TV Checkup: Private Practice Procures Sperm

As I watched the season premiere of the new Grey's Anatomy spin-off, two things occurred to me: 1) They've turned Dr. Addison Montgomery into a wimp! And 2) it looks like they're going to continue the tradition of spotlighting fascinating and unusual medical cases.

One of the main characters is a fertility specialist so it's no surprise that the first of these cases involves reproduction. In the season premiere, a man attempting to store his sperm suddenly dies of a stroke. His fiance, however, requests that the docs retrieve sperm from his dead body, which opens up a huge ethical dilemma that's further exacerbated when the guy's estranged wife shows up.

Setting aside the ethical concerns (and yes, they're huge), I wondered if this was even possible. Yep, it's an actual medical practice called "posthumous sperm procurement" that's uncommon but gaining attention:

With advances in reproductive technologies, it has now become possible to harvest sperm using various methods from a newly deceased male for later fertilization. The process, referred to as posthumous sperm procurement, is usually performed within the first 36 hours after death. The first case of successful posthumous sperm extraction was reported in 1980, and the first pregnancy, in 1997 with subsequent birth in 1998, sparking medical, legal, and ethical debates. Although the practice is growing in both the United States and internationally, requests are still infrequent.

One widely reported case earlier this year involved an Israeli solder killed by a Palestinian sniper. His parents had a sample of his sperm taken two hours after his death and stored in a hospital, and a subsequent legal battle ensued when they tried to access his sperm.

So just how is sperm retrieved from a dead man? Not surprisingly, the cameras cut away right before Taye Diggs performed the procedure on Private Practice. I have to admit I'm glad they did that because the mere thought of what he might be doing down there made me squeamish. According to an article published in the journal Human Reproduction, there are at least four different ways to retrieve sperm from a dead man:

resection of testis and epididymis
en-block excision of testis, epididymis and proximal vas deferens with vasal irrigation
electroejaculation
epididymectomy

Since I'm no surgeon, I don't know all the details of those procedures but it sounds like they involve cutting into the testicles. Ouch. An epididymectomy is the removal of a tube that stores and carries sperm, so my guess is later in a lab they'll harvest sperm from that tube. Electroejaculation, on the other hand, is just what it sounds like: a small electric shock delivered to nerves in the pelvic region, which results in ejaculation. It is primarily used for collecting semen from quadriplegic or paraplegic men who want a child but can't ejaculate because of a spinal cord injury. Apparently, it can be done on a recently deceased man as well.

We'll never know exactly which procedure they performed on Private Practice. But that's OK, at least they got the basics right. Now if only they'll give us back the tough, strong-willed Addison we've grown to love.

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