Family Law Prof Blog

Happy Memorial Day

 

Parents with Autistic Children Not Likelier to Divorce

There have been many suggestions over the years that parents with autistic children were more likely to divorce, perhaps due to an added strain on the marriage.  However, new research reports that 64% of children with an autism spectrum disorder have married parents, compared with 65% of children without the condition.  Read more here.

MR

McClain: "Marriage Pluralism in the United States: On Civil and Religious Jurisdiction and the Demands of Equal Citizenship"

Linda McClain (Boston University School of Law) has posted "Marriage Pluralism in the United States: On Civil and Religious Jurisdiction and the Demands of Equal Citizenship" on SSRN.  Here is the abstract:

“Legal pluralism” is hot, particularly in family law. As family law and practice in the United States have become global due to the globalization of the family, some argue it is time for U.S. family law to embrace more legal pluralism so that civil government would cede jurisdictional authority over marriage and divorce law to religious communities. They point to forms of pluralism already present in U.S. family law, such as covenant marriage (available in three states) and New York’s get statutes. They suggest the U.S. should learn from how many other nations allocate jurisdiction over marriage and divorce law (for example, systems of personal law, in which religious tribunals have such jurisdiction). In this chapter, I argue that an exercise in comparative law does reveal many different ways of allocating jurisdiction over family law, but does not answer the normative question of whether these are good models for U.S. family law. Challenging the call for a “multi-tiered” marriage, I analyze what form of marriage pluralism in the U.S. is sought and what might be motivating this demand. I examine differing views about whether there should be congruence between religious and civil marriage, illustrating with the controversy over same-sex marriage. I raise a normative concern over tensions between religious doctrines and key commitments, values, and functions of civil family law, illustrating with how state courts in the U.S. now navigate those tensions when asked to enforce terms of religious marriage contracts and other religious law. I am also skeptical as to whether a more pluralistic legal system can adequately protect the equal citizenship of women. Nearly every foreign example that proponents of jurisdictional pluralism in family law offer raises troubling question about how to reconcile sex equality with religious freedom. Feminist scholars highlight the importance of claims of national and constitutional citizenship as a strategy for redressing sex inequality, even as they affirm the value of membership in religious and cultural groups. Finally, I ask what lessons we might learn about legal pluralism from the recent controversy over religious family law arbitration (or “sharia arbitration”) in Ontario.

AC

Non-Moms on the Supreme Court

The New York Times recently ran an interesting article prompted by Elena Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court as a non-mom.  The author writes:

“I wish she were a mother,” a feminist friend said when Kagan was nominated. “This sends the wrong message.”

But what exactly makes it wrong? Is it because there is some inherent “good” to being a parent — a quality of compassion or tolerance, a worldview beyond your own mortality — that would serve a justice well? Some argue that there is. “A jurist with a mama bear lurking inside,” writes Hilary Shenfeld at iVillage.com, would give the Supreme Court someone who has “wiped away dirt and tears, helped with homework and heartache, made as many decisions as dinners, really listened and really heard.”

Perhaps. But while parenthood certainly influences the way you see the world, it does not influence it in any predictable way. There are studies that show legislators become more conservative as they have more daughters, others that find that male executives become champions of women’s rights in the workplace when they raise girls. So it is, at best, a footnote in predicting how a judge will rule from the bench.

Read the full article here.

MR

Redding: "Dignity, Legal Pluralism, and Same-Sex Marriage"

Jeff Redding (Saint Louis University School of Law) has posted "Dignity, Legal Pluralism, and Same-Sex Marriage" on SSRN.  Here is the abstract:

This Article aims to contribute to the radical re-thinking of family law that is on-going in the contemporary United States by analyzing recent U.S. developments with respect to same-sex marriage from a transnational perspective. In doing so, this Article argues against the odd and overstated quality of recent American state court discussions concerning the necessary relationship between dignity and family law pluralism. These discussions, and the conclusions that they have given rise to, have resulted not only in the erasure of profound and enviable gay and lesbian legal achievements - “domestic partnerships,” “civil unions,” and the like - but also to a severe backlash in the form of Proposition 8 and similar state ballot initiatives.

