Over the Rainbow: - Wrestling With Angels

the moral and relationship variables of human life. At the beginning of the 20th century doctors
and scientists began to grapple with the problems of infertility. Quietly a small band of doctors
began to experiment with artificial insemination.
In the 1920’s Margaret Sanger promoted sexual freedoms by encouraging the use of
contraception. Concerned about eugenics and planned reproduction, she organized what was
to become the Planned Parenthood Federation. The introduction of contraceptives such as the
diaphragm and the condom contributed to early movements toward sexual freedoms. The
Great Depression and the World Wars of the early 1900’s slowed down movements for social
change.
When the pill was introduced in 1960, times had changed. Universities increased their
advancement into the science of reproduction. Medical students were able to make pocket
cash by donating sperm for $50 a pop. The commercialization of reproduction developed when
the first for-profit sperm bank opened its doors in Minnesota in 1970. Prior to the late 1970’s
artificial insemination (AI) was the technology used to help couples who experienced male
infertility. In 1979 fewer than 10% of infertility doctors would provide sperm to single women.
In 1982 the Sperm Bank of California was created to provide sperm to unmarried and
heterosexual singles and lesbian women. The sperm, delivered to their door in a liquid
nitrogen tank, could be taken to their doctor for insertion, or they could do it themselves with a
turkey baster (Andrews, 1999:87.)
Egg donation became a commercial enterprise in 1984. Egg donation and surrogacy offered
the possibility for a man to create a family. (Curtis,2008). In 1988 a newspaper article reported
1,000 surrogacy births in the ten years prior, although 2,000 was considered more accurate a
number by some experts (GA,1996:233). In the 1990’s homosexual couples began to use
surrogacy in what was labeled a “gayby” boom when a West Los Angeles company, Growing
Generations, began helping gay men become fathers (Andrews, 1999: 95, 120-121).
Reproduction had become commercialized and the bottom line of business is “Expand the
market”. In the summer of 2004 R Family Vacations became the first travel company
dedicated to the gay family market. They organized a family friendly cruise which included
seminars on surrogacy, adoption and artificial insemination for same-sex parents or would be
parents (Bly,2004).
Buying egg and sperm became a spectator sport. Catalogs and web sites became baby
brokerage firms with donors’ self descriptions of their interests, abilities , IQ scores and
pictures. Buyers could design a baby by selecting an egg and sperm and have it created by
Over the Rainbow: The Gay Battle for Social Reorganization of America. 2010
Dr. M. L. Coppock
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