Britain's fertility regulator is planning big changes to the strict rules governing egg and sperm donation in order to try to stop more childless couples from seeking treatment abroad.

The sweeping liberalisation would see the most significant shift in policy governing sperm and egg donation since the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) was established.

The changes could see the amount paid to women who donate eggs rise from £250 to several thousand pounds – but experts have warned the move would see women donating eggs purely for money.

Donated sperm could also be used to start as many as 20 families rather than the current limit of 10, despite fears such a move would increase the risk of half-siblings unwittingly marrying or having children together.

Labels: donor conception, United Kingdom

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The last remaining Roman Catholic adoption agency to resist Labour’s equality laws is facing closure, after the charity watchdog ruled that it could not avoid considering same-sex couples as potential parents.

Catholic Care had been given hope earlier this year that it could get around the controversial anti-discrimination rules that forced other agencies either to close down or sever their links with the church. ...

Since Labour’s homosexual rights law came into effect in January 2009, all the other 11 Catholic adoption agencies in England have either had to close down or sever their ties with the church hierarchy. Catholic Care was the last to hold out as it launched its legal bid.

The charity, which only found out the judgement was coming on Wednesday, has not yet decided whether to close its adoption service.

Labels: adoption, Catholic Church, discrimination law, gay parenting, religious liberty, United Kingdom

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Research published today by the Department for Work and Pensions explores the characteristics and circumstances of families and children in 2008. The report is based on analysis of the Families and Children Study (FACS). This is a longitudinal survey focusing on the circumstances of families in Britain. The study began in 1999, with a representative sample of all lone parents and low/moderate income couple families. From 2001 a representative sample of lone parents and all couple families with dependent children were interviewed. ...

The main findings are that:

* Almost one quarter (23 per cent) of children lived in a lone parent family. Lone parent families were more likely than couple families to live in social housing and to be in the lowest income quintile.
* Four out of five families had at least one parent working 16 or more hours per week (pw). 55 per cent of lone parents worked 16+ hours pw and 57 per cent of couple families had both partners doing so. Forty one per cent of lone parent households were workless compared with 5 per cent of couple households.
* One in six children (16 per cent) lived in a household where no one worked over 16 hrs per week. The majority of these (11 per cent of all children) were in lone parent households.
* Forty nine per cent of lone parents working less than 16 hrs pw reported running out of money before the end of the week or month. Thirty six per cent were worried about money ‘almost all the time’.
* Over half (58 per cent) of children with working mothers were placed in childcare. Use of informal childcare (44 per cent) was more prevalent than formal childcare (31 per cent).
* Perceptions of the affordability and quality of childcare remained more positive than negative. However, a quarter of mothers reported that there was ‘not enough childcare’ (25 per cent) and that childcare was ‘not at all affordable’ (27 per cent) in their local area. Mothers were more positive about the quality of childcare: over a half (59 per cent) said it was ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ good.

Labels: children, day care, economics, poverty, single parenting, United Kingdom

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British comedienne and former lesbian Jackie Clune has published an account of how, exhausted by the emotional dysfunction of her lesbian relationships, she discovered in her subsequent relationship with her husband a freedom to "[walk] alongside each other rather than spending life locked in face-to-face intimacy or combat."

"Looking at my four children racing around the garden with their father, it seems almost impossible to believe that only a few years ago I never imagined having a family," writes Clune in a column published in the UK's Daily Mail June 26.

Clune, who is also known as a cabaret performer, actress, and broadcaster, says she was raised in a "very traditional Irish Catholic" home and and fell in love with a man at 17. It was in college that she stumbled upon a pamphlet claiming that heterosexuality is a mere construct to be altered at will, which prompted her to break up with her boyfriend and live the typical lesbian lifestyle for the next 12 years, until she was 34 years old.

"I was excited by the close bond a relationship with another female could bring," she writes.

But the experience was not as she at first envisioned it to be. In an interview with the Times' Penny Wark in October 2005, Clune called lesbian culture "dictatorial and intimidating" and "the opposite of the sapphic fluffy nirvana I expected."

