Latest news with #spermDonation
ABC News
07-07-2025
- Health
- ABC News
Calls for 'wild west' of online sperm donation to be regulated due to 'lifelong consequences'
A leading Australian fertility lawyer is urging governments to regulate the "wild west" of online semen donation, accusing them of being "asleep at the wheel" as women continue to turn to websites and apps to seek donors. Stephen Page is calling on health ministers to look at regulating the space as part of the three-month rapid review of the nation's fertility sector that was sparked by the second Monash IVF mix-up. "There's no regulation, you can set up a website, you can set up an app and bang the drum and get men coming along saying that they will be donors, either by AI (artificial insemination), or NI (natural insemination, or what we used to call sex)," he said. One sperm donation Facebook group, which has more than 21,000 members, asks questions around insemination methods people are comfortable to use, including NI. Last year, ABC's Background Briefing investigated Facebook group sperm exchanges and the "known donor" movement as "wait times and costs see more Australians turn away from traditional sperm banks". The sites are used by some single women and lesbian couples seeking to start a family without the big expense and delays of going to fertility companies, which can involve long wait times to access donor sperm. But Mr Page, who is also on the Fertility Society of Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) board, cited risks including the lack of a cap on the number of families a donor can donate to through social media and concerns women could be exploited. He said the need for reform was urgent. "It worries me greatly. There's been all this attention about IVF clinics and let's be clear, I think much of that is warranted, but what really worries me is these sites and apps being unregulated," he said. Mr Page said donors should have to provide the site or group's administrator with ID verification, such as a driver's licence or passport. It should then be passed on to a regulatory authority, and if the donor has surpassed the limit on how many families he can create, "remove him from the site", Mr Page said. Donors should also have to declare sexually transmitted infection status, he added. The Brisbane-based lawyer, who made it clear he was not speaking on behalf of FSANZ, believes if social media groups or sites failed to adhere to a proposed code of practice, then they should be shut down. "You can't control people on the phone, you can't control if they meet in the pub or the corner store, but you can certainly control how they communicate through an app or website, which is how most people communicate," he said. "We can't have children waking up in the morning discovering that they've got 57 siblings because there's been a failure of political will to regulate these apps and websites. Asked if any other country regulated this area, he replied: "No, not as far as I'm aware." Adam Hooper, who started Sperm Donation Australia on social media in 2015 because he believed in "known donation", said regulations would "put people in danger". "If regulations are brought in (it) will turn into the dark web where children will never know their donors (sic) identities," Mr Hooper told the ABC in response to a series of questions. "Sperm Donation Australia gives the best advice and goes above and beyond anywhere in the world for a free platform. "Recipients are told to visualise STD tests before commencing." Mr Hooper said regulations did not change human behaviour. "As adults, we all have sexual education," he said. "Their (sic) is people on dating apps right now have (sic) unprotected sex." In response to claims the online semen donation world was the "wild west", he said the "society we live in as a whole is the bigger issue and the real wild west". Mr Hooper said Sperm Donation Australia kicked people out of the group for "lots of reasons", including unreliability, being caught out lying, and having judgemental views on sexuality. "We have a very low tolerance for misbehaviour of any sort," he said. Rebecca Kerner, the chair of the Australia and New Zealand Infertility Counsellors Association (ANZICA), backed Mr Page's call for action. She wrote to Federal Health Minister Mark Butler on behalf of ANZICA several times in 2023, concerned about the lack of regulation and the need for a national donor conception register. ANZICA wrote to Mr Butler again recently, further advocating for reform. Ms Kerner said it was only by establishing a national register that family limits on sperm donors could be monitored and maintained. Without it, she said the risks of psychological distress among donor-conceived children were extreme. "We need to start listening and hearing from people who are conceived in this way," Ms Kerner said. "It is about the potential impact of having large donor sibling groups. For some donor-conceived people, they can certainly feel like they've been cloned. Emily Fae, a Perth-based donor-conceived person and a co-founder of Donor Conceived Australia, said the government has a "duty" to step in. "I absolutely agree that the online donor space is the wild west," she said, adding that donors can lie about themselves, how many children they have fathered, or conceal serious genetic conditions. "Unregulated donation creates lifelong consequences for the donor-conceived people involved. "We deserve accurate medical history, the right to know our genetic relatives, and safeguards against preventable harm." A federal health department spokeswoman said the three-month review agreed to by the nation's health ministers into the assisted reproductive technology (ART) sector would be led by the Victorian government. The spokeswoman said the government was aware of the concerns raised by ANZICA about semen donors advertising online. "Health ministers will consider the outcomes of the review in the coming months, as a matter of priority," she said.
