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phmacao app SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A South Korean legislative push to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol over his short-lived imposition of martial law fell through on Saturday after most lawmakers from his conservative governing party boycotted the vote. The defeat of the motion is expected to intensify public protests calling for Yoon’s ouster and deepen political chaos in South Korea, with a survey suggesting a majority of South Koreans support the president’s impeachment. Yoon’s martial law declaration drew criticism from his own ruling conservative party, but it is also determined to oppose Yoon’s impeachment apparently because it fears losing the presidency to liberals. Impeaching Yoon required support from two-thirds of the National Assembly, or 200 of its 300 members. The opposition parties who brought the impeachment motion had 192 seats, but only three lawmakers from PPP participated in the vote. The motion was scrapped without ballot counting because the number of votes didn’t reach 200. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below. SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Most ruling party lawmakers were boycotting a parliamentary vote Saturday to deny a two-thirds majority sought by the opposition to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol over his short-lived imposition of martial law , as protests grew nationwide calling for his removal. The likely defeat of the motion is expected to intensify public protests calling for Yoon’s ouster and deepen political chaos in South Korea, with a survey suggesting a majority of South Koreans support the president’s impeachment. Yoon’s martial law declaration drew criticism from his own ruling conservative party, but it is also determined to oppose Yoon’s impeachment apparently because it fears losing presidency to liberals. Impeaching Yoon would require support from two-thirds of the National Assembly, or 200 of its 300 members. The opposition parties who brought the impeachment motion have 192 seats, meaning they need at least eight additional votes from Yoon’s People Power Party. The opposition-controlled parliament began a vote earlier Saturday, but only three lawmakers from PPP took part with opposition members. If the number of lawmakers who cast ballots doesn’t reach 200, the motion will be scrapped at midnight without the ballot counting, according to the National Assembly. Opposition parties could submit a new impeachment motion after a new parliamentary session opens next Wednesday. There are worries that Yoon won’t be able to serve out his remaining 2 1/2 years in office because his leadership took a huge hit. Many experts say some ruling party lawmakers could eventually join opposition parties’ efforts to impeach Yoon if public demands for it grow further. If Yoon is impeached, his powers will be suspended until the Constitutional Court decides whether to remove him from office. If he is removed, an election to replace him must take place within 60 days. National Assembly Speaker Woo Won Shik urged ruling party members to return to the chamber to participate in the vote, stressing that it was closely watched by the nation and also the world. “Don’t make a shameful judgment and please vote based on your convictions,” Woo said. Democratic Party leaders visited a hall on the floor below the main chamber where PPP lawmakers were gathered, attempting to persuade them to vote. After being blocked from entering, they angrily accused the conservatives' leadership of preventing its lawmakers from voting freely. Earlier Saturday, Yoon issued a public apology over the martial law decree, saying he won’t shirk legal or political responsibility for the declaration and promising not to make another attempt to impose martial law. He said would leave it to his party to chart a course through the country’s political turmoil, “including matters related to my term in office.” “The declaration of this martial law was made out of my desperation. But in the course of its implementation, it caused anxiety and inconveniences to the public. I feel very sorry over that and truly apologize to the people who must have been shocked a lot,” Yoon said. Since taking office in 2022, Yoon has struggled to push his agenda through an opposition-controlled parliament and grappled with low approval ratings amid scandals involving himself and his wife. In his martial law announcement on Tuesday night, Yoon called