Insemination and in vitro fertilization have inspired a growing number of women to take their pregnancy their own hands — whether it’s due to infertility issues, absence of a male partner, or the simple desire to plan a pregnancy that best fits a woman’s timeline. But as these intentional pregnancies become more commonplace, so do unforeseen legal loopholes.
Three families are currently suing Xytex, a Georgia sperm bank, for failing to inform them that their sperm donor (“Donor 9623”) had schizophrenia and a serious criminal history. This leaves at least 23 children from 15 American, Canadian, and British families with a genetic predisposition to schizophrenia and potential behavioral issues.
These lawsuits are some of the first in this new, largely unexplored area of reproductive rights. In 2012, a family sued a Boston sperm bank for not alerting them to their donor’s latent cystic fibrosis genes, which has left their toddler with a 37-year life expectancy. Last year, a woman sued a sperm bank for accidentally inseminating her with the sperm of a black donor when she had requested a white donor — but the case was dropped since the child’s health was not impacted.
“This is a huge problem,” said Nancy Hersh, a lawyer who is representing the families, in an interview with the New York Times. “Lots of people will avail themselves of sperm banks, and it is important that the public will be educated about the risks. It is a public health issue.”
The families suing Xytex have said they don’t hold Donor 9623 responsible for the outcome of his donation.
“He is not a bad man — he is a person who has an illness,” Angela Collins, one of the suing mothers, said in a radio interview with CBC. “We know nobody is perfect, but we didn’t sign up to choose knowingly that our donor had schizophrenia.”
As more people put their trust in corporate sperm banks to provide half of their child’s DNA, law experts fear these cases will only grow — and hopefully inspire stricter regulations on industry practices.
Federal regulations on sperm donations are relatively weak. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) only requires that sperm donors be tested for communicable diseases, not genetic diseases. Critics have demanded stricter regulations for years and have encouraged non-governmental organizations to create their own level of screening regulations. But they can’t be mandatory unless the FDA intervenes.
This is also the case with in vitro fertilization (IVF), the process behind “test tube babies,” which has quickly become a symbol of reproductive freedom in a society where women are waiting longer to have children. As with insemination, the FDA doesn’t require the donated sperm and eggs be tested for genetic abnormalities,leaving IVF clinics equally vulnerable to future tricky legal battles.
But, as technology outpaces current medical standards, there’s no sight of federal regulatory changes on the horizon. As Marcy Darnovsky, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Genetics and Society, puts it: “The United States is the Wild West of the fertility industry.”