Despite the closeness of her relationships, Clune admits that the hyper-emotional world of a female-to-female sexual bond was "exhausting." "The women I went out with were by and large more inclined to be insecure and to need reassurance and I found myself in the male role of endlessly reassuring my girlfriends," she writes. "The subtle mood changes of everyday life would be picked over inexhaustibly."

Labels: gender, gender differences, heterosexual couples, homosexuality, lesbians, United Kingdom

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The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that although spouses are less likely to separate than couples who live together, this is not down to the benefits of matrimony.

Researchers claimed that those who marry are simply more likely to be older, better educated and wealthier than those who have babies out of wedlock.

The IFS, which has built a powerful reputation through its economic analyses of election proposals and the Budget, went on to suggest that its report “casts doubt” on the Government’s aim of preventing family breakdown by promoting marriage.

Ellen Greaves, research economist at the IFS, said: "The evidence suggests that much of the difference in relationship stability between married and cohabiting parents is due to pre-existing differences between the kinds of people who get married before they have children, compared to those that cohabit.”

During the election campaign the IFS published a report claiming that the marital status of parents has little impact on a child's development.

It also claimed that it would cost £24billion a year to eradicate the “couple penalty” in the benefits system that leaves parents worse off if they live together.

Labels: cohabitation, economics, Marriage, out-of-wedlock births, United Kingdom

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When you sit on the loo in Ed Houben's tiny bathroom, there's a postcard at eye level that says "Welcome to Maastricht". It's decorated with dozens of smiling tadpole-shaped creatures homing in on the words with cheerful intent. It's a little touch to make his visitors smile; after all, most of them are here for Ed's sperm.

Houben has been donating sperm for more than 10 years now, first at the local sperm bank and then, after reaching the clinic's legal limit, privately via the internet. Most of his donating is done in his neat, modest flat on an estate on the outskirts of the Dutch town. The T-shirt he's wearing, which declares "Anytime, anyplace, anywhere, anyway", is actually a bit misleading. "In the old days I would gladly travel, and my colleagues covered for me if I was late to work," he says. "But my job at Maastricht's tourism office has changed and I have to be around much more. Now I ask people to come to me."

And they do, from all over the world. Houben has biological offspring in Australia, Israel, Canada, Cyprus, Germany and Luxembourg, as well as at home in the Netherlands. His current tally of donor-conceived children stands at an eye-watering 62, with the 63rd on the way. It is by no means a world record – Houben once watched an episode of Oprah about a man who has fathered 200, a number he says he'll never catch. But he has been called Europe's most prolific sperm donor, and he's happy to accept the title until someone has the, well, balls to challenge him. ...

As it's illegal to sell your sperm in Europe, donation is a vocation rather than a career. Houben got the calling in 1999, after witnessing the trials and heartbreak of childless friends undergoing fertility treatment. Donor numbers were declining dramatically in the Netherlands (from 900 in 1990 to 200 in 2002) and those affected by the shortage, particularly lesbian couples, turned to the internet. With his state-sanctioned quota fulfilled, and much more to give, Houben started placing ads on the websites and online forums that were springing up. He scored with his very first attempt; the day we meet, that child is celebrating her seventh birthday. ...

And like many of the online donors, he is also an experienced practitioner in "natural insemination" – in other words, sex. Sperm donor forums bristle with terminology, but the most regularly used are AI and NI, and there is considerable debate in the community as to whether offering NI makes you a hero, an opportunist or a pervert. FSDW instantly bans any donors offering NI; Co-parentmatch says it recommends against donors who insist on NI only. But John says it remains an important option for those who want to hurry the process along "if they feel their fertility might be limited, or they want to keep the costs down".

Houben, who also offers NI, agrees. "From my own experience, statistically NI is faster," he says, and he has records to back up his claim. "I take off my hat to the guys who only do AI, but if people are coming all the way from Italy they don't want to be trying for three years." He only started offering NI when a couple specifically requested it – and he got a further shock when he discovered that the boyfriend expected to be present at the insemination. Fortunately his sense of duty prevailed.