The conventional (liberal) view is that Proposition 8 and similar laws which create “separate but equal” relationship-recognition regimes for homosexuals (as opposed to traditional heterosexual marriage) pose insurmountable affronts to gay and lesbian dignity. Using a transnational perspective and analysis, however, this Article proposes an alternative, more optimistic take on the relationship between dignity, same-sex marriage, and legal pluralism. Indeed, while the political campaign around Proposition 8 was heated and at times vitriolic, the ballot initiative ultimately returned California to a situation of family law pluralism, i.e. a situation where same-sex and opposite-sex couples are each governed by different (family) laws. In this instance, these different family laws grant essentially the same rights and responsibilities to each sort of couple.

As this Article argues, however, there are other possible results from maintaining a separate system of family law for gays and lesbians, namely the possibility of gay and lesbian people exercising agency with respect to the family laws which directly affect them. With this agency, gays and lesbians would have the possibility of experiencing something more than “separate but equal” family laws being applied to them. Indeed, gays and lesbians would have the opportunity to author - or, in other words, to exercise agency with respect to - their own “separate and better” alternatives to (heterosexually-authored) “majoritarian marriage.” These positive aspects to Proposition 8, and family law pluralism more generally, should not be overlooked, and this Article explores how they can be capitalized upon in a principled, dignity-oriented manner.

AC

New Male Contraceptive?

From CBS News:

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded a $100,000 grant to a couple of researchers investigating the use of ultrasound as a reversible male contraceptive.

The technique already works on rats, according to James Tsuruta, of the University of North Carolina, who led the research.

"We think this could provide men with reliable, low-cost, non-hormonal contraception from a single round of treatment," he said.

The focus now is to come up with a therapeutic ultrasound that would safely deplete testicular sperm counts, which presumably would presage the development of a cheap (and reversible) method of contraception for men.

A hat tip to Discovery Magazine for noticing this item. While details about how the device would function still remain scarce, since sperm don't like excessive heat, Discovery suggests the process may involve "heating and shaking working in combination."

Read the article here.

MR

Martiny: "Is Unification of Family Law Feasible or Even Desirable?"

Dieter Martiny has posted "Is Unification of Family Law Feasible or Even Desirable?" on SSRN.  Here is the abstract:

A few decades ago the term ‘European family law’ sounded a little bit artificial or even strange. Today there is a growing awareness that the two notions have something in common. However, family law as such is still not a matter of general concern in the development of Eu¬ropean civil law. It is often only discussed in the context of European human rights, fundamental rights in the EU or private international law. However, compared to the past, one has become more and more aware of the problems originating from the diversity of family law in Europe and the methods needed to improve the current situation. Nevertheless, the scepticism towards unnecessary attempts at legislative unification and the creation of a state of sameness still overshadows the issue.

AC

Paternal Postpartum Depression

From WSJ:

It's not just new moms who get postpartum depression. More than one in 10 fathers become depressed after the birth of their child, too, according to a new study that researchers said underscores the need for more awareness of men's depression.

Postpartum depression in mothers has been well-recognized, but much less attention has been focused on how new fathers fare. That's because women are usually the primary care givers and postpartum depression was considered a condition likely linked to hormonal changes in pregnancy. Experts say treating depression, whether it's in the mother or father, is important because it raises the risk for long-term behavioral and psychiatric problems in the child.

Researchers from the Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk sought to get an accurate estimate for what percentage of men experience depression in the year after their child was born, using commonly accepted depression measures. They conducted a statistical review of 43 previously published studies involving 28,000 male and female adults.

Some 10.4% of fathers experience depression during the postpartum period, the analysis showed. In the general population, 4.8% of men are believed depressed at any given point in time, according to government data.

For women, the rate of postpartum depression was estimated at nearly 24%, according to the new analysis, which was published Tuesday in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Read more here.

MR

Call for Papers: Family Law/Children & the Law Junior Faculty Workshop

The William & Mary School of Law is sponsoring a workshop for junior scholars working on legal issues related to children and families.  The workshop will be held this summer on the campus of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.  This is the second in a series of junior faculty workshops on topics related to family law and children and the law.  The first was hosted in 2009 by the Frances Lewis Law Center at Washington & Lee University.

 

The workshop will include both junior and senior scholars.  Each junior scholar will present his or her paper to the group, with comments from a senior scholar and from the audience to follow.  The senior scholars will also present papers during the conference, on topics of their choosing. 

