ABSTRACT
The process of diagnosis may reveal a medical cause – often, in the case of infertility, in the form of a hormonal deficiency. Posthumous husband’s semen has considerable legal significance in its own right and, although the subject is, strictly speaking, beyond the ambit of the treatment of infertility. Infertility in the male may be due to a blockage of the vasa deferentia, in which case, the defect may be reversible by appropriate surgery. Infertility resulting from the former may sometimes be surmounted by multiple emissions or by manipulation of the ejaculate. The problem of unrecognisable disease prompts much artificial insemination by donor (AID) clinics to seek known fathers – often fathers of children in the post-natal ward – as donors. Many of the legal hurdles of AID which once had to be overcome by the prospective parents have now been lowered – the process was begun some time before the 1990 Act.