Labels: culture, donor conception, Europe, Fathers, sex, United Kingdom

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Young people who said they talked seriously to their dads "most days" gave themselves an 87 per cent score on a happiness scale compared with 79 per cent for those who said they hardly ever spoke to their fathers in this way.

The findings, from an analysis of research from the British Household Panel survey into 1,200 young people in Britain aged between 11 and 15, were released by the Children's Society to coincide with Father's Day this weekend. ...

The charity said the findings were "highly significant" as academic research has shown that a child's well-being later in life depends on their teenage relationship with their father as well as with their mother.

It launched a Fatherhood Commission with children, experts and the public invited to submit evidence about the barriers to fathers' involvement with their children.

Labels: culture, Fathers, United Kingdom

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Unlike either oocyte or embryo donation, sperm donation presents a massive PR problem - masturbation. At least since Onan came to a sticky end (1), masturbation (aka 'self-abuse') has both suffered censure and has provided a fertile source for low-grade humour.

Various tactics have been employed to attract men to donate sperm. In jurisdictions where there are no externally-imposed restrictions on the use of enticements, financial inducement seems to work reasonably well and major US sperm banks adopt what may best be described as a casual approach to recruitment. The website of Xytex entices potential donors with the less than eye-catching slogan 'become a sperm donor with Xytex' (2). California Cryobank is a little more imaginative with 'Give the gift of family' (3). The website of Cryos International, which claims to be 'the world's largest international network of sperm banks, [offering] our services to clinics and private customers in more than 60 countries', is the epitome of low-key, providing no obvious indication that it is seeking to recruit donors at all (4). ...

Recent sperm donor recruitment campaigns in the UK have tackled the masturbation 'problem' head on - most notably the National Gamete Donation Trust's (NGDT) 'Give a Toss' campaign (6) (for non-UK readers of this commentary the campaign title cleverly - if not tastefully - played on the twin British slang meanings of 'toss'. First, as a euphemism for 'masturbation' - as in 'have a toss' or to 'toss off' - second, to refer to 'caring', as in the negative rendition of the term 'couldn't give a toss', meaning 'do not care').

Labels: culture, donor conception, United Kingdom

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The number of births to older mothers has almost trebled in 20 years and is continuing to rise, figures have shown.

Some 26,976 babies were born to women aged 40 and over in 2009, compared with 9,336 in 1989 and 14,252 in 1999, figures for England and Wales show.

Among those aged 35 to 39 there were 114,288 births in 2009, a rise of 41% on the 81,281 in 1999.

The data, published by the Office for National Statistics, showed a 0.3% drop in the overall number of births.

The data means the typical age for a first-time mother has risen to 29.4 in 2009, compared with 29.3 in 2008 and 28.4 in 1999.

Compared with 2008, the birth rate for women under 35 has fallen. There was a 2.3% drop among women under 20, from 26 births per 1,000 women in 2008 to 25.4 in 2009.

Labels: demographics, motherhood, United Kingdom

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Couples are less likely to divorce if when the husband helps more with housework, shopping and childcare, new research revealed today.

The study of 3,500 British couples after the birth of their first child found that the more husbands helped, the lower the incidence of divorce.

Economists have previously argued that rising divorce rates, which began in the early 1960s, are linked with steady increases in the numbers of married women working.

It was claimed that marriages where men take responsibility for paid work and women stay at home leave both spouses better off.

But the new study, from the London School of Economics and Political Science, explodes the theory that marriages are most stable when men focus on paid work and women are responsible for housework.

It showed instead that fathers’ contribution to housework and childcare stabilises marriage, regardless of mothers’ employment status.

The research, “Men’s Unpaid Work and Divorce: Reassessing Specialisation and Trade”, was carried out by Wendy Sigle-Rushton, one of several UK academics in the Gender Equality Network (GeNet), part of the Economic and Social Research Council’s (ESRC) Priority Network Programme.