Russia Today
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Russia Today
Durov and Snoop Dogg trade jabs over Telegram CEO's 106 kids
Veteran American rapper Snoop Dogg has slammed Pavel Durov for fathering more than 100 children, claiming that the Telegram founder and CEO was 'dropping litters' rather than making babies. Durov told French newspaper Le Point last month that he is the official father of six children with three different partners, but that he has also over 100 other kids in 12 countries through sperm donations. Snoop Dogg, himself a father of four, addressed the Telegram CEO in a post on X on Monday, writing: 'Yo, Pave Durov, heard U got 106 kids now??' 'Neffew you not havn babies you droppn litters... slo down,' the musician advised, including a cat and dog emojis and the #PuppyLove hashtag in his post. @snoopdogg takes a dogg to know a dogg, I can give you some tips 😉 best discussed where privacy is king. I'll hit you on TG. Durov replied a few hours later, writing that it 'takes a dogg to know a dogg, I can give you some tips.' However, the tech billionaire suggested that X, which is owned by Elon Musk, was not the proper platform to address the topic. 'Best discussed where privacy is king. I'll hit you on TG [Telegram],' he told Snoop. In the same interview with Le Point in mid-June, Durov announced that he plans to leave his fortune to his numerous children. However, the 40-year-old clarified that they will not have access to their inheritance until 30 years from now. Forbes estimates the wealth of the Russian-born Telegram CEO at $17.1 billion, making him the 134th richest person in the world.
The Guardian
21-06-2025
- The Guardian
Why does this billionaire have 100 kids in 12 countries?
Pavel Durov is a Russian-born billionaire whose interests include doing half-naked photoshoots with baby goats and having lots and lots of (human) kids. The 40-year-old billionaire founder and CEO of the messaging app Telegram revealed last year– in a post on his own app – that while he isn't married and prefers to live alone, he has over 100 biological children in 12 countries via sperm donation. Durov's reproductive choices made headlines again this week after the tech tycoon told the French political magazine Le Point that he is going to leave his fortune, estimated at almost $14bn, to all of his children. Durov has six children he fathered naturally with three different partners as well as the children he has via sperm donation. 'They are all my children and will all have the same rights. I don't want them to tear each other apart after my death,' he told Le Point. What possessed Durov, who was charged last year in France over allegations that Telegram is being used for illicit activity, to populate the world with so many mini-mes? (He has denied failing to cooperate with authorities and Telegram has denied having poor moderation.) Well, like Elon Musk and a number of other tech types, Durov is a pronatalist who is worried about global fertility rates declining. He's chosen to take a hands-on approach to tackling the issue, funding free IVF treatments for women at AltraVita IVF Clinic in Moscow for anyone who uses his sperm. If you're interested, and I'm sure that a lot of people will be now that Durov has laid out the terms of his will, he's still got sperm on ice at the clinic. Durov first donated his sperm over 15 years ago, in order to help a friend. Then, he said in his Telegram post last year, he realised he ought to donate more widely. 'The boss of the clinic told me that 'high quality donor material' was in short supply and that it was my civic duty to donate more sperm to anonymously help more couples,' Durov said in the post. Durov added that he wants to 'help destigmatize the whole notion of sperm donation and incentivize more healthy men to do it.' Having used a sperm donor to conceive my own child, I'm all for destigmatizing sperm donation. Particularly as there is a major lack of sperm donors among certain demographics: at one point last year, for example, there were only a dozen Black sperm donors at the four main cryobanks in the US. But, and this is a very big but, there is an enormous difference between destigmatizing artificial insemination and one person thinking it is their 'civic duty' to conceive 100-plus children. Allowing a single individual to procreate so prolifically raises complex ethical issues. There's the possibility of accidental incest in the future, as well as the potential psychological impact that stems from someone discovering they have 100 siblings. There are also potential medical problems: earlier this year it was reported that the sperm of a man with a rare cancer-causing mutation was used to conceive at least 67 children. Is Durov even allowed to donate to so many