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Sperm donation is the practice by which a man gives or more commonly sells his semen to be used specifically to produce a baby. A man who donates sperm, a sperm donor, usually does so at a clinic known as a sperm bank. A recipient of donated sperm may use such a service for many reasons. The most common reasons are that the recipient's partner may be infertile or he may carry a genetic disease. Donor sperm is also used when a single woman doesn't want a male partner or a lesbian couple chooses to have a baby. The cost of donor sperm in the United States ranges from around $200 - $3,000 per vial unit of semen, usually a quantity of around 0.7 ml.
Process
A sperm donor usually enters into a contract to sell his sperm and is often required to donate for a specified contractual minimum period of time ranging from six to twenty four months. To donate sperm a man must generally meet specific requirements regarding age and medical history. In the United States, sperm banks are regulated as Human Cell and Tissue or Cell and Tissue Bank Product (HCT/Ps) establishments by the FDA. Many states also have regulations in addition to those imposed by the FDA. A man generally donates sperm at a clinic by way of masturbation.
Donors
The majority of sperm donors are young men between the ages of 18-25 who donate for the financial incentive. However in later life, many donors have become concerned and curious to know about their genetic offspring who might have resulted as a result of their donations. Many people born as a result of a sperm donation are also very interested in finding out more information about their biological fathers and their missing paternal family.
Despite efforts to limit the number of offspring from any one man, some donors have been known to donate at several different sperm banks as well as privately via the internet. One man in a posting on a website called the DonorSiblingRegistry.com claimed to have fathered at least 650 children via sperm donation. The concern about any man fathering so many children is twofold. That rare, recessive, disease causing genes will find common expression in future generations and that there might be unrealised consanguinity. Luckily this is an unconfirmed and highly unlikely claim and experience from sperm banks and studies has shown no risk of genetic mutations due to the birth tracking at the sperm banks, the average time a donor donates, the amount of sperm lost on unsuccessful inseminations and the geographical spread of the donor sperm.
Besides the men who donate to a sperm bank there are also men who altruistically donate on a private basis to females, often lesbians and single women for the purpose of achieving pregnancy through artificial insemination. Such men are usually referred to as 'known sperm donors'. Such informal arrangements are becoming increasingly popular and there are many websites facilitating such private arrangements.
Regulation and donor tracking
The laws regarding sperm donation vary greatly depending on jurisdiction. Sperm donor and recipient are usually anonymous to each other. However, a recipient may receive non-identifying details about the donor such as height, weight, hair colour and education. Recently the law in certain countries has given rights to people conceived through sperm donation to access varying levels of information about their biological father, sometimes even his identity. In some more progressive jurisdictions the donor's identity may be released to resulting children at the age of majority. However, throughout North