.

There's more corroboration of points 5, 8, and 9 in this recent article.

Donor anonymity is given to encourage men to make donations, says Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Sperm banks fear potential donors will get cold feet if they think they may be held financially or legally responsible for the children they help produce, he says. But donors need to understand that "anonymity cannot be enforced," Caplan adds. "When children, for emotional or health reasons, want to find their 'biological' parents, records are unsealed and they do." Kids trump parents, Caplan concludes, and their need to know is more important: "Courts will go this way, as they do in adoption."

Guys, don't do it. Just say no.

My sister-in-law has donated scores of eggs in multiple sessions. She's done doing that due to newly found moral reasons (thankfully). But what complications will she have down the line as a result? Will she, her future children, or my own kids bump into her kids? How many embryos (human beings) were created only to be destroyed or later selectively aborted (murdered)?

Fresh From the Spring

So a guy's semen is found in a coworker's water bottle in the OC. At first, I thought he was guilty for sure. Here's how the LATimes.com blogger Richard Winton put it:

An investment company executive was arrested Tuesday after DNA recovered from a female co-worker's water bottle revealed he allegedly put semen into a bottle that she later drank from, prosecutors say.

That is not well written - "revealed he allegedly"? How about, "An investment company executive was arrested Tuesday for allegedly placing his semen in a female coworker's water bottle. Prosecutors say the semen matched his DNA."

Now, I figured the guy was cooked, but as "Scott" pointed out in the comments at August 18, 2010 at 11:01 AM, she could have obtained the semen another way, and placed it in the bottle herself.

Michael Kevin Lallana, 31, of Fullerton…was charged with two misdemeanor counts of releasing an offensive material in a public place and assault on two separate occasions.

Two times?

The first incident allegedly occurred Jan. 14 when Lallana and the woman worked in the company's Newport Beach office. On that day, he left a semen-laced bottle of water on the victim's desk, and when she returned later, she drank from it.

Hold on a minute. Was it a bottle she left there, opened? Who goes back to their desk and drinks from an opened water bottle that they didn’t leave there, or didn’t leave there opened?

She fell ill and threw the bottle away, prosecutors said.

As "Scott" wrote:

There is something wrong with this story. First of all, ingesting semen would not make one sick.

I don't know - some women are highly disgusted by the stuff. Maybe she is allergic.

Three months later, prosecutors claim, Lallana repeated the act…in Orange, where the two had been transferred. The woman, whose identity was withheld by prosecutors, again felt ill. Suspicious of the water’s contents, she sent it to a lab for analysis. In June, the private lab warned the woman that the bottle contained semen.

But they still needed to find the match.

Taghavi said investigators were able to key in on Lallana because he worked at both locations where the incidents occurred. During the investigation Lallana eventually volunteered to provide a sample of his DNA for testing, he said.

Now, either the man is crazy, stupid, or figured he was in the clear because he didn't put his semen into her water bottle.

Taghavi said Lallana and the woman were colleagues, but Lallana had not expressed animosity toward the woman or done anything publicly to suggest he was the perpetrator.

Okay, so back to Scott's comment.

Secondly, unless the woman saved the first bottle of water from the first alleged incident back in January, which she didn't, there is no forensic evidence so where is this first incident information and evidence coming from? Maybe some co-workers were aware of what he had done and came forward? I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out the two of them were having sexual relations and she got fed up for whatever reason and set him up. I mean she could have performed oral sex on him and then deposited his semen in the bottle of water. I don't think he would have voluntarily given a DNA sample if he had done what he is accused of doing. I think there are major holes in this story, another rush to judgement story maybe.

Quite possibly. She could have also had intercourse with him, using a condom, and collected the semen that way. Or maybe she knows he has a habit of masturbating and dropping tissues into a certain waste basket.

Here's what would have to be true for prosecutors to be right:

1. In January, the suspect either masturbated at the victim's desk, or took the bottle somewhere to mb, or mb'd elsewhere and brought the semen to her desk, without her realizing, and without coworkers seeing or with coworkers being in on it.

2. We'll just assume she left an opened water bottle at her desk. She doesn't notice anything wrong with the water in the bottle before she drinks it.

3. She drinks from the bottle and the semen makes her sick, and she believes the contents of the water bottle made her sick.

4. She doesn't keep the bottle, or contact the water company – she just throws it away.

5. Three months later, steps 1-3 happen all over again.

6. She remembers the January instance.

7. Knowing he's guilty, the suspect volunteers a DNA sample.

I suppose all of this is possible. Either he's guilty or she is guilty of setting him up. Whichever it is, someone has done something very wrong.

Donations Are Good When Cash, Clothes, or Food

I have said it before and I will say it again. Men should never donate sperm. Never, never, never.

Nobody you know needs your sperm. You shouldn't underestimate how you're going to feel when you see "your" child being treated a way you don't like.

Nobody you don't know needs your sperm. It really isn't a good idea to have children that are genetically yours running around out there without you being able to keep tabs on them. Want to know what can happen? Check out this site. (One of my wife's sister's has donated eggs multiple times in recent years, unfortunately.) Plus, I think you are somewhat responsible if someone uses your sperm to intentionally set up a situation where a child will be raised without a mother or without a father.

Let people adopt, or let someone else be the idiot donor.

Yeah, you think it is an ego boost to "spread your seed" or you like the idea of getting paid to masturbate, but you don't need the complication of children you didn't raise coming into and disrupting your life later, or being tagged for child support. Oh yes, that can happen. The state doesn't want to be on the hook when the custodial parent needs aid, so you might end up paying.

Banking your own sperm for your own use may be a good idea in some cases (like illness), as long as you can be sure that it wouldn't be switched, or used by your wife or anyone else against your wishes.

Here's another example of why I have this rule. David Crary of the Associated Press reports about people like Katrina Clark and Lindsay Greenawalt, who were conceived by sperm donors, and now want more info.

Greenawalt, who lives near Cleveland, and Clark, a college student in Washington, D.C., are part of an increasingly outspoken generation of donor offspring. They want to transform the dynamics of sperm donation so the children's interests are given more weight and it becomes easier to learn about their biological fathers.

$$$

A new film, "The Kids Are All Right," depicts two teenage siblings who track down their sperm-donor father and introduce him to their lesbian moms. Complications ensue, but the teens' yearning to meet their dad is portrayed empathetically.

The film opened just weeks after the release of a provocative study by the Commission on Parenthood's Future, titled "My Daddy's Name is Donor." It surveyed 485 donor offspring, concluded they were more troubled and depression-prone than other young adults in comparison groups, and recommended an end to anonymous sperm donation.

I like the idea that I was conceived in an act of mutual, passionate, marital lovemaking - fresh, never frozen.