 

The workshop can accommodate eight junior scholars.  Applications are welcome from untenured faculty and recently tenured faculty and from those who will be joining a faculty in the upcoming academic year.  Junior clinicians are very welcome.  There is no registration fee for this conference and the William & Mary School of Law is pleased to furnish meals and one night’s lodging for the participants.  The workshop will begin at 11:00 a.m. on Thursday, July 15 and end at 2:00 p.m. on Friday, July 16.

 

Junior scholars wishing to participate in the workshop are asked to e-mail an abstract and a curriculum vitae by June 9, 2010 to Administrative Assistant Felicia Burton at [email protected].  The senior scholars participating in the workshop will select papers no later than June 16.

 

For information, please contact Professor Jim Dwyer ([email protected]) and Professor Vivian Hamilton ([email protected]) at William & Mary School of Law.  Please email both of us to ensure a prompt response.

 

AC

Titshaw: “The Meaning of Marriage: Immigration Rules and Their Implications for Same-Sex Spouses in a World Without DOMA”

Scott Titshaw (Mercer University School of Law) has posted The Meaning of Marriage: Immigration Rules and Their Implications for Same-Sex Spouses in a World Without DOMA, 16 William & Mary Journal of Women and the Law, 537 (2010) on SSRN.  Here is the abstract:

An estimated 35,000 U.S. citizens are living in our country with same-sex foreign partners, but these couples have no right to stay here together on the basis of their relationship. Many of these Americans are faced with a choice between their partners and the country they love. This is true even if the couple is legally married in one of the growing number of U.S. states and foreign countries that recognize same-sex marriage. The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defines “marriage” for all federal purposes as an exclusively heterosexual institution, stands squarely in their way.

Reform options that would help these couples stay together in the United States include a judicial determination that marriage discrimination violates the U.S. Constitution, federal legislation specifically recognizing these couples under U.S. immigration law, and the repeal or striking down of DOMA. This article focuses on the latter possibility.

Repealing or striking down DOMA would not necessarily result in a clear, uniform rule recognizing all same-sex marriages under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). There is, however, a wealth of guidance about how our immigration system deals with marriages that are recognized in some, but not all, U.S. states. This article maps out the legal terrain that would remain in an immigration world without DOMA.

U.S. immigration cases involving marriage validity have been decided in a piecemeal, case-specific manner. A systematic review of the case law, however, reveals that U.S. Attorneys General, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), immigration officials, and most federal courts have consistently applied the same standards to determine marriage validity under the INA.

These standards have been employed in dozens of cases involving biracial marriage, marriage between close relatives, marriage involving minors, marriage involving transgender spouses, proxy marriage, polygamy, and even same-sex marriage before DOMA.

After distilling and describing a three-step test that embodies the well-established rules for dealing with disputed categories of marriage, this article applies this analysis to same-sex spouses whose marriages are recognized by a U.S. state or a foreign country. It identifies some answers and illuminates possible approaches to a few hard questions that would remain.

MR

Ryznar: "International Commercial Surrogacy and its Parties"

Margaret Ryznar has posted "International Commercial Surrogacy and its Parties" (forthcoming John Marshall Law Review) on SSRN.  Here is the abstract:

When discussing international commercial surrogacy, it is essential to remember that at the heart of this market are women and children, which requires an in-depth analysis of the issues that implicate these parties to a commercial surrogacy. In undertaking such an analysis, this Article considers the rights, interests, and obligations of these parties to a surrogacy, as well as the various opportunity costs of international commercial surrogacy. This framework is particularly relevant today as India, an international surrogacy hotspot for American couples, begins to legislate on the subject, and relatedly, as American states continue to grapple with issues regarding surrogacy.

AC

Egg Donation Ads in College Newspapers

From The New York Times:

… Dr. Aaron Levine, an assistant professor of public policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology, examined more than 100 egg donation ads from 63 college newspapers. He found that a quarter of them offered compensation exceeding the $10,000 maximum cited in voluntary guidelines issued by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, a professional association.

The guidelines state that payments of $5,000 or more above and beyond medical and related expenses “require justification” and that payments above $10,000 “are not appropriate.” Ads in newspapers at Harvard, Princeton and Yale promised $35,000 for donors, Dr. Levine found, while an ad placed on behalf of an anonymous couple in The Brown Daily Herald offered $50,000 for “an extraordinary egg donor.”

 “The concern is that some young women may choose to donate against their own best interests,” Dr. Levine said. “They’ll look at the money on offer and will overlook some of the risks.”

