Here's a fascinating medical legal cultural tidbit:

NEW YORK (AP) - To the dismay of gay-rights activists, the Food and Drug Administration is about to implement new rules recommending that any man who has engaged in homosexual sex in the previous five years be barred from serving as an anonymous sperm donor.

The FDA has rejected calls to scrap the provision, insisting that gay men collectively pose a higher-than-average risk of carrying the AIDS virus. Critics accuse the FDA of stigmatizing all gay men rather than adopting a screening process that focuses on high-risk sexual behavior by any would-be donor, gay or straight.

"Under these rules, a heterosexual man who had unprotected sex with HIV-positive prostitutes would be OK as a donor one year later, but a gay man in a monogamous, safe-sex relationship is not OK unless he's been celibate for five years," said Leland Traiman, director of a clinic in Alameda, Calif., that seeks gay sperm donors.

Traiman said adequate safety assurances can be provided by testing a sperm donor at the time of the initial donation, then freezing the sperm for a six-month quarantine and testing the donor again to be sure there is no new sign of HIV or other infectious diseases.

Although there is disagreement over whether the FDA guideline regarding gay men will have the force of law, most doctors and clinics are expected to observe it.

The practical effect of the provision - part of a broader set of cell and tissue donation regulations that take effect May 25 - is hard to gauge. It is likely to affect some lesbian couples who want a child and prefer to use a gay man's sperm for artificial insemination.

But it is the provision's symbolic aspect that particularly troubles gay-rights groups. Kevin Cathcart, executive director of Lambda Legal, has called it "policy based on bigotry."

"The part I find most offensive - and a little frightening - is that it isn't based on good science," Cathcart said. "There's a steadily increasing trend of heterosexual transmission of HIV, and yet the FDA still has this notion that you protect people by putting gay men out of the pool."

While women and their doctors ought to use common sense in deciding what sperm to use, I'd like to know from where the federal government decides it has jurisdiction. Is this sperm used in interstate commerce or something? I mean, if they can regulate this, why not all sexual intercourse? I don't see how the involvement of a doctor (or the anonymous nature of the donor) changes anything.

There are too many things like this. People just assume the feds should "do something," and then "do something" is exactly what they do. And then there's not a peep from anyone. Arguing about the merits of how the policy is implemented concedes federal jurisdiction. Perhaps the people who run these clinics don't care about what the founders would have thought.....

Did Jefferson, Franklin, and Madison really imagine federal regulation of our cells and tissues -- even our precious bodily fluids -- as among the enumerated powers? What constitutional provision am I missing? This may be a form of intercourse, but if it's in the stream of interstate commerce, then so is blowing your nose and throwing away the kleenex.

Can't say I didn't see it coming.