Sperm Banks (1985)

Barcode (ID): 06B0195882                                   

Main Search Term and Keywords: Sperm Banks, Sperm Donation, Artificial Insemination

Date of Broadcast: 2nd April 1985

Clip Duration: 2 min 7 seconds

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Description: A look at a “sperm bank” doctor and family, as the US government considers new laws to control the booming sperm bank business. (The banks sell sperm donated by men with top IQs to women hoping to conceive gifted children.) Dr Robert Graham is interviewed at the Repository for Germinal Choice. Dr Afton Blake (mother) said her son, Doron, is already showing signs of above average intelligence.

• Dr Robert Graham
• Storage of the sperm of 15 men – each with outstanding qualities including several Nobel Prize winners
• Follows Dr Afton Blake and her son – artificially inseminated herself

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Fertility Treatment – Proposed Changes to Law (2004)

Barcode (ID): 03D0626406                                                         

Main Search Term and Keywords: IVF, In Vitro Fertilisation, Infertility, Sperm/Egg Donation

Date of Broadcast: 21st January 2004

Clip Duration: 3 min 1 second

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Description: Children conceived from donated sperm, eggs and embryos are to be given the right to track down their genetic parents. At the moment all donations are anonymous, but from next year the rules will change. It’s part of a wide-ranging review of the Act governing fertility treatment which the government hopes will bring legislation up to date with rapidly changing technology. Until now, women wanting IVF treatment have, officially, needed to be in a relationship with a man to qualify. Under the proposed law changes, that could no longer be a condition. The head of the governing watchdog is worried that the existing rules are driving some women to the internet to find donors.

• 3 year old Ruben Stevenson knows he was born using donated sperm but he will never know his Father
• Do not want a relationship with the donor but would like a knowledge
• Law that a child once 18 years old, will have the right to know their father – the first in 2023
• Baby boom facts – ’73,000 babies born via IVF, 25,000 Donor conceptions, 200 sperm donors, 1,100 egg donors – possible sperm shortage?’
• Losing anonymity may affect number of sperm donors – even though it is already small (200 as of 2004)
• Update to Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act – needs to be modernised
• Diane Blood – had to go to court and abroad to use her dead husbands sperm
• Controversial issues such as cloning for discussion later

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Medical – Human Egg Donation (1998)

Barcode (ID): 03B0546669                                  

Main Search Term and Keywords: Egg Donation, IVF, In Vitro Fertilisation

Date of Broadcast: 24th July 1998

Clip Duration: 4 min 4 seconds

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Description: There is still a shortage of donors for women who do not have any. Channel 4 News looks at possible solutions to the problem and the ethics of providing free fertility treatment to women who donate eggs.

• Celebrating 20 years of IVF
• Doctor – by sharing eggs reducing the infertile woman chances at having a child as you are sharing her eggs
• Thousands of women need donated eggs but many are not lucky
• Waiting list of 200 women at one hospital with only 4 donors
• Scheme set up – exchanged her eggs in order to have IVF treatment rather than an exchange of money
• Strong fertility drugs increase number of eggs created
• Many are against scheme on ethical grounds
• Some believe that it is unfair for a woman to give away her eggs to others who then become pregnant and the donor does not – unfair
• Authorites believe it should not be continued

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