As Mark Steyn so aptly put it at The Corner: “The ultimate outsourcing” is occurring here in the United States. That model of socialized medicine perfection, Canada, made it illegal to pay men for their sperm back in 2004, so today there are all of 33 legal (and, need we add, extremely busy) donors available for the whole country. (The situation is similar in Great Britain, too.)
But wait! Even if you are a minority couple looking for help, there is still choice. One is South Asian!
Instead of the Mounties, following that most proper course of political hypocrisies, Canadians have called upon the American free-market economy to come to their rescue:
Doctors and patients have had little choice but to use sperm and eggs from south of the border.
One of the biggest suppliers of donor sperm is Outreach Health Services which imports and distributes semen for assisted reproduction clinics across Canada. The company imports sperm from an agency that collects primarily from men in Georgia and northern Florida, where donors are paid about $100 per visit.
With so much sperm coming from the States, some estimate that up to 80 per cent of babies conceived in Canada through donor sperm have American DNA.
This gives a whole ‘nother meaning to the term, “neighbor”. Not to mention the potential DNA problems as cousins grow up and start marrying their cousins. But then, that assures more patients needing government-provided medical care, doesn’t it?
Any wonder President Obama reassured Canadians that while their system works for them, it’s not necessarily what Americans want?