Aspies For Freedom

? :razz:

Yes, I'd imagine you could if you don't mention that fact.  And if you have not been formally diagnosed, there's no need to disclose it.  If you do go ahead, make sure you go to a reputable private clinic (they pay more), run by qualified medical people.  But prepare yourself for a potential shock - since you may be rejected on other grounds than your aspie-ness (small 'samples', too young, poor health, unemployed, even your height).  There is, of course, a private ethical problem that you also need to think carefully about.

Personally, I donated as a student (I needed the cash), before I had even read or knew anything about 'aspies'.  I now have ten 12-year old kids running around somewhere in the UK   Ten is the maximum you're allowed to father.

I think you could get sued, or even criminally prosecuted if you did not disclose the fact.
There is a donor who has created numerous autistic children, and there was a big fuss from the mothers in the media recently.

When you sign the contract with the agency, you have to be honest, it's the law.
And if you were honest, they wouldn't want you

If they use the term Asperger's - and hope they don't know its on the Autistic Spectrum...

Do you have any links to news stories about this? It sounds really interesting to me.

I don't know what the situation is in Australia but as far as I know, donors are not paid, and I think only a few would be accepted. It would be interesting to know how many births resulted each year from sperm donations.

I don't think a donor could get sued if they didn't realise they had autism when they donated.

I'm not a lawyer, but somehow I doubt that such suits would hold up in court. Consider what the plaintiff would have to prove:

--you, the donor have Asperger's
--you knew that you had Asperger's and deliberately misled the recipient.
--that the child has Asperger's
--that the child didn't get it from the other parent
--that Asperger's is definitely genetic

If you are not officially diagnosed, then you are not withholding information, by law, if you do not disclose. However, I think that if there are IQ tests included in the profiling, many of us self-dx'd people (those of us with sperm, anyhow) would be selected.

There used to be a sperm bank in the USA that started off with the idea of supplying donatons from Nobel Prize winners. The only Nobelist donor who was publicly known at the time was William Shockley, who has in recent years been posthumously been identified as an aspie by Prof. Baron-Cohen in his book "The essential difference". After reading about Shockley in the book "The genius factory: unravelling the mysteries of the Nobel Prize sperm bank" by David Plotz, I'd agree with that diagnosis. Unfortunately according to the book no babies resulted from Shockley's donations, even though he was apparently quite fertile despite advanced age. Apparently this sperm bank "The Repository For Germinal Choice" did produce one autistic child (and others who sounded possibly aspie to me from their descriptions in the book). A few of the donors (who were also recruited on the basis of reported high IQs and scientific careers) had some interesting characteristics.

I think it would be great if my undiagnosed aspie hubby could spread his unique characteristics far and wide through anonymous sperm donation, but these days donation is no longer anonymous, they would possibly reject him for some reason or another, and I think those NT parents would be pretty pissed off to find that they have the kind of child that they most likely didn't want.

I can just imagine the scenario in which a non-biological NT father pleads with his (aspie) son to come outside and kick a football around in the park with him, while that kid tells him to @#$$ off and let him concentrate on building his computer network in peace and quiet.

I guess Duvet's AV is really offending M.

Well, that idea was why I was interested in reading the book in the first place. I was surprised that the author of the book didn't seem to be aware of that angle to the story. I believe there is a documentary based on the book which was being advertised on SBS TV in Australia.

That brings to mind another reason why I think my hubby's genes are valuable and deserve to be replicated; he has fathered some very clever kids (our own).

And then there's Duvet's signature!

I know where that comes from(!).

♪ The Internet is porn! The Internet is for porn!♪

I know... Just partially relevant...

What I want to know is how would they know it was the man, and not the WOMAN??  After all theres genetic material in both the sperm and the egg, then there is the complexity of the 9 month development period... no one even KNOWS what causes "autism"  there's probably MANY PATHWAYS, that give rise to autistic like behaviours which we currently call "autism"

Some of us may not be "autistic" by birth, but by infection or some other developmental mishap... When I went in for a psych evaluation they asked if I had any "issues" (paraphrasing) when I was born, I said :  Yeah I was a breach birth with the unbiblical (sp?) cord wrapped around my neck many times, possible oxygen deprivation.

These days, women can donate eggs too. Apart from the asperger's possibly being an issue, I could not donate eggs even if I wanted to because of being over 35.

Had I have been a guy and not known about the condition, I might have thought about sperm donation but it would have been just as likely the issue would never have come up. In Australia, I seriously doubt that people get paid for sperm donations and I don't know if there is much publicity about donating.