 The study noted the possibility that the ads represented a “bait and switch” strategy, with large offers primarily designed to lure donors but with prices negotiated downward once they respond.

 In addition to limiting compensation, the society’s guidelines forbid paying additional fees to egg donors for specific traits. But the study found that every 100-point difference in a university’s average SAT scores was correlated with an increase of more than $2,000 in the fees advertised for potential egg donors in the campus newspaper.

Read more here.

MR

Gauging Divorce Risk

Interesting list of 15 "predictors" of divorce in The Daily Beast.  Here's a sample:

2. If you live in a red state, you're 27 percent more likely to get divorced than if you live in a blue state.

Maybe that's because red-state couples traditionally marry younger—and the younger the partners, the riskier the marriage. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the states with the lowest median age at marriage are Utah, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Oklahoma.

(Source: National Vital Statistics Report, 2003; cited in The Compassionate Community: Ten Values to Unite America, by Jonathan Miller and Al Gore)

3. If you argue with your spouse about finances once a week, your marriage is 30 percent more likely to end in divorce than if you argue with your spouse about finances less frequently.

Money woes kill marriages. The same study also found that couples with no assets at the beginning of a three-year period are 70 percent more likely to divorce by the end of that period than couples with $10,000 in assets. Most divorce risk factors—such as age and education level—correlate with poverty, says Statistics in Plain English author Timothy Urdan. "Whenever you see an explanation for anything, try to figure out what the explanations are for those explanations."

(Source: Jeffrey Dew, "Bank on It: Thrifty Couples Are the Happiest," University of Virginia/National Marriage Project/The State of Our Unions, 2009)

4. If your parents were divorced, you're at least 40 percent more likely to get divorced than if they weren't. If your parents married others after divorcing, you're 91 percent more likely to get divorced.

This could be because witnessing our parents' divorces reinforces our ambivalence about commitment in a "disposable society," says Divorce Magazine publisher Dan Couvrette. "In most people's minds, it's easier to get a new car than fix the one you've got."

(Source: Nicholas Wolfinger, Understanding the Divorce Cycle, Cambridge University Press, 2005)

5. If only one partner in your marriage is a smoker, you're 75 percent to 91 percent more likely to divorce than smokers who are married to fellow smokers.

"The more similar people are in their values, backgrounds, and life goals, the more likely they are to have a successful marriage," notes Tara Parker-Pope. From age to ethnicity to unhealthy habits, dissimilarities between spouses increase divorce risks.

(Source: Rebecca Kippen, Bruce Chapman and Peng Yu, "What's Love Got to Do With It? Homogamy and Dyadic Approaches to Understanding Marital Instability," Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, 2009)

Read all 15 here.

AC

Carroll: “Reviving Proxy Marriage”

Andrea Beauchamp Carroll (Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge) has posted Reviving Proxy Marriage, Brooklyn Law Review (forthcoming) on SSRN.  Here is the abstract:

Marriage is merely a contract. It creates myriad rights and responsibilities - essentially conferring a status - but the American states recognize without exception that the parties’ relationship is at base nothing more than a contractual one. Still, modern society has elevated the marriage contract above all others. This distinction has overwhelmingly focused on the very personal nature of the marital relationship, a feature nonexistent in the arms-length contractual dealings with which we are accustomed to working when applying contract law. As a result, marriage is subject to a number of requirements, even at the level of contractual formation, which are unknown to the general law of contract. No contract is subjected to as high an entry requirement - typically a formal ceremony - as is marriage. Moreover, the application of one of the most fundamental doctrines of contract law, namely, that a contracting party need not formally enter into the contractual relationship himself but may instead designate an agent to act on his behalf, is generally viewed as inapplicable to the marital relationship. So-called “proxy marriages,” then, whereby one party authorizes an agent to stand in his stead at the marriage ceremony, are widely disdained in the United States.

Only five American states have recognized otherwise, and nearly all in an exceptionally narrow context involving military personnel. So serious is the contempt for proxy marriage that the doctrine has been rejected throughout most of this country for nearly one hundred years. Elsewhere, proxy marriage is not so abhorred; acceptance of the doctrine is viewed as an equitable necessity throughout much of the world. Indeed, a United Nations Convention studying marriage and its entry requirements identified diverse views on the permissibility of proxy marriage as one of the most globally divisive issues plaguing family law today.

