Pioneers were not hampered by legal restrictions: “Anyone with a white coat could impregnate a woman”

In the early 1980s there were no legal rules regarding the conception of donor children. “It was the Far West. Doctors continued what they started in the 1950s, following successes with artificial insemination in horses and pigs”, says ‘donor detective’ Steph Raeymaekers. According to her, gynecologist Geert V. will not be the only Flemish doctor who has used his own sperm. But what does top doctor Herman Tournaye think? “A typical story of doctors who did it on their own”. We also called Frank Comhaire, founder of the Ghent sperm bank, about the practices at the time.

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