parliament a “den of criminals” bogging down state affairs and vowed to eliminate “shameless North Korea followers and anti-state forces.” The turmoil resulting from Yoon’s bizarre and poorly-thought-out stunt has paralyzed South Korean politics and sparked alarm among key diplomatic partners like the U.S. and Japan. Tuesday night saw special forces troops encircling the parliament building and army helicopters hovering over it, but the military withdrew after the National Assembly unanimously voted to overturn the decree, forcing Yoon to lift it before daybreak Wednesday. The declaration of martial law was the first of its kind in more than 40 years in South Korea. Eighteen lawmakers from the ruling party voted to reject Yoon’s martial law decree along with opposition lawmakers. Yoon’s speech fueled speculation that he and his party may push for a constitutional amendment to shorten his term, instead of accepting impeachment, as a way to ease public anger over the marital law and facilitate Yoon’s early exit from office. Lee Jae-myung, the leader of the main liberal opposition Democratic Party, told reporters that Yoon’s speech was “greatly disappointing” and that the only way forward is his immediate resignation or impeachment. His party called Yoon’s martial law “unconstitutional, illegal rebellion or coup.” The passage of Yoon’s impeachment motion appeared more likely Friday when the chair of Yoon’s party called for his removal on Friday, but the party remained formally opposed to impeachment. On Saturday, tens of thousands of people densely packed several blocks of roads leading up to the National Assembly, waving banners, shouting slogans and dancing and singing along to K-pop songs with lyrics changed to call for Yoon’s ouster. Protesters also gathered in front of PPP’s headquarters near the Assembly, angrily shouting for its lawmakers to vote to impeach Yoon. A smaller crowd of Yoon’s supporters, which still seemed to be in the thousands, rallied in separate streets in Seoul, decrying the impeachment attempt they saw as unconstitutional. Lawmakers on Saturday first voted on a bill appointing a special prosecutor to investigate stock price manipulation allegations surrounding Yoon’s wife. Some lawmakers from Yoon’s party were seen leaving the hall after that vote, triggering angry shouts from opposition lawmakers. On Friday, PPP chair Han Dong-hun, who criticized Yoon’s martial law declaration, said he had received intelligence that during the brief period of martial law Yoon ordered the country’s defense counterintelligence commander to arrest and detain unspecified key politicians based on accusations of “anti-state activities.” Hong Jang-won, first deputy director of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, told lawmakers in a closed-door briefing Friday that Yoon had ordered him to help the defense counterintelligence unit to detain key politicians. The targeted politicians included Han, Lee and Woo, according to Kim Byung-kee, one of the lawmakers who attended the meeting. The Defense Ministry said Friday it suspended three military commanders including the head of the defense counterintelligence unit over their involvement in enforcing martial law. Vice Defense Minister Kim Seon Ho has told parliament that Defense Minister Kim Yong Hyun ordered the deployment of troops to the National Assembly after Yoon imposed martial law. Opposition parties accused Kim of recommending to Yoon to enforce martial law. Kim resigned Thursday, and prosecutors imposed an overseas travel ban on him. Kim Tong-hyung And Hyung-jin Kim, The Associated Press

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NEW DELHI — India’s former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, widely regarded as the architect of India’s economic reform program and a landmark nuclear deal with the United States, has died. He was 92. Singh was admitted to New Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences late Thursday after his health deteriorated due to a “sudden loss of consciousness at home,” the hospital said in a statement. “Resuscitative measures were started immediately at home. He was brought to the Medical Emergency” at 8:06 p.m., the hospital said, but “despite all efforts, he could not be revived and was declared dead at 9:51 p.m.” Singh was being treated for “age-related medical conditions,” the statement said. A mild-mannered technocrat, Singh became one of India’s longest-serving prime ministers for 10 years and leader of the Congress Party in the Parliament’s Upper