UK - New Laws about legal parenthood.

[mensfe_admin]

From the 6th April 2009, new laws about legal parenthood came into force in the UK. These could effect you if you are unmarried or in a same sex relatioship and using donor sperm or embryos.
So what does this mean?

Married couples
The situationfor married couples will be unchanged. The husband is the legal father of any child born as aresult of his wifes treatment, unless it is shown that he did not consent to treatment of his wife.

Unmarried couples.
Both partners must consent to the male partner being the father in order for him to be legally recognised and named on the child's birth certificate.

Same-sex couples (sorry guys this only includes females, "comments most welcome").
For lesbian civil partners, the partner who does not give birth will be recognised as the legal second parent and named on the child's birth certificate unless she did not consent to her partners treatment.

For lesbian couples not in a civil partnership, both women must consent to the partner who does not give birth being named as the second legal parent.

For further information please visit:
www.hfea.gov.uk/areyouready
   

[mensfe_admin]

 AA Gill wrote: Table talk ST. Sunday 19th July 09.

It said on the news that scientists have made sperm in the lab.
Come again? I once made sperm in a sock, before I had even taken biology O-level (failed). Any number of men have made sperm in the back of a ford Escort. Portnoy made it in liver; Bill Clinton in a Gap shift dress. Onan made sperm on stony ground, and God killed him for it, which seemed a little extreme. Everyone else just went blind. (Weirdly, Onan is one of only a couple of characters in the Bible God took the time to Kill himself. Usually they were smitten by some intermediary: an out of town plague, a freelance lightning bolt, a gang of boils. But God was angry enough with Onan to off the dirty knuckle-shuffler personally, for taking Captain Picard to warp speed).

The thing that bothers me about scientists making sperm in the lab. - actually, stop right there. many, many things bother me about scientists froffing up in laboratories, but the politest thing is, are they planning on copyrighting it?? Because every time scientists make something, they make it illegal for anyone else to have one, and this is going to cause adolescent constanation. If you have to pay every time you have one off the wrist, student loans are going to look like nothing compared to the fees for sperm usage.
But presumably, being kids, they'll do it illegally. Sort of pirate sperm. But I expect massage parlours and Stringfellows will have to have those public-service commercials:
" Masterbation is theft. If you are caught downloading illegally, you can face a fine and a criminal record. Or God might come and smite you".

You and I might think there is no particular need for any more sperm. We might imagine there's already potentially more than enough - way more than enough of the stuff in the world. Just as the back-of-the-tissue calculation, each pair od adult male bollocks produces one quadlillion sperms in a lifetime. And if there are roughly, give or take a eunuch, three billion men in the world - well, you do the maths. Because the noughts are swimming before my eyes. Add to that a daily tablespoon of seminal fluid, and thats a glut, a gulp and a gag that's pretty hard to swallow.
So, who's in the market for laboratory stuff?? "Can I interest you in some sperm I made earlier??" I think not. These scientists are from Newcastle. You try and go around those pubs on a Friday, flogging fatherless sp.... "Its all sp.... fatherless around here son". "I tell you what try some for free, and come back if you like it". "All sperm needs, delivered to the back door". "Artificial sperm can you tell the difference?" Hassle-free sperm: neat, easy and you don't need to get it a taxi afterwards". "Indulge yourself. Organic Geordie sperm. No additives, no E numbers, no drunk chat".

If you ask me, or indeed anyone who has ever had a sex life, which I'm assuming these particular white-coated jizz wonks haven't, if you're going to start tinkering with the man fat, "more" is not where you start. You begin with presentation. "Hey, I've got chocolate-flavoured sperm" may well be the best pick-up line ever. Why can't they cross sperm with a jellyfish and make it glow in the dark?
What about effervescent sperm? Or, come up with a secondary use? Pritt stick. For recycling brown envelopes.
Cavity-wall insulation.
Toothpaste. I'm sorry: semen toothpaste is genius.
The minty-white grin that says, "I scored last night".
The religous fundamentalists and the born agains - born again without sperm - complain that this laboratory stuff is immoral, ungodly and will mean women won't need blokes anymore. We are staring down the urethra of male extinction.
I think they have got it all wrong. research and development is the way to go. Adaptation is, after all, the key to survival. I reckon that sparkling, mojito-flavoured, Day-Glo semen, with added Nurofen, that comes with wolfe whistle at the point of delivery, would guarantee men breakfast and morning after. 

GG...