This article argues that the time has come for American states to reevaluate the efficacy and equity of continuing a distinction between marriage and all other contractual relationships to which agency theory may apply. The proliferation of couples (and their children) who stand to benefit from the acceptance of proxy marriage is at an all-time high given rates of military deployment abroad, parties pursuing employment away from home, and the increased number of same sex couples seeking to establish a marital relationship. Each of these groups has a compelling argument for the necessity of proxy marriage, and no other avenue exists for conferring upon them the legal relief they desire. Moreover, agency law has evolved drastically in the last thirty years. Agency theories, once relegated almost exclusively to commercial transactions, now have application to scores of personal dealings. Among other things, one can, only as a result of very recent legal developments, appoint an agent to make end-of-life decisions, appoint an agent to draft a will, even appoint an agent to exercise custody over one’s child. In other words, agency doctrine has permeated the most personal of our relationships, save the marital relationship.

The time has come to reassess our long-standing intolerance of proxy marriage and to stop singling out the marital contract as unworthy of the regime of agency. Creating symmetry in agency law by sanctioning proxy marriage is simply the next logical step in the evolution of agency doctrine as applied to intimate relationships and it is a step that can be taken confidently given the strong foundation of protection that American agency rules already affords principals. In short, agency principles are ripe for application to the contract of marriage, and states should begin to embrace the idea of a proxy marriage - a groomless, perhaps even brideless, wedding.

MR

Jacoby: "Credit for Motherhood"

Melissa Jacoby (UNC at Chapel Hill) has posted "Credit for Motherhood" (forthcoming North Carolina Law Review) on SSRN.  Here is the abstract:

Prepared for a symposium on Globalization, Families and the State, this essay builds on prior work exploring the impact of consumer lenders who sell credit products for assisted reproduction and adoption. After reviewing some basic attributes of the parenthood lending market, the essay discusses how not-for-profit lenders promote traditional conceptions of motherhood and the division of carework in ways that credit discrimination laws were not designed to address. The essay also articulates some incentives of for-profit lenders to sell motherhood and potential implications for women who are ambivalent about becoming parents.

AC

It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to...

I would not want to be anywhere within earshot of this competition, which must support the theory of cultural relativism in the understanding of child abuse/neglect:

From Telegraph.co.uk:

Eager mothers bring the babies to the event where Sumo wrestlers and high priests are on hand to coax babies into a maddened state of wailing.

The event, which marks the high point of spring, is held each year at the Sensoji Temple in Tokyo.

The baby to cry loudest and longest wins the contest. The competition is also intended to generate good health for the babies.

Read more here.

MR

What's Better than Sex?

According to a new study, IVF!

Having sex to conceive a child will become unnecessary within a decade, as in-vitro fertilization becomes more popular among 30-somethings, scientists predicted Monday.

Calling human natural reproduction "a fairly inefficient process," Australian veterinarian John Yovich told London's Daily Mail that sex will soon become just a recreational activity.

"Within the next five to 10 years, couples approaching 40 will assess the IVF industry first when they want to have a baby," said Yovich, a veterinary doctor from Murdoch University in Perth, Australia.

He said in-virto fertilization will advance to the point of having "a near 100% success rate."

Currently, about 15% to 20% of women ages 38 to 40 are able to conceive using IVF, according to the American Pregnancy Association. That figure drops to about 6% to 10% after age 40.

The predictions, which Yovich and Australian vet Gabor Vajta co-wrote with two other scientists, were published in the medical journal Reproductive BioMedicine.

Read more here.

AC

Mother-in-Law Jokes Protected Speech

To the chagrin of many mother-in-laws, a federal judge in New Jersey has ruled that the First Amendment protects mother-in-law jokes:

From AP:

LOS ANGELES — A standup comedian who was sued for making mother-in-law jokes has had the last laugh after a federal judge threw the case out of court.

Sunda Croonquist, whose shtick for years has been to describe her life as a half-black, half-Swedish woman who marries into a Jewish family, was sued two years ago after her mother-in-law, sister-in-law and brother-in-law said her jokes were holding them up to public ridicule.

In a 21-page ruling issued Friday, U.S. District Judge Mary L. Cooper of New Jersey concluded that the examples they cited — including one in which Croonquist says her sister-in-law's voice sounds like a cat in heat — fell under the category of protected speech.