different couples? The short answer is yes. The law regarding how many children can be conceived from one donor is complicated and varies from country to country. In places like France there are strict national limits while in the US (and Russia) there is no national law limiting the number of donations one person can make. Reputable cryobanks, however, do claim to have their own self-imposed limits. The European Sperm Bank applies a worldwide limit of 75 families for each sperm donor. California Cryobank, one of the largest providers in the US, has said it tries to limit donations to about 25-30 families. However these cryobanks are also extremely expensive, particularly after the pandemic, when shortages meant spermflation kicked in, and there is a completely unregulated market for sperm via Facebook groups and private websites where people can match with potential donors. This has allowed unscrupulous people like Jonathan Jacob Meijer of the Netherlands to father hundreds of children. As artificial insemination becomes more common, there is a desperate need to better regulate the industry and limit the number of children conceived from a single sperm donor. Indeed, Sweden, along with seven other countries including Belgium, raised the topic with EU ministers this week. 'This issue has been left unresolved for too long,' an official from Belgium told POLITICO, adding that an 'international limit is a first step in the right direction.' Let's hope that these limits get put in place sooner rather than later. Because I have an inkling that Elon Musk, who seems to be going a little off the rails, might take all the chatter about Durov's progeny as a personal challenge. These include messages like: 'Did you know that the unborn child is discarded as hospital waste?' The Guardian reports that this is the 'latest example of a growing trend across Brazil to further restrict access to abortion in a country that already has some of the world's most restrictive laws'. The caveat here is that overdiagnosis could be contributing to this increasing. Per Axios, one study 'found that routine skin exams have increased and pathologists now more often classify ambiguous lesions as melanoma'. (You should still get yourself checked and avoid tanning beds!) The judge who did this is Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee who previously worked for a conservative Christian legal activist group and has made his anti-abortion views very clear. Sign up to The Week in Patriarchy Get Arwa Mahdawi's weekly recap of the most important stories on feminism and sexism and those fighting for equality after newsletter promotion Hundreds of ambitious conservative women gathered at the Young Women's Leadership Summit this week, an annual conference organized by the rightwing Turning Point USA. They wore buttons that said things like 'My Favorite Season Is the Fall of Feminism' and 'I Don't Need a Degree to Succeed' while listening to inspiring lectures about how their real calling in life is to stay in the kitchen. At one point Charlie Kirk, the Turning Point USA founder, encouraged a high school freshman to focus on husband-hunting rather than higher education. 'I think there's an argument to bring back the 'MRS degree',' Kirk said. We've got to bomb the oppressed brown women in order to liberate them, don't you understand? Mona Eltahawy looks at the weaponization of women's rights to justify war from Afghanistan to Iran. In 2024, weightlifting was the fastest-growing sport among American women. Vox looks at changing body ideals and the way in which strength training ushers in 'a world that promises to make women bigger instead of smaller'. The president's granddaughter, clearly inspired by Trump's fake shift at McDonald's last year, posted a video of herself 'working' at Dunkin' Donuts. A wild monkey in Hong Kong recently went viral after getting filmed tearing up a sign telling people not to feed the animals. While no monkeys were available for comment, I suspect this may be a case of gorilla warfare. Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist
Gizmodo
20-06-2025
- Business
- Gizmodo
Telegram CEO Says He'll Leave His Fortune to His 106+ Children
