ABSTRACT
The initial association of donor insemination (DI) with medical practice and the married state continues and has influenced the formulation of criteria for the evaluation of recipients. As might be expected, these criteria tend to reduce or eliminate the chances of insemination for women who are not linked through a marital or common-law union to an infertile male partner. Although DI is essentially a simple procedure that has been medicalized, little is known about DI outside medical settings, and even less has been documented. In many jurisdictions, limiting access to DI and attempting to police self-insemination (SI) is considered a restriction on reproductive choice and a violation of the basic human right to procreate. Due to the simplicity of the SI procedure, criminalization is virtually impossible to implement. Estimates are that between 1,000 and 3,000 children in the United States and Europe have been conceived recently by lesbians using DI.