House, earning a reputation as a man of great personal integrity. He was chosen to fill the role in 2004 by Sonia Gandhi, the widow of assassinated Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi . But his sterling image was tainted by allegations of corruption against his ministers. Singh was reelected in 2009, but his second term as prime minister was clouded by financial scandals and corruption charges over the organization of the 2010 Commonwealth Games. This led to the Congress Party’s crushing defeat in the 2014 national election by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party under the leadership of Narendra Modi . Singh adopted a low profile after relinquishing the post of prime minister. Prime Minister Modi, who succeeded Singh in 2014, called him one of India’s “most distinguished leaders” who rose from humble origins and left “a strong imprint on our economic policy over the years.” “As our Prime Minister, he made extensive efforts to improve people’s lives,” Modi said in a post on the social platform X. He called Singh’s interventions in Parliament as a lawmaker “insightful” and said “his wisdom and humility were always visible.” Rahul Gandhi, from the same party as Singh and the opposition leader in the lower house of the Indian Parliament, said Singh’s “deep understanding of economics inspired the nation” and that he “led India with immense wisdom and integrity.” “I have lost a mentor and guide. Millions of us who admired him will remember him with the utmost pride,” Gandhi wrote on X. Born on Sept. 26, 1932, in a village in the Punjab province of undivided India, Singh’s brilliant academic career took him to Cambridge University in Britain, where he earned a degree in economics in 1957. He then got his doctorate in economics from Nuffield College at Oxford University in 1962. Singh taught at Panjab University and the prestigious Delhi School of Economics before joining the Indian government in 1971 as economic advisor in the Commerce Ministry. In 1982, he became chief economic adviser to the Finance Ministry. He also served as deputy chair of the Planning Commission and governor of the Reserve Bank of India. As finance minister, Singh in 1991 instituted reforms that opened up the economy and moved India away from a socialist-patterned economy and toward a capitalist model in the face of a huge balance of payments deficit, skirting a potential economic crisis. His accolades include the 1987 Padma Vibhushan Award, India’s second-highest civilian honor; the Jawaharlal Nehru Birth Centenary Award of the Indian Science Congress in 1995; and the Asia Money Award for Finance Minister of the Year in 1993 and 1994. Singh was a member of India’s Upper House of Parliament and was leader of the opposition from 1998 to 2004 before he was named prime minister. He was the first Sikh to hold the country’s top post and made a public apology in Parliament for the 1984 Sikh Massacre in which some 3,000 Sikhs were killed after then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by Sikh bodyguards. Under Singh, India adopted a Right to Information Act in 2005 to promote accountability and transparency from government officials and bureaucrats. He was also instrumental in implementing a welfare scheme that guaranteed at least 100 paid workdays for Indian rural citizens. The coalition government he headed for a decade brought together politicians and parties with differing ideologies that were rivals in the country’s various states. In a move hailed as one of his biggest achievements apart from economic reforms, Singh ended India’s nuclear isolation by signing a deal with the U.S. that gave India access to American nuclear technology. But the deal hit his government adversely, with Communist allies withdrawing support and criticism of the agreement growing within India in 2008 when it was finalized. Singh adopted a pragmatic foreign policy approach, pursuing a peace process with nuclear rival and neighbor Pakistan. But his efforts suffered a major setback after Pakistani militants carried out a massive gun and bomb attack in Mumbai in November 2008. He also tried to end the border dispute with China, brokering a deal to reopen the Nathu La pass into Tibet, which had been closed for more than 40 years. His 1965 book, “India’s Export Trends and Prospects for Self-Sustained Growth,” dealt with India’s inward-oriented trade policy. Singh is survived by his wife Gursharan Kaur and three daughters. Associated Press writer Sheikh Saaliq in New Delhi contributed to this report.

