Woman Sues FDA for the Right to Free Sperm

Anasara

https://jezebel.com/5924386/woman-sues-fda-for-the-right-to-free-sperm

The law doesn't require people to get tested for STIs every time they bone someone new, because that would be impossible to mandate and also a little creepy; it's pretty much expected that consensual sex-having adults make their bed so they can lie/sleep with partners in it, etc.

But the U.S. Food and Drug administration won't permit "informal" sperm donor transactions ? under federal regulations, a donor must undergo expensive tests on his blood and urine in a medical setting within a week of every transfer. This poses a problem for lesbian couples and single women who can't start a family without sperm and therefore must pay hundreds of dollars to have their pregnancy multi-managed by the government.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, a Bay Area woman is suing the FDA for her right to get pregnant all by herself ? well, without paying for a fertility clinic or sperm bank's intervention, that is. The government accountability group Cause of Action, which is arguing her case, said in a lawsuit filed last week that the current rules are "costly and burdensome" and "unconstitutional to the extent that they operate to regulate noncommercial, sexually intimate choices and activity."

"There are many women in same-sex relationships and single women who aren't able to have their own biological child as a result of these policies," Rebekah Orr, a spokeswoman for Equality California, told the Chronicle. "For any parent who has had difficulty conceiving and anyone who dreams of being a parent, that's just heartbreaking."

There are some controversial characters that could also be aided by the legislation, like infamous Sperm Donor King Trent Arsenault, who donates his spunk to women he meets online ? over a dozen of his offspring are running around across the country and seven other women are currently impregnated with his seed. The FDA warned him back in December to stop giving away his sperm or face hefty fines and up to a year of prison time. (He hasn't listened.)

But should women who can't or don't want to meet the future father of their children the "normal" way ("wasted in a bar" would apparently suffice in the eyes of the government) have to pay extra? "You may know your friend, but it is certainly possible your friend could not be telling you everything about what he does," said Mitch Rosen, director of the UCSF Fertility Preservation Center. That's true, but that's a risk we all take when we sleep with someone who doesn't show us primary documents that prove they're in good health. And sperm costs bank:

At UCSF, a physical exam costs about $300 and a test for infectious diseases costs $500, Rosen estimated. The tests would have to be done within a week before the woman took the sperm donation. If a pregnancy didn't happen, multiple tries could drag out the process for months. A donor could avoid multiple tests by freezing a lot of his semen, but each sample costs about $600 to freeze.

A bill that's currently pending in the state legislature would make it so that a donor would only have to be tested once if the recipient complied. Compromise! But that's not enough for Amber Abbasi, Cause of Action's chief counsel for regulatory affairs. "If there are donors ... who are not charging as a service, and not serving as a business, the FDA should not be intervening," she said. If the state won't give gay people the right to marry, will they at least allow them agency over their own pregnancy?

may2806

I'm not sure I can get behind not requiring testing to be done on sperm donors (or egg donors for that matter) if a woman is using a fertility clinic to get pregnant. If you are using a medical doctor there are rules they must follow, and for good reason.

Yes, it's unfair that any other woman who wants to have a baby can go get knocked up by some guy she meets for free, but that is risky behavior I can't get behind either.

NMscubagirl

I understand being upset at cost prohibitions, but she is fighting the wrong battle. If you dont want medical safety intervention, then don't seek medical intervention. Get pg the old fashioned way, or have him ejaculate into a turkey baster in the next room. I personally feel if you want to fight the good fight of affordable reproductive care, fight for it to be covered by insurance. allowing people to consent to lesser medical care for deceased cost is a dangerous slippery slope!

may2806

NMscubagirl:

I personally feel if you want to fight the good fight of affordable reproductive care, fight for it to be covered by insurance.

Yes and I think this woman is actually weakening the case for insurance to cover fertility treatments because she does not have an actual medical condition requiring her to use them. I support gay rights 100 percent, but it is an unfortunate fact of biology that it takes a male and a female to reproduce, so I just don't equate being single or gay with being infertile as a medical diagnosis. The case for IF insurance coverage is a hard enough one to make for people who actually have medical reasons for needing it. 

caliblondieus

What if the woman was one of us from the board? I think we assume way to much. How many of us knewhagar there are so many women that have struggles n their journey to get pregnant, prior to us joining this horrible club? 

 

I hope I haven't lost my own compassion and ability to recognize that human beings struggle in a multitude of ways.  

Gregermis

NMscubagirl:

I understand being upset at cost prohibitions, but she is fighting the wrong battle. If you dont want medical safety intervention, then don't seek medical intervention. Get pg the old fashioned way, or have him ejaculate into a turkey baster in the next room. I personally feel if you want to fight the good fight of affordable reproductive care, fight for it to be covered by insurance. allowing people to consent to lesser medical care for deceased cost is a dangerous slippery slope!

This, I often refer to IUIs as the medical version of the turkey baster approach.  I have not met one person that doesn't understand exactly what this means.  So I don't see wha the fuss is about...

arbutusbride

I would rather have procedures covered under insurance than what this woman is proposing.  If someone is advertising his "product" it needs to go through the same type of testing that others go through.  We all know the costs are high but why would you buy sperm from a stranger and not know his background?  "You may know your friend, but it is certainly possible your friend could not be telling you everything about what he does."  You don't know what other extra curricular activities he partakes in.  Yeah the cost is a huge factor and it is not necessarily fair to women who are lesbians or people like us who deal with IF that's why insurance coverage should be more flexible when it comes to IF treatments.