A lesbian couple from Canada is suing the parent company of a local sperm bank for allegedly misrepresenting the donor whose sperm they used to produce a child, saying they were told he was a highly educated engineer but who was later discovered to be a schizophrenic criminal.

The Associated Press (AP) is reporting on the story of Angela Collins and Margaret Elizabeth Hanson who chose Donor #9623 to be the father of their child. They were told he had an IQ of 160, an undergraduate degree in neuroscience and a master’s degree in artificial intelligence, and was pursuing a Ph.D. in neuroscience engineering. In addition, he was described as being “mature beyond his years” and that he had an “impressive health history.”

That was seven years ago. Collins gave birth to a healthy son conceived with the sperm, which had also been used to father approximately 30 other children.

“Then last June, almost seven years after Collins gave birth to a son conceived with his sperm, they got a batch of emails from the sperm bank that unexpectedly — and perhaps mistakenly — included the donor's name,” the AP reports.

As soon as they learned the man’s name, they decided to check into his background and learned that he was nothing like what had been represented to them.

Instead, he was a schizophrenic, had dropped out of college, and was arrested for burglary. The picture of him that they had been shown was also different from the one they discovered on their own in that a large mole on the man’s cheek had been removed.

The couple decided to sue Xytex Corp., the parent company of the sperm bank as well as the bank’s employees and the man they say was misrepresented to them.

Xytex president Kevin O’Brien said that the donor had a standard medical exam, provided photos of himself and copies of his degrees – in other words, the man misrepresented himself to the company.

However, the couple claims that they were told this is who the donor is, not who he told them he was.

This is just the latest in a long list of bizarre mix ups occurring in the multi-billion dollar artificial reproduction industry that has seen everything from white couples giving birth to black babies to sperm donors producing so many children that their local offspring are afraid to date for fear of being related.

And this is only what we know about. Remember, there is little or no oversight of this industry that relies on “recommendations” given by a few professional organizations.

Even those larger commercial sperm banks in the U.S. that do demand high standards are limited by the extent to which they can fool with nature. For instance, asking for three generations of family medical history depends on what the donors know, and some conditions, such as mental illness, simply aren’t detectable by blood and/or genetic testing.

And because most sperm donors are in their early 20’s, it’s always possible that an unknown genetic condition will only show up as they age.

Of course, the natural process of courtship and marriage is designed to help couples learn about each other’s backgrounds and health history. If there is a genetic condition in the family, they know to be on the lookout for symptoms or to take action to prevent it from occurring.

The bottom line is that when we rely on Divine Providence rather than technology to produce children, things have a way of working out – even in cases of infertility which can give couples the opportunity to investigate and treat the causes of their infertility or to adopt when no treatment is available.

Most important of all, keeping things natural insures that a child can grow up knowing what he or she needs to know about themselves – such as who they and where they came from - in order to live a long, healthy and happy life.

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