I’ve recently seen a patient who was considering donor sperm insemination. Before coming to us, they had been to see an alternative infertility clinic which imports all their donor sperm from the European Sperm Bank. And who foots the bill for shipping it over? You do, the...
Read More »A London IVF clinic has sparked controversy this week by offering childless couples the chance to win an American donor egg of their choice. Paying egg donors for their eggs is illegal in the UK, but the clinic is offering the winner free treatment in America to sidestep existing European laws. The winner also gets to select an egg based on race, upbringing and education, even being able to look at photographs of donors as children to pick which they like the look...
Read More »If you need the help of donor sperm or a donor egg to have a baby, then one day you’re going to be faced with telling your children how they came to be born. It’s one of the many things we discuss with our patients during their counselling sessions. It’s not an easy question to answer. Is it a matter of choosing the ‘right age’ to tell them, so they will understand? Or is it a case of the sooner the...
Read More »The news this week that supermarket chain ASDA is to sell IVF drugs at reduced rates might at first glance seemed to be the supermarket deal that hundreds of couples undergoing private IVF treatment have been waiting for. ‘ASDA to sell IVF drugs with £820 discount’ said the headlines, boasting that its pharmacies would be selling the IVF drugs at cost price, unlike other pharmacies who sell the drugs at a...
Read More »A recent Channel 4 documentary, Eight Boys and Wanting a Girl, raised some interesting questions about whether people should be given the right to choose the sex of their child. In the UK, gender selection is not allowed if you simply want to balance your family out. Only in the most extreme medical circumstances – such as passing on a genetic disease that only affects boys – will it be...
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