There is an interesting lawsuit against a US sperm bank Xytex and its Ontario distributor, Outreach Health. At the center of the case is Donor 9623, James Christian Aggeles of Georgia, who claimed an IQ of 160, an undergraduate degree in neuroscience and a master’s degree in artificial intelligence. He also claimed that he was pursuing a PhD in neuroscience engineering. In reality, he was a formal mental patient with a felony conviction. His sperm was used to conceive at least 36 children in Canada, the US and Britain. The result is a $12 million lawsuit against the companies.
The truth about Aggeles was discovered in 2014 after an inadvertent disclosure by Xytex that included his email. The later Google search revealed the true identity and his past diagnosis for schizophrenia, narcissistic personality disorder, drug-induced psychotic disorder and significant grandiose delusions. It also revealed a conviction for a 2005 residential burglary resulting in eight months in jail.
Xytex’s President Kevin M. O’Brien insisted: “In this case, the donor underwent a standard medical exam and provided extensive personal and health information. He reported a good health history and stated in his application that he had no physical or medical impairments.”
However, the families insist that Xytex and Outreach Health continued to promote and sell the donor’s sperm even after the sperm bank was informed of the disclosures.
This is a horrific situation for these women and liability could produce a needed incentive for these companies to better screen donors. It hardly seems reasonable to rely on the representations of donors without further investigation. This is not eHarmony from a sperm bank with lasting implications for women.
What do you think?
You and Turley mug be the only classical liberals left.
That’s welcome news, josh.
There’s little evidence that your view is widely shred among the left.
The NFL and its punishment of Atlanta for Georgia laws permitting religious behavior, where liberals went wild because a bakery withheld their business from gay weddings. Hypocrites.
Sorry, but the mass of evidence these days is for liberal tyranny. Fascism, it’s called.
It’s your side doing it, I’m just pointing it out.
@Karen S. Yes, I object when a comment literally consists of “all liberals are fascists who want to destroy free speech.” I’m a liberal and support the right of holocaust deniers, the Klan, and the Westborough Baptist Church to say all the disgusting things they’re known for. Endlessly repeating that all liberals hate free speech is untrue and tiresome, and examples of some liberals acting in such a manner doesn’t make it a rule (this is general, not directed at you). Just as quoting a few Christians who want to make homosexuality illegal doesn’t prove all Christians want to lock up all gay people.
In short, this blog deserves better.
It does decline, every time Mamie comments under one of her many names.
LOL! I just figured out Mamie and HRH. They must be listening to “Glory Days” as they type about their past. Those Weekend Bloggers of which they wax poetic have failed miserably elsewhere. And, they now all hate each other. It is hilarious and was predicted by me when they left in a hissy fit.
Mamie:
Professor Turley panders to neither the left nor the right. A declared Liberal, he does not view right or wrong through political glasses.
His articles have included the erosion of free speech on college campuses. Do you think that his criticism should be silenced, merely because the object is a liberal bastion?
It appears that commenters object when Turley writes articles criticizing anything Liberal, or when conservatives comment…which is very apropos in a discussion on the erosion of free speech.
If it was a lot of “Bush is the evil leader of the NEW WORLD ORDER/why do all conservatives want to bring back slavery/how come all Christians want total control over women’s bodies” nonsense then great that they’re gone. Not a reason for the comment section to mirror such nonsense by merely swapping in a few key words.
I’ve read this blog for a few years, and have watched Prof. Turley on news programs even longer, and just wish someone as intelligent as Turley could have a comment section that matches the quality of the blog.
I do feel compassion for the women. We have no idea of the story that led them to artificial insemination. Some may be married, where the husband is either infertile, or carries a genetic disease marker that he does not wish to pass down.
Childless couples can choose adoption or in some cases, artificial insemination. We’ve all seen the stories where sperm donors who knew the mother suddenly decided they wanted custody of the children. Perhaps there was a measure of safety in using an anonymous donor. Or heartbreaking cases of adopted kids with fetal alcohol syndrome, or exposed to drugs in the womb. There is no easy one size fits all solution for people who cannot have children the conventional way.