Many of the jokes, Cooper said, were clearly statements of opinion and not fact and therefore protected by the First Amendment. The cat-in-heat joke, the judge said, quoting from a previous court decision, was "colorful, figurative rhetoric that reasonable minds would not take to be factual."

Read more here and the opinion here.

MR

Cohen: "Well, What About the Children? Best Interests Reasoning, the New Eugenics, and the Regulation of Reproduction"

Glenn Cohen (Harvard Law School) has posted "Well, What About the Children? Best Interests Reasoning, the New Eugenics, and the Regulation of Reproduction" on SSRN.  Here is the abstract:

Should the state permit anonymous sperm donation? Should brother-sister incest between adults be made criminal? Should individuals over age 50 be allowed access to reproductive technologies? Should the state fund abstinence education? One common form of justification that is offered to answer these and a myriad of other reproductive policy questions is concern for the best interests of the children that will result (absent state intervention) from these forms of reproduction. This focus on the Best Interests of the Resulting Child (“BIRC”) is, on the surface, quite understandable and stems from a transposition of a central organizing principle of family law justifying state intervention – the protection of the best interests of existing children – visible in areas such as adoption, child custody, and child removal. While, as I document, parallel reasoning is frequently offered (by legislatures, by courts, by commentators, by physicians) to justify state or third-party interventions that seek to influence whether, when, and with whom individuals reproduce, in this Article I show that such justifications are problematic and misleading.

Drawing on insights from bioethics and the philosophy of identity relating to the so-called “Non-Identity Problem,” I show why this form of justification, at least stated as such, is problematic both as a normative and constitutional matter: Unless failing to intervene would foist upon the child a “life worth not living” any attempt to alter whether, when, or with whom an individual reproduces cannot be justified on the basis that harm will come to the resulting child, since but for that intervention the child would not exist. Nevertheless I show that BIRC arguments are frequently relied upon to justify these interventions. At a doctrinal level I also show that this reliance on BIRC justifications is in tension with the partial recognition of the Non-Identity Problem by courts rejecting wrongful life torts.

Having demonstrated the unworkability of the BIRC argument as stated, I go on to consider six possible arguments that might substitute for BIRC as justifying these interventions. I begin with two less interesting and I think less satisfying possibilities relating to lives not worth living and illiberal culture control or kulturkampf. I then consider a strategy that would draw a novel distinction between what I call “perfect” and “imperfect” Non-Identity Problems and suggest that BIRC reasoning is only problematic for the perfect cases. I explain why I find none of these approaches satisfying as a normative and constitutional matter. I then examine and adapt three frameworks offered by philosophers for the wrongfulness of creating children with lives worth living that do not rely on BIRC-type reasoning: the first appealing to non-person-affecting principles and same number substitutions, the second relating to negative third party externalities, and the third (more deontologically flavored) claiming we can wrong children by bringing them into existence notwithstanding the fact that they are overall benefited. For each I aim to show three deficiencies as BIRC substitutes. First, they cannot support the full gamut of interventions for which BIRC is usually invoked. Second, I put pressure on their adequacy even as moral criterion for wrongfulness, including by showing that adopting any of these rationales has some disturbing implications. Finally, I argue that even if these approaches offer an appropriate criteria for the moral wrongfulness of becoming a parent in these cases, on a political theoretical level they may not be valid bases for legal interventions (especially those interventions that pose significant limitations on liberty such as the criminalization of conduct).

AC

Infertility Knows No Gender

New reports suggest that male infertility is becoming a significant problem:

From MailOnline:

Reports claim that as many as one in five healthy young men between the ages of 18 and 25 produce abnormal sperm counts.

Only 5 to 15 per cent of their sperm is good enough to be classed as 'normal' under World Health organisation rules  -  proving that infertility is not just a female problem. Indeed, among those experiencing difficulty with conception, a male fertility problem is considered important in about 40 per cent of couples.

But women trying to get pregnant are facing another astonishing claim: that the core problems of male fertility  -  while they may be exacerbated by environmental issues  -  start in the womb.

'Sperm counts are declining and there is mounting evidence that the problem starts even before birth,' says Dr Gillian Lockwood, medical director of Midland Fertility Services.

She cites growing evidence that although the process of sperm production  -  known as spermatogenesis  -  starts in adolescence, the crucial preparations are made in the few months before and after birth. 

Read more here.

MR