Clearing out some old posts.

A while ago, I encountered a story on Amy Alkon’s site about a man fooled into fathering a child:

Here’s how it happened, according to Houston Press. Joe Pressil began dating his girlfriend, Anetria, in 2005. They broke up in 2007 and, three months later, she told him she was pregnant with his child. Pressil was confused, since the couple had used birth control, but a paternity test proved that he was indeed the father. So Pressil let Anetria and the boys stay at his home and he agreed to pay child support.
Fast forward to February of this year, when 36-year-old Pressil found a receipt – from a Houston sperm bank called Omni-Med Laboratories – for “cryopreservation of a sperm sample” (Pressil was listed as the patient although he had never been there). He called Omni-Med, which passed him along to its affiliated clinic Advanced Fertility. The clinic told Pressil that his “wife” had come into the clinic with his semen and they performed IVF with it, which is how Anetria got pregnant.

The big question, of course, is how exactly did Anetria obtain Pressil’s sperm without him knowing about it? Simple. She apparently saved their used condoms. Gag. (Anetria denies these claims.) [tagbox tag=”IVF”]

“I couldn’t believe it could be done. I was very, very devastated. I couldn’t believe that this fertility clinic could actually do this without my consent, or without my even being there,” Pressil said, adding that artificial insemination is against his religious beliefs. “That’s a violation of myself, to what I believe in, to my religion, and just to my manhood,” Pressil said.

I’ve now seen this story show up on a couple of other sites. The only links in Google are for the original claim and her denial. I can’t find out how it was resolved. But I suspect his claim was dismissed. The reason I suspect this is because his story is total bullshit.

Here’s a conversation that has never happened:

Patient: “Hi, I have this condom full of sperm. God knows how I got it or who it belongs to. Can you harvest my eggs and inject this into them?”

Doctor: “No problem!”

I’ve been through IVF (Ben was conceived naturally after two failed cycles). It is a very involved process. We had to have interviews, then get tests for venereal diseases and genetic conditions. I then had to show up and make my donation either on site or in nearby hotel. And no, I was not allowed to bring in a condom. Condoms contain spermicides and lubricants that murder sperm and latex is not sperm’s friend. Even in a sterile container, sperm cells don’t last very long unless they are placed in a special refrigerator. Freezing sperm is a slow process that takes place in a solution that keeps the cells from shattering from ice crystal formation.

And that’s only the technical side of the story. There’s also the legal issue that no clinic is going to expose themselves to a potential multi-million dollar lawsuit by using the sperm of a man they don’t have a consent form from.

So, no, you can’t just have a man fill a condom, throw it in your freezer and get it injected into your eggs. It doesn’t work that way. This is why I believe the woman’s lawyer, who claims Pressil agreed to IVF and signed consent forms.

I’ve seen the frozen sperm canard come up on TV shows and movies from time to time. It annoys me. This is something conjured up by people who haven’t done their research.