SPERM BANK FOR THE ELITE REPORTS ITS 1ST BIRTH
Author: Associated Press
Date: Monday, May 24, 1982
Page: ?????
Section: RUN OF PAPER
ESCONDIDO, Calif. - Officials of a sperm bank set up primarily for Nobel
prize winners said today that a woman gave birth in April after being
inseminated with the sperm of "an eminent mathematician."
The unidentified woman is the first to give birth to a child after
insemination with sperm from the Repository for Germinal Choice, a spokesman
said. The spokesman, who declined to give his name but said he is the
repository's medical geneticist and only full-time employee, said the baby was
"a healthy, 9-pound daughter born in April in a rather small town in a
sparsely populated state."
"The parents don't want to be identified publicly," the spokesman said.
The sperm bank was founded in 1979 as "a means of breeding higher
intelligence" by Robert Klark Graham, a former optometrist who made a fortune
after pioneering techniques that led to shatterproof plastic eyeglass lenses.
Graham, 76, was described at his home north of San Diego as being
unavailable for comment. An aide said he had intended to keep it secret until
a national medical magazine hit the newsstands.
A single Nobel Prize winner's name - that of William B. Shockley of
Stanford University, the 1956 winner in physics - has been lent publicly to
the project although it drew early publicity as a sperm bank for Nobel
scientists. The spokesman declined to say if Nobel laureates other than
Shockley had donated sperm.
In an interview two years ago, Graham said his intention was to bring into
the world "a few more creative, intelligent people who otherwise might not be
born."
The first mother "has a high IQ but is not a member of Mensa," a club for
people in the top 2 percent of measured IQ, the spokesman said. He said the
mother is "quite charming - we had to deal with her by Greyhound bus."But he
denied a report that the baby was born April 21 in Chicago. The successful
donor, he said, is a professor at a major university, which he also declined
to identify.
"A number of inseminations have taken place, and one or two couples have
been trying for more than nine months" with sperm from the repository, the
spokesman said.
There are fewer than a dozen donors, "all high achievers," he said, adding
that "we've had several pregnancies even though this is the first delivery."
Graham's spokesman said he refused to identify himself in order that
secretaries not recognize him when he calls on potential sperm donors.
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