Sir, - Kevin Myers (An Irishman's Diary, March 26th), in announcing the formation of the Society for the Protection of Unspent Semen, greatly underestimates the scale of "holocaust, massacre and wanton waste" visited on "the humble sperm".
The normal concentration of sperm per "expenditure" of semen is generally considered to be 50-150 million, not ten million as he estates (Kevin will probably agree that there is a vas deferens between these two figures). Thus, "if only one or two will survive the arduous journey north", the number of "little corpses" left will actually be five to 15 times greater than he feared.
Alea non ejaculata est, however. The conscientiously objecting nihil obstatrician in the North Western Health Board has got the wrong end of the stick. Vasectomy "actually saves the lives of spermatozoa. Once the vas has been completely ectomised, all sperm will remain unspent.
They become an enclosed order the reclusive Brotherhood of the Semioniferous Tubules (or "Speremites"). They are totally absorbed in their life of abstinence, and not a single one can escape to get up to any mischief. An example to us all, surely?
Yours, etc.,
Roscahill,
Co Galway.