The findings are published in the latest edition of Feminist Economics.

Labels: culture, divorce, gender, Marriage, men, United Kingdom

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Dale McAlpine was charged with causing “harassment, alarm or distress” after a homosexual police community support officer (PCSO) overheard him reciting a number of “sins” referred to in the Bible, including blasphemy, drunkenness and same sex relationships.

The 42-year-old Baptist, who has preached Christianity in Workington, Cumbria for years, said he did not mention homosexuality while delivering a sermon from the top of a stepladder, but admitted telling a passing shopper that he believed it went against the word of God.

Police officers are alleging that he made the remark in a voice loud enough to be overheard by others and have charged him with using abusive or insulting language, contrary to the Public Order Act. ...

The Public Order Act, which outlaws the unreasonable use of abusive language likely to cause distress, has been used to arrest religious people in a number of similar cases.

Harry Hammond, a pensioner, was convicted under Section 5 of the Act in 2002 for holding up a sign saying “Stop immorality. Stop Homosexuality. Stop Lesbianism. Jesus is Lord” while preaching in Bournemouth.

Stephen Green, a Christian campaigner, was arrested and charged in 2006 for handing out religious leaflets at a Gay Pride festival in Cardiff. The case against him was later dropped.

Labels: Christianity, freedom of speech, homosexuality, religion, religious liberty, United Kingdom

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A marriage guidance counsellor's bid to challenge his sacking for refusing to give sex therapy to homosexuals has led to a serious clash between the Christian lobby and the judiciary.

In a powerful dismissal of the application to appeal, Lord Justice Laws said legislation to protect views held purely on religious grounds could not be justified. He said it was an irrational idea "but it is also divisive, capricious and arbitrary".

The former archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey had sent a statement to a judge hearing the appeal application by Gary McFarlane. The senior church figure called for a special panel of judges with a "proven sensitivity and understanding of religious issues" to hear the case.

Lord Carey said recent court decisions involving Christians had used "dangerous" reasoning and this could lead to civil unrest.

Lord Justice Laws's ruling said: "We do not live in a society where all the people share uniform religious beliefs. The precepts of any one religion – any belief system – cannot, by force of their religious origins, sound any louder in the general law than the precepts of any other. If they did, those out in the cold would be less than citizens and our constitution would be on the way to a theocracy, which is of necessity autocratic."

Labels: Christianity, culture, discrimination law, gay couples, gay marriage, homosexuality, Marriage, professional associations, religion, religious liberty, United Kingdom

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A Christian marriage counsellor sacked for refusing to give sex advice to homosexuals had his appeal bid quashed by a top court Thursday, reigniting a row between the Anglican Church and the judiciary.

Devout Christian Gary McFarlane, 48, from Bristol, wanted permission to appeal against an employment tribunal ruling which supported his 2008 sacking.

The father of two, who had worked for the national counselling service since 2003, claimed unfair dismissal on the grounds of religious discrimination. ...

But throwing out McFarlane's case at the Court of Appeal on Thursday, Lord Justice Laws said legislation for the protection of views held purely on religious grounds could not be justified, the Press Association reported.

Laws called the idea irrational. "But it is also divisive, capricious and arbitrary," he said.

Labels: Christianity, discrimination law, gay couples, marriage counseling, professional associations, religion, religious liberty, United Kingdom

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Errors at fertility clinics almost doubled in 12 months, it was reported today. The number of mistakes at IVF centres in England and Wales rose from 182 in 2007/8 to 334 in 2008/9. Blunders included embryos being lost or implanted in the wrong woman, and eggs being fertilised with the wrong man's sperm.

The figures from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), the IVF regulatory body, were obtained by BBC Radio Five Live's Donal MacIntyre show. The HFEA said the errors represented less than 1% of more than 50,000 IVF cycles.