My own beloved older brother was adopted, and I wasn’t born until years later. I can’t judge women who want to carry their own child, and choose to go to a sperm bank, just as I wouldn’t judge someone who adopted a child in need from a foreign country. For years, I wondered why parents don’t try to choose a child from the US first, to help the kids at home before getting a Chinese, Russian, or African adoption like so many celebrities. But then I saw a photo of a Nigerian toddler who had been thrown out of his home. He had a minor, and fixable, birth defect, was deemed a witch, and was abandoned on the street for 8 months until a Dutch philanthropist swooped him up when he was 2. On his own, scavenging for food while adults just walked past him from 14 months on… He’s now named Hope, and I wish him health and happiness. Yep, I can see why people feel an intense need to adopt children from foreign countries. And perhaps I would be moved by the stories of these women, too.
http://womenofrubies.com/2016/02/02/danish-woman-rescues-little-boy-who-was-accused-of-withcraft-and-left-to-die-in-uyo/
So although this can be a cautionary tale of caveat emptor, I have no idea what the story is on any of the women who fell for this sperm bank’s inflated promises.
The liberal offerings here thus far suggest little evidence of a glorious blog past.
Enlighten me, Mamie and josh and Hrh.
Show us how it’s done.
Mamie – if you are liberal and doing the attacking you were probably very happy. If you were conservative and being attacked you were not very happy.
You just keep proving my point so there’s little reason to continue. Btw, don’t call me uneducated in the post you use to accuse me of making ad hominem attacks against you. Sorry, I forgot when the you says such things it’s statement of fact (directed at someone you know nothing about).
If someone wants to use the same style of mockery as I to point out the endlessly repeating vapid posts, many of which have nothing to do with the topic, I have no problem with it.
@Paul Schulte. I’m not interested in bashing conservatives, I’m interested in pointing out how ridiculous it is to read a blog post about dogs and see a comment section with “evil gays/Obama/liberal fascist/Muslims” as the the common theme posted.
joshzzzz – As I said, what goes around, comes around. What you are seeing now is nothing like the rancor from the liberals when they were the majority on this blog.
Mamie
I wonder if Prof Turley has noticed the sea change around here. He lost essentially all of his weekend bloggers (Darren excepted) and hasn’t been able to recruit anyone else. Plenty of correlation I’d say.
Mamie – when I came to this blog it was all about bashing conservatives. What goes around, comes around.
KCF, I think it must be Old Timers Day @ the Turley Blog. HRH sounds like one.
HRH and joshzzzz must frequent the same blogs.
Cut and paste commenting.
No substance, just noise.
Spam bots write better.
KCFleming
Something Obama.
Something all liberals.
Something, something, Muslims.
That’s the anthology for the writings of KCF.
Impressive, isn’t it?
I have often wondered why “hypocrisy” appears to be the only remaining sin among liberals.
Perhaps it is because they employ it so often, and it fills them with shame.
In any event, calling me a hypocrite is meaningless to me. Anything liberals don’t like is “hypocrisy”, or fascism, racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.
Ad hominems.
Those terms have lost all meaning. Employing them here garners nothing but contempt.
Your tendency to label all dissent from your position (Y) as “X” is an error of logic.
You’ve decided ALL NOT Y = X, which is mistaken.
Your inability to comprehend or properly refute arguments you disagree with is not my problem.
Moreover, you have established that you will argue dishonestly, or at least ignorantly, so don’t expect detailed and reasoned rebuttals to your posts.
It isn’t worth the time or effort.
Don’t sell boorish leftism here, sonny; we’re all full up.
Spouting “logical fallacies” is what hypocrites do when faced with something obvious they can’t refute, such as the fact that these comments are overwhelmingly made up of worthless absolutes and meaningless ideological slogans, and there’s nothing ad hominem about directly quoting those posts.
“Something Obama something all liberals are fascists something something Muslims.”
As I said, joshzzzz, your trolling will be much improved by expanding the number of logical fallacies you employ.
Varying them in your posts makes them harder to detect and gives the sheen of honest debate, where your current method is simply formulaic straw man plus ad hominem, a rather boring and common technique popular among uneducated liberals.
Best of luck.