The achievement for which he will go down in history is siring 58 children by women desperate to become pregnant by donor insemination.

Gennadij Raivich, a professor of perinatal medicine and neuroscience at University College London is the author of publications like “Investigation of cerebral autoregulation in the newborn piglet during anaesthesia and surgery” and “Methyl-isobutyl amiloride reduces brain Lac/NAA, cell death and microglial activation in a perinatal asphyxia mode”. There are 153 of these listed on his website.

But the achievement for which he will go down in history is siring 58 children by women desperate to become pregnant by donor insemination. He was convicted late last month only of the assault of one woman, although two others had laid complaints against him.

Interestingly, 15 satisfied female “customers” from all over the country spoke in his defence, including a police officer, maths teacher and lecturer, some of whom had two and in one case three of his children via what he called “Artificial Insemination Plus”.

The details of Professor Raivich’s extracurricular activities are too seedy to relate here, but the prosecutor’s address to the jury sums up the main issues:

 “You have to ask yourselves what kind of woman agrees to meet a complete stranger for AI when they do not even know his real name. Someone who is desperate and is prepared to put up with the potential embarrassment and humiliation and who have kept the details from their friends and families. A perfect victim for sexual assault, someone unlikely to complain.

“Compare the women to this defendant, someone who has traded on the fact he is a doctor and paraded his scientific knowledge, impressing them with his apparent expertise. What kind of man embarks on a breeding programme to have as many children as possible? You will have to ask yourselves if he knows as much as he claims. You may feel there is a high degree of narcissism in what he has done and is sexually motivated in some of these transactions. He provided a one stop shop for women who wanted semen. All were desperate to have a baby.”

The motivations behind assisted reproduction are often mysterious. Atavistic instincts seem to be at work, unconstrained by the social mores associated with the institution of marriage. Perhaps Professor Raivich’s polyphiloprogenitive proclivities will give a clue to future researchers. 

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Michael Cook

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