Labels: Artificial Reproductive Technology, donor conception, United Kingdom

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I attended a friend's wedding on Saturday and was struck by the absence of one particular type of advice offered in the vicar's address to the happy couple in light of the political noise about marriage and taxes. The homily amounted to a kind of highway code for marriage; the sort of practical and emotional stuff Nicky and Sila Lee (authors of The Marriage Book) would approve of.

There was no mention of the proposed (Conservative) tax break for the couple entering the new state of matrimony. I couldn't help wondering whether this was because the proposed sum of £3.00 a week was derisory.

In the wake of David Cameron's commitment to support couples since he became leader in 2006 (and the research and policy work carried out by Ian Duncan Smith's Centre for Social Justice on the ills of society and its remedies), marriage is now a political prism through which the Conservative party invite the electorate to see aspects of its core values – what it stands for and how it will rebuild "broken" Britain. ...

Of course, David Cameron wants to "send an important signal" to the electorate "that we value the commitment that people make when they get married", but the electorate may also want to hear a fair message. The message of tax breaks for marriage has multiple unfairnesses in it. It privileges one particular form and structure of relationship for fiscal benefit without regard to the implications of the message it sends to other forms of relationship and households.

Labels: Marriage, poverty, single parenting, United Kingdom

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...I had become a single mother when my first marriage split up in 1993. In one devastating stroke, I became a hate figure to a certain section of the press, and a bogeyman to the Tory Government. Peter Lilley, then Secretary of State at the DSS, had recently entertained the Conservative Party conference with a spoof Gilbert and Sullivan number, in which he decried “young ladies who get pregnant just to jump the housing list”. The Secretary of State for Wales, John Redwood, castigated single-parent families from St Mellons, Cardiff, as “one of the biggest social problems of our day”. (John Redwood has since divorced the mother of his children.) Women like me (for it is a curious fact that lone male parents are generally portrayed as heroes, whereas women left holding the baby are vilified) were, according to popular myth, a prime cause of social breakdown, and in it for all we could get: free money, state-funded accommodation, an easy life.

An easy life. Between 1993 and 1997 I did the job of two parents, qualified and then worked as a secondary school teacher, wrote one and a half novels and did the planning for a further five. For a while, I was clinically depressed. To be told, over and over again, that I was feckless, lazy — even immoral — did not help. ...

Yesterday’s Conservative manifesto makes it clear that the Tories aim for less governmental support for the needy, and more input from the “third sector”: charity. It also reiterates the flagship policy so proudly defended by David Cameron last weekend, that of “sticking up for marriage”. To this end, they promise a half-a-billion pound tax break for lower-income married couples, working out at £150 per annum.

I accept that my friends and I might be atypical. Maybe you know people who would legally bind themselves to another human being, for life, for an extra £150 a year? Perhaps you were contemplating leaving a loveless or abusive marriage, but underwent a change of heart on hearing about a possible £150 tax break? Anything is possible; but somehow, I doubt it. Even Mr Cameron seems to admit that he is offering nothing more than a token gesture when he tells us “it’s not the money, it’s the message”.

Nobody who has ever experienced the reality of poverty could say “it’s not the money, it’s the message”. When your flat has been broken into, and you cannot afford a locksmith, it is the money. When you are two pence short of a tin of baked beans, and your child is hungry, it is the money. When you find yourself contemplating shoplifting to get nappies, it is the money. If Mr Cameron’s only practical advice to women living in poverty, the sole carers of their children, is “get married, and we’ll give you £150”, he reveals himself to be completely ignorant of their true situation.

Labels: culture, Marriage, poverty, single parenting, United Kingdom

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What guest-house owner could possibly refuse newlyweds a room on the most romantic night of their lives? Now consider the same question if the couple happened to be gay.

The Sunday Times decided to test attitudes after Chris Grayling, the shadow home secretary, defended the right of bed-and-breakfast owners to refuse board to homosexuals.

A reporter, posing as a gay man who was planning to “marry” his boyfriend in a civil partnership, approached 50 B&Bs across Scotland, asking whether he could book a double room for the start of his honeymoon.

While most were more than happy to provide accommodation for gay guests, a few appeared more circumspect.

