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Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 122: Mar-Apr 1999 |
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A REALLY MEANINGFUL COINCIDENCE
"When Valdimir Gusiyev [a pseudonym] walked his dog each morning, he took a shine to a young woman he saw taking her small son to a nursery. The got talking, and within months the three were living together.
"Then friends began to comment on how little Misha was the splitting image of his new father, and the local optometrist remarked that the boy had inherited his minor eye condition. Their words set Mr. Gusiyev's mind racing -- and apparently led to the discovery that there really was a family resemblance. He had fathered the child by donating sperm at the local fertility clinic in the town of Yaroslav."
Gusiyev's new girl friend was a divorcee who had been married to an impotent man. She and her former husband had agreed to the artificial insemination before their divorce.
A likely story? Genetic fingerprinting proved that Gusiyev was indeed the father of the child. As for the happy ending, Gusiyev and girl friend were soon married.
(Blundy, Anna; "Fatherhood Takes on New Meaning for Sperm Donor," London Times, December 31, 1998. Cr. A.C.A. Silk.)