JustASC

Simple coincidence, or alarming trend? Two sperm-related  stories out of Israel this week.

There’s this:

Court: ‘Sperm theft’ doesn’t warrant forced termination

 The Haifa Family Court on Thursday rejected a petition by a man to have a woman he accused of “sperm theft” terminate her pregnancy.

The ruling was made in the case of a 21-year-old man who asked the court to order a 26-year-old woman he accidentally got pregnant to terminate the pregnancy.

 He claimed that the woman, a divorcee with two children, “stole his sperm” by seducing him while he was under the influence of alcohol and further alleged that she assured him she was using birth control pills. 

And this:

Study: Quality of Israeli sperm down 40% in past decade

The quality of Israeli sperm has declined alarmingly in the last decade, according to recent research conducted at Jerusalem’s Hadassah University Hospital, Mount Scopus.

The cause for the decline is not known, but it’s believed by some researchers to be connected to the exposure of children and pregnant women to hormones and other contaminants in food and water.

Conducted by Dr. Ronit Haimov-Kokhman, the study showed a 40-percent decline in the concentration of sperm cells among the country’s sperm donors from 2004 to 2008, compared to those of donors from 1995 to 1999. Hadassah’s sperm bank is now turning away two-thirds of potential donors because of low-quality sperm, as opposed to one-third in the past.