Telegram CEO Pavel Durov is so obsessed with his own jizz that he's spent years sending it to random women so they can inseminate themselves with it. As a result, the billionaire is said to have as many as 106 biological children. Now, Durov has promised that—in the event of his death—he will bequeath his massive fortune (reputed to be some $17 billion) to all of his wayward spawn. Durov's supposed plan was revealed during a recent interview with Le Point, a French news site. He revealed to the outlet that he recently wrote a will that details how his fortune is to be split amongst his unusually large brood. Why does the Telegram executive have such a big family? Due to his relationships with three separate women, Durov says he is the 'official father' of six children. However, because of his ongoing sperm donations to a Russian IVF clinic (Durov was born in Russia), he also has babies with another 100 women. Last year, the clinic announced that it was offering free treatment to women who were willing to accept the billionaire's spunk. Durov has previously said he plans to 'open-source' his own DNA so that all of his biological children 'can find each other more easily.' Even though he's only raising half a dozen kids himself, the billionaire says he thinks about all of his children as equal to one another. 'I want to specify that I make no difference between my children: There are those who were conceived naturally and those who come from my sperm donations,' he told the French news site. 'They are all my children and will all have the same rights!' Durov's new will stipulates that his children will have access to their inheritance in thirty years. He says he wants to delay the payout so that his kids learn to be self-sufficient. 'I want them to live like normal people, to build themselves up alone, to learn to trust themselves, to be able to create, not to be dependent on a bank account,' the billionaire said. Durov seems to be contemplating the future of his family line due to his recent legal troubles. 'My work involves risks,' he told Le Point. Durov's site, Telegram, certainly involves risks, as it has been accused of being a hub for criminals, nazis, sexual predators, and terrorists. Last August, the Russian-born tech executive was arrested in Paris after he was accused of allowing criminal activity to flourish on the platform. Durov was ultimately released on $5.5 million bail, but he is barred from leaving France until the government's investigation into the site is complete. During the Le Point interview, Durov referred to the allegations against him as 'absurd' and said that there was no evidence of his guilt. 'Just because criminals use our messaging service among many others doesn't make those who run it criminals,' he told the outlet. 'Nothing has ever been proven showing that I am, even for a second, guilty of anything. But it seems I'm already being punished at this stage through the ban on leaving the territory.'
Entrepreneur
20-06-2025
- Business
- Entrepreneur
Telegram Billionaire Pavel Durov's Plan for His 100 Children
In an interview with French news magazine "Le Point," Telegram founder and billionaire Pavel Durov explained how he intends to dole out his fortune. Pavel Durov, the 40-year-old controversial founder of instant messaging app Telegram, told French political magazine Le Point that he has a plan to share his $13.9 billion fortune with the more than 100 children he has fathered when he dies. "They are all my children and will all have the same rights! I don't want them to tear each other apart after my death," Durov said. One hundred children is a big brood, and Durov, a self-exiled Russian who lives in Dubai, explained how it came to be. He called himself the "official father" of six children whom he fathered with three different partners. The other kids came from a clinic "where I started donating sperm fifteen years ago to help a friend," adding that he has been informed that "more than 100 babies had been conceived this way in 12 countries." Related: The U.S. Added Over 1,000 New Millionaires a Day in 2024. Here's How That Compares to the Rest of the World. All of the kids will have to wait 30 years to receive their inheritances, he said, explaining, "I want them to live like normal people, to build themselves up alone, to learn to trust themselves, to be able to create, not to be dependent on a bank account." Dubrov said that he has been thinking of his will because his job "involves risks – defending freedoms earns you many enemies, including within powerful states." Related: Meta Is Trying to Poach OpenAI Employees With 'Giant' $100 Million Offers, Sam Altman Says The founder faces criminal charges in France and is accused of failing to properly moderate Telegram to reduce criminal activity. Law enforcement says the app has facilitated drug trafficking, fraud, and the spread of child sexual abuse content. Dubrov calls the accusations "totally absurd" and told Le Point, "Just because criminals use our messaging service among many others doesn't make those who run it criminals." BBC News explains further, writing: "Telegram allows groups of up to 200,000 members, which critics have argued makes it easier for misinformation to spread, and for users to share conspiracist, neo-Nazi, paedophilic, or terror-related content." The app has a billion monthly active users.
