Talk about disrupting normal
gene flow! A british man who owned a fertility clinic in Great Britain has allegedly fathered over 600 children by giving women who entered his clinic his own sperm. Bertold Weisner and his wife apparently owned a
clinic during the 1940's and helped roughly 1,500 women conceive during that time. DNA tests were done to many individuals and the results indeed showed that all the men were conceived using Weisner's sperm. Two men, Barry Stevens and David Gollancz, both took part in the study and both were found to share very strong genetic similarities with Weisner, enough to prove that he was both of their fathers. Both men, whoa also aided in conducting the study took into account the number of chances there would be for twins, miscarriages, and found that Weisner most likely father between 300 and 600 children or births using his own sperm. 18 people who were conceived during the time of the clinic (1940s-1960s) were tested and it was found that about 2/3 (about 66%) of them were related to Weisner. The part of this story that makes it even more interesting is that his wife apparently destroyed all records from their clinic and Weisner, the man behind all the children, died almost 40 years ago. It is thought that since it was the time of Eugenics, this was socially accepted by many people.
At the time, it was thought to be a good idea that successful people (smart, fit, etc) should reproduce or be responsible for more children while those on the opposite side of the spectrum should be discouraged from doing so. UK law now bans anyone from donating more than 10 samples of sperm, and interestingly there are no similar or equivalent laws in the United States.
It's crazy how things have changed since then....today no one would ever be able to get away with such a thing on that immense of a scale. It sounds like something that would been done by the Nazis in that time period to try to create a master race. I would really hope that fertility clinics today held themselves to a higher standard than what this man and his wife held themselves to.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the comment above. That is ridiculous. I was always curious how someone could get away with having so many children. Honestly, that's pretty ingenious. A sperm bank would be the perfect opportunity to accomplish such a sick goal. It just makes you wonder though...how many of them are still out there doing the same exact thing?!
ReplyDeleteThis would be a good story for jerry springer. Scientifically he did nothing that is illegal. I feel the question here is if it is morally correct or not. There is nothing holding back other men or women from having a large amount of children. If it happens in large numbers it could change the gene pool.
ReplyDeleteThis is kind of sick, wrong, and just crazy....why would anyone want to father 600 children?! I mean right now people cannot even handle 1 child!....also another question wasn't there a form or something that would have told the women about the sperm donor? And i feel the husband was crazy to donate his sperm but his wife is crazier to allow and was ok with it...however im glad that there is a law limiting sperm donations otherwise a man can father manyy children
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