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In a small country cafe, a man in his 40s is scanning the room. Craig — who asked that we change his name to protect his privacy — has never stopped in this town before. His mind has been racing throughout the five-hour drive here: "It's an anxious environment." In the corner, he spots the two strangers he's looking for. "I know their first names, I don't know their surnames, where they work, or anything of that nature," he says. Craig and the couple awkwardly shake hands, before launching into an intimate conversation. "The discussion entailed details which I realised that people beside us were listening to and were quite uncomfortable with," he recalls. But they don't let the punters gawking over a cappuccino deter them. After 15 minutes of conversation, it's decided: Craig and these two strangers are going to make a baby. Craig met this couple in 2020, in a Facebook group designed for just this. Such groups are becoming increasingly popular as wait times and costs see more Australians turn away from traditional sperm banks. And they're catering to a growing audience: same-sex couples wanting to start a family and the self-described "single mothers by choice". For Craig, the appeal of going through Facebook was the ability to put a face to the parent of his donor child. The people powering Facebook's sperm exchange say they want options and they want control. But in this unregulated space, it's not always clear who's in control and who isn't. The 'known donor' movement Adam Hooper says his Facebook group "put the idea of men donating on the map". "You can do anything on the internet so it was like, well, why can't people find their donor on the internet?" With 20,000 odd members, Sperm Donation Australia is the largest group by far, dwarfing the group Craig chose. Over 10 years, Adam has turned the group into a sort of empire — he has a podcast and even undertook a FIFO "baby-making tour", donating his sperm to recipients to raise awareness of his movement. The gospel he's spreading is "known donation" — the alternative to the anonymised donors you find at a sperm bank. "If you're just picking numbers off a piece of paper [at the clinic] that's a bit blasé, it's a bit irresponsible, a bit reckless," he says. "Some people [in my group] want to meet up multiple times before they decide to pick you as a donor and really get to know the qualities that you have as a person that these children might inherit. "They're doing their due diligence." Go inside Facebook's thriving sperm exchange with Background Briefing in the special mini-series, "Births, Deaths and Marriages". Adam has donated to just over 20 families and he paints a utopian scene. The mothers meet up a few times a year and all the "diblings" (donor siblings) play in the park together. "[The kids] see children with similar circumstances to their upbringing — it normalises it for them. And they adore and love each other," he says. He sees benefits for the donor in staying in touch, too — he has his families in a Facebook group, and it warms his heart to see the Halloween and Book Week photos roll in. He thinks maybe if more men got to see what had become of their donation, it could address the crippling sperm shortage facing Australia, where women wait up to a year at some clinics. 'Huge risk' Peter Illingworth, the medical director of IVF Australia, can see why people would want to build a relationship with their donor. But he cautions there is a "huge risk" in "building a life-long relationship with a virtual stranger" from the internet. "We regularly come across men whose motivations are not right, who may be looking to insert themselves into a family down the track," he says. "Clinics act as a boundary for the parent having the child." He adds that some of the donors on Facebook have been rejected by clinics. "At the clinic, there is a detailed counselling process. The donor has been assessed by a team of health professionals. "The evidence [as to whether] they've donated before has been recorded and submitted." Dr Illingworth encourages women who want to bypass clinics to approach someone they've known and trusted for years, as "children live a long time, and the motivations of people might change". But many donors don't want to donate to someone they're likely to see often. It's why Craig chose to drive 500km to that country cafe to meet a couple far removed from his own family. Like Adam, Craig wanted to know he'd "done the right thing for the right people". He felt Facebook would give him control over where his donation wound up. Only the further he got, the more he felt that control over the process was an illusion. Taking the plunge It was a conversation with his wife that started Craig's donor journey. "My wife was asking whether or not I wanted to get a vasectomy," he recalls. They'd had their kids young, and those kids had grown up. Craig had thought that was it. But in this conversation, he had a moment of clarity. "I thought, I would like to have more children. But there's no way I wanted to go through the whole process of raising children again. It was so taxing," he says. And he started thinking about the times he'd been asked to be a donor over the years. At the time, he'd been dead against it. "I had very strong family values. I did not want to be cheating on my wife, and that's how I saw it at the time. And legally, gay couples weren't allowed to be married." Once same-sex marriage was legal, Craig saw a role for himself. "Marriage is the starting of a family, so there had to be people to provide the [sperm] donations," he said. His wife tentatively agreed, but didn't want to know anything more — and to this day, she doesn't. So, Craig found a group and started surfing profiles. And then he took the plunge. He put up a post and a tsunami of messages swept into his inbox. "About 30 couples reached out to me. I thought, 'wow'. I was surprised by this." Among those messaging him was the couple he would go to meet at the country cafe. "It just seemed like a perfect match in terms of what they were looking for," he says. But for the women in his inbox, things weren't always so fortuitous. Scrolling through their posts, he began to notice a trend that disturbed him. "Women are putting up messages, and then there are men that are hitting the site saying that they will help them, but they will only do it if they get sex. "And it's disgusting because they're seeing an opportunity of need and abusing that situation." 'We were ambushed' Vanessa was one of the women putting up these hopeful posts, sharing her and her partner's dreams of growing their young family. "We both have children from a previous relationship, but we would just like one together," she explains. When a donor slid into their inbox within days of joining Adam Hooper's group earlier this year, Vanessa was elated. "Everything was going smoothly," she says. She explained up-front that, like most women in this space, they only wished to do "artificial insemination" (AI) — what previous generations colloquially called "turkey basting". The donor agreed. Then came the planning. Behind the "miracle of life" is a web of complex logistics for donors and recipients, who frequently live in different areas. For Vanessa, this high-stakes mission had to be timed with her ovulation, and the donor lived 400km away. "We had arranged a babysitter and we had arranged time off work and we were looking at staying at a hotel," she says. Vanessa was packing her bags when a message popped up from the donor. Forty-eight hours out from the meeting, he was changing his terms: "I'm only donating if it's [natural insemination]." Natural insemination (NI), meaning sex. Vanessa felt "a little bit heartbroken and shocked ... a little bit betrayed as well." "At the same time, I can't say anything because I'm getting a gift from somebody. I felt like I was stripped away from something that, you know, essentially wasn't even mine." Two days later, a second donor approached them. They thought this time it would be a better experience. This donor also lived far away, and so Vanessa and her partner once again scheduled time off work and a babysitter. Again, 48 hours beforehand, they got a message saying the donor had changed his mind about doing artificial insemination. "We were sort of ambushed in a way ... pressured into doing [natural insemination]." Around this time, the first donor came back and said he was willing to do AI after all. "We gave him a second chance, we booked everything," Vanessa recalls. Last minute, he backflipped again. At this point, Vanessa considered going through with NI, rationalising "we're just getting what we need to make a baby". By the time they'd hit Facebook, they'd already spent months being bounced around IVF clinics — they say one quoted $13,000 for sperm. "It's hard to explain the feelings that you go through because you're so hopeful, you're so wanting it. And sometimes you will do things that you're not really proud of to, you know, get that," says Vanessa. But her partner was adamant: sex wasn't part of the plan. "And I was very grateful for that support," Vanessa says. 'The number one mistake' Not all women have this support and reinforcement. Ferah — who asked that we use that name to protect her privacy — felt isolated in Australia. She and her partner were from Sri Lanka. He was medically infertile, but as Catholics, IVF was off the table. So, Ferah turned to Facebook. She quickly found a potential donor. He was smart and from South India: they had led parallel lives, and it was important that her child have a similar ancestry to her. They spoke online frequently over a six-month period during the pandemic and she grew to trust him. "My number one mistake was dragging that emotion into it all," she reflects. It made her see past the red flags. "He is Hindu and from the start it was obvious that he was a lot more sexually experienced than my partner and I," she says. "He started sending me private sex photos and videos of him with another woman. I don't think he should have done that. "It seemed like something you'd pick up from Cosmo or a 'bad girl's Bible' — things that are quite taboo in my home." Sexual assault support services: She thought perhaps this was just the reality with men and she'd led a sheltered existence due to her faith. She says she told him to stop but he continued and began requesting nude photos. "He kept pushing for NI [natural insemination], over and over," she says. "My main instinct in sticking through it was because we seemed to have a lot in common because of our geography. So I put up with it." Ferah flew to Adelaide alone in January 2021. She was meant to stay with her donor for the six days surrounding her ovulation date to give her the best chance of conception. According to Ferah, he pushed for natural insemination, but the sex was painful for her and so they had to stop. She says he became furious and tried to put her on the overnight coach home. She flew home devastated and didn't get out of bed for two weeks. "I got back to work with the support of some good friends, I recovered." A month after he demanded she leave, Ferah says she got a text from the donor: "I hope you didn't get pregnant." Ferah reported the experience to Adam Hooper — while it hadn't happened in his group, she saw him as a point person for the broader known donor movement. He told her this was the risk of going through less moderated groups than his. Adam told Background Briefing he had given Ferah a welcome pack when she briefly joined his group that warned against other communities online. "When you go into these other groups, you're putting yourself at risk," he "Some people can't help themselves. They're putting themselves in a position that, as an adult, you should not be putting yourself in. "We've got to put the desperate side aside and we need to actually go in there with a focus on doing what's right for our children and ourselves first." The Background Briefing team brings you Births, Deaths and Marriages, a special three-part series looking into what happens when milestone moments go wrong. The donors who pressured Vanessa to switch to NI were swiftly banned from Adam's group. But the harm had already occurred. Asked whether this solution is reactive, Adam says it's the best they can do, given sexual harassment of women is a society-wide phenomenon. "We get updated very often with complaints or even things that seem like red flags," he says. "And we have a great community that is very good at updating us with that." It's not clear how frequently donors attempt to pressure women into sex, but Deakin University Associate Professor, Dr Neera Bhatia, suspects it's under-reported. "Women are being exploited. Because they are desperate to create a family, many acquiesce," she says. "Some are single women, a lot are lesbian women, which is a whole other betrayal of their sexuality when they relent and have sex with men." Do you know more? Ultimately, Dr Bhatia says, this is an exploitation of women's financial vulnerability, as fertility clinics can cost thousands of dollars. In the most extreme example of what's at stake, a woman alleged to the Victorian reproductive industry regulator that she had been sexually assaulted by an informal donor. The regulator said it referred the report to police in May 2021, but Victoria Police was unable to provide an update to . 'What have I done?' It's not just women facing the challenge of how to maintain boundaries in this emotionally charged process. Craig, too, had to navigate how to respect the limits he'd agreed to as his feelings evolved. A few months after Craig met the couple in the cafe, he drove hundreds of kilometres to their home to hand over his donation. He found the experience mortifying — the awkward chitchat, handling what he calls "the specimen". But by the next month, it became normalised. Nine months rolled by and Craig heard nothing. He wasn't sure if they'd stayed pregnant, miscarried, or even moved on to another donor. Then one day, he got a text out of the blue. "I was just driving in the driveway and my phone buzzed. I was in the car with my family," he says. "And it was that the child had been born probably a week earlier." It was a strange feeling being the last person to know. I thought I would have found out a bit earlier. But that's their prerogative." But this distance would see Craig begin to spiral. "[The text message] came as a shock and it started to traumatise me," he says. "I'm thinking, 'My goodness, what have I done?' "You'd be going to bed thinking, 'There's a child out there and I hope it's OK,' and all the paternal type of thoughts that would go through your mind. "Trying to maintain a distance between those thoughts and your family life, it made you feel a little bit distant from your own family." Craig says it took a lot of discipline not to ask for more involvement, in a way that wasn't agreed upon: "There's that natural desire that you may want to get involved". Unlike with traditional sperm banks, "there is a chance that the recipient may be contacted by the donor, particularly with that information that they've had available in terms of contact details," he adds. Because the child had been born through artificial insemination, the couple were more legally protected against Craig asserting any custody or visitation rights. But in cases of natural insemination, it could be easier for the father to later argue he is entitled to parenting rights. Under the "donor agreement" Craig had drawn up with the recipients, he wasn't entitled to anything beyond notification that the child had been born. Both parties had wanted this agreement: "They were scared of custody arrangements, I'm scared of financial implications," Craig says. The fear for Craig was that the parents could request child support, or the child could one day stake a claim to his estate. (In a statement, the Department of Social Services clarified that donors who use artificial insemination are not liable for child support, but those using natural insemination may be.) For years, sperm donors believed their identity would remain secret, but the explosion of online DNA databases changed everything. Craig says: "If there was a dispute in future, [the donor agreement] would be a document to rely on." But in the end, it's just a piece of paper. As Adam Hooper puts it, "you can't contract parenthood" in a way the Family Court considers binding. He says donors should speak to a lawyer about how to protect their financial interests including through their will. Craig still feels vulnerable as a result of his donations. "There needs to be protection for those that are honestly involved in just contributing to society," he says. "I don't feel like I was protected. I think that our governments should hang their heads in shame with the way that they've provided protection [in order] for lesbian couples to have children." Besides clarifying the legal obligations of donors, Craig thinks governments could offer safer pathways for known donation besides for-profit clinics. "I think the services are already there. It would just take [some] people in an office to vet donors and bring them together with recipients," he says. A 'life-changing' gift After 18 months of intrusive, anguished thoughts, Craig turned a corner. It wasn't moving on from donating that freed him from the spiral: it was donating again. The couple asked him to help them conceive a sibling, and Craig once again drove for hours to their family home. Stepping in the door, the anxiety he'd carried for so long dissipated. "It had a large lounge room with a beautiful woodfired heater going. It was beautifully furnished. "It would be an ideal place to raise a family." The house hadn't changed, but the women had. "This young woman had matured into a mother. It was really pleasant to see." They went upstairs to do the donation and suddenly he heard the baby he'd fathered crying down the hallway. He froze — he hadn't expected the baby to be there, "because it's a pretty private experience". Craig debated whether to ask to see the child he'd been thinking about for 18 months. But he resolved it could do more harm than good. "It was not my place to be able to bond or build a relationship." Still, just hearing the baby safe in this warm environment put him at ease. "I was able to just put the whole lot behind me." The second child was born, but Craig has blocked out its name, and the surnames of the parents. He keeps his donor agreement in the attic, so he's not tempted to reach out to them. "You have to move on and just accept that you've helped bring joy to someone else's family," he says. Despite the anguish, he says his donations are the most valuable thing he's done in his life. He reads a text message from the mother of his donor child — though he hasn't saved their name in his phone. "You've had a massive impact on our life. She's the most content and happy little girl. She's honestly our dream come true. Thank you for being such a selfless and amazing human being." As the mother writes, the gift of a sperm donation has the power to change lives. And that's what makes everyone involved so vulnerable. It's the potential reward that makes Vanessa willing to put aside her negative experiences with the first two potential donors and try again: "The success stories [from this group] far outweigh the negative comments," she says. She's found a new guy in Adam Hooper's group who's been "a successful donor to other people". Vanessa and her partner are planning to drive the 400km to the donor, stay at a hotel, and receive their donation. "These groups are life-changing because not everybody is in the same position," she says. "And sometimes, these are people's only options to have a baby." Reporter: with additional research by Illustrator: Digital producer: Executive Producer: Read more from Background Briefing: RN in your inbox Get more stories that go beyond the news cycle with our weekly newsletter. Related stories Parenting Fertility and Infertility Fertility and Infertility Related topics Australia Fertility and Infertility Parenting Social MediaClemson added a quarterback to its 2025 recruiting class on Tuesday with Chris Denson announcing his decision to flip from Coastal Carolina. The 6-foot-2, 175-pounder from Plant City High School in Florida had been committed to the Chanticleers since April and has yet to visit Clemson's campus. Tigers coach Dabo Swinney has been putting a push on to flip Denson in recent weeks following the decommitment of Blake Hebert last month. "I just feel like my development will be through the roof," Denson told On3.com about his decision to switch. "Playing under one of the best coaches in the country and knowing that I haven't reached my potential yet, I know that they will take me to that level." A three-star recruit, Denson is ranked as the No. 50 quarterback in the nation by the 247 Composite. He is the 14th player to commit to the Tigers, who have also seen six players decommit this cycle, according to The Greenville News. "What makes Clemson special is just the level of ball that they are playing at," Denson said. "And the way they compete. I'm a huge competitor, so that's the type of place and people I want to surround myself around." --Field Level Media

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