‘At least 30’ children conceived using wrong donors at north’s IVF clinics

At least 30 children have been conceived through in vitro fertilisation using the wrong sperm or egg donors at clinics in northern Cyprus, according to reports on Tuesday. The BBC reported that most of the affected children are British nationals, and that “in each case, the parents suspect they did not get the donors they selected. In all cases, it said that the children’s parents “carefully selected anonymous donors based in information such as their medical history, appearance, personality, education, and hobbies”, but that “they have concerns that the requested sperm and egg donors may not have been used in their fertility treatments”. Half of these reported cases concern children born from procedures undertaken at the Dogus IVF Centre, which is located in the northern Nicosia suburb of Neapolis. Related Articles • North defends IVF clinic after embryo smuggling arrest at airport • North launches probe into IVF clinic after sperm mix-up claims The BBC reported that the Dogus IVF Centre has been blacklisted by the world’s largest sperm bank, Cryos International, since 2016, and quoted one of the impacted children’s mothers, named only as “Rachel”, as having said that “it’s absolutely scandalous” after learning that she had received the wrong sperm donor from the clinic. Tuesday’s reports come after the BBC had earlier in the year reported on other alleged cases of children being conceived using the wrong donors at the Dogus IVF Centre, with those reports having created a political backlash in the north at the time. Opposition political party CTP representative Dogus Derya said in April that “the lack of oversight not only creates individual grievances, but also undermines public trust and calls into question the healthcare system”. She also said that the case “raises serious suspicions of abuse, particularly regarding the physical and economic rights of young women who donate eggs”. Meanwhile, Deutsche Welle reported that IVF clinics in the north were offering prospective parents the option of choosing their baby’s sex, with ruling party the UBP’s secretary-general Ahmet Savasan appearing to admit to the practice on camera. He told Deutsche Welle that “we do not do sex selection in Cyprus for the sake of sex selection”, but then was recorded telephoning someone and saying that “if there is a reference to sex selection on our website, you need to take it down”. Later, when reporters visited an IVF clinic, they were told that they could select the sex of their child for €6,000. Multiple IVF clinics based in the north make reference to the practice of sex selection for babies on their website, but all state that this service is only available for “x-linked diseases” – those caused by X chromosome mutations. When the matter was raised in the Turkish Cypriot legislature in February, members came to blows, with the CTP’s Ongun Talat saying to Savasan that “you were all over Turkish television” and that “you were even on Deutsche Welle”. Savasan then got out of his seat to confront him, with the matter then devolving into a physical tussle, and the session being swiftly adjourned thereafter.