http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MmQ1YzAyYTM3NDYwMGQ5MDdkYTA3ZDlhMjdmODE5ZmM=The Ultimate Outsourcing [Mark Steyn]
My jaw doesn't often drop, but
this story had it heading for the basement:
Thousands of Canadians who are infertile in Canada have to place all their hopes on just 33 men who are Canadian sperm donors.
What? A nation of 30 million people has just 33 sperm donors? Apparently so. Now why would that be?
At one time Canada had two dozen sperm banks but when the Assisted Human Reproduction Act made it illegal to pay for sperm or egg donors they dried up in 2004.
Today there are very few men willing to give up their sperm for nothing.
Well, okay. But these 33 hard-workin' guys, there's still room for a bit of individual selection, right? Up to a point:
"Today, there is one South Asian donor for all of Canada," he says, noting that couples are often shocked at the limited choices.
One donor for thousands of wannabe parents? He must be working round the clock. Well, not quite. For Canadian womenfolk have now been reduced to the ultimate indignity:
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.
Wow. This isn't your father's War of 1812. The poor Canucks never saw it coming. Millions of Yank sperm leaping like salmon up the Ontario side of Niagara Falls.
A wait for semen seems pretty much the logical reductio of "free at the point of demand" health care. But, as Kathy Shaidle says, how
can this go wrong? Canada, circa 2050: Eighty percent drawling rednecks demanding grits with their maple-creme donuts, and the remainder a vast tribe of intermarried step-siblings riddled with genetic disorders descended from "one South Asian donor."
So, are all these Canadians American citizens, since they are the sons of American citizens?
Would the Canadian political class describe this sort of thing as "Work Canadians won't do?"
[Actually, it seems the problem is identical to the "work American's won't do" problem: artificially low wages/compensation for the product of citizens .]
Just imagine if, say, Ohio imported most its "product" from south of the M-D line. I suspect a certain poster might lay awake at nights, envisioning all the unmowed lawns, autos on blocks, and poor dentition coming from supposedly good, yankee families.
-I edited your thread title. Wholly inappropriate.-Jamisjockey