Attitudes were most relaxed in cities such as Glasgow and Edinburgh and appeared to harden in more northerly rural areas. Though no guest-house owner expressed outright hostility, several insisted that they were fully booked, despite the date requested being midweek in May, not the busiest period of the tourist calendar in the north of Scotland.

On five occasions where the gay guest was denied a room, one became available when the same establishments were subsequently contacted by a female reporter, posing as a tourist, who said she was was visiting Scotland with her boyfriend. ...

Under the Equality Act 2006 it is illegal to discriminate against people on the grounds of sexual orientation.

However, last week Grayling defended the right of Christian B&B owners to reject homosexual guests. While the shadow home secretary said hotels should not be allowed to discriminate in the same way, he added: “If it’s a question of somebody who’s doing a B&B in their own home, that individual should have the right to decide who does and who doesn’t come into their own home.”

Labels: culture, discrimination law, gay couples, gay marriage, United Kingdom

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Britain's ruling Labour Party on Saturday poured scorn on an opposition Conservative election pledge to impose a new levy on banks' borrowing to pay for a tax break to reward couples who get married.

The Conservatives, who have a small lead in the polls ahead of a May 6 election, said it would send a signal that they value marriage. Labour called it a political gesture that would penalize some families.

The proposal touches on the Conservatives' central campaign pledge to fix what they describe as "Broken Britain," a place of family breakdown, crime and welfare dependency.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown, seeking an historic fourth consecutive election victory for his center-left party, said the Conservatives would cut school budgets, tax breaks for middle class families and state-assisted child savings accounts.

"I am a great believer in marriage," Brown said. "But what this is giving a little with one hand and taking away a lot with another."

Work and Pensions Secretary Yvette Cooper said the idea was "unfair, irresponsible (and) out of date," while Britain's third party, the Liberal Democrats, called it "patronizing drivel."

Labels: Marriage, United Kingdom

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Gay male couples will be able to use a fast-track route to become the legal parents of surrogate children from next week. On 6 April, changes to the law will permit two men to be named as parents on a child's birth certificate for the first time in British history.

The transition will take effect following the implementation of the final piece of the 2008 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act. This last section is aimed at helping same-sex and unmarried couples who seek to have surrogate children and will allow them to secure legal parenthood in a new, simplified manner. At present, only married, heterosexual couples can use this route.

"These changes bring the law up to date with the realities of modern 21st-century life and recognise that increasing numbers of same-sex and unmarried couples are having children together," said Natalie Gamble, of the fertility law firm Gamble and Ghevaert.

Surrogacy has become increasingly common and offers couples an alternative route to parenthood if all other methods, including IVF treatments, fail. Current legislation allows heterosexual, married couples to get a parental order to give them a birth certificate for a child born to a mother with whom they have entered into a surrogacy agreement. But gay, lesbian and unmarried couples cannot do this. The surrogate mother has to be named on the birth certificate. If she is married, her husband is legally considered to be the father.

Labels: donor conception, gay parenting, surrogate motherhood, United Kingdom, unmarried parents

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Analysis of Census results found that four-fifths of spouses who were married in 1991 were still together a decade later, compared with three-fifths of cohabiting couples.

Older couples and those with children were more likely to stay in the same relationships, the independent statistics body said.

The findings of the ONS are likely to reignite the political debate over whether married couples should be given tax breaks.

The Conservatives have pledged to recognise marriage in the tax system, ensuring that spouses would not lose out if one wanted to stay at home to raise their children, on the grounds that stable families are good for society.

But Labour ministers, who abolished tax breaks for married couples, say that families now come in “all shapes and sizes” and so it would be wrong to disadvantage single parents or widows. ...

Marriage rates are already at their lowest level since records began in 1862, with just 232,990 weddings taking place in England and Wales during 2008.

But despite the greater instability of cohabitation, the ONS believes even fewer couples are likely to tie the knot in future.

Labels: cohabitation, culture, Marriage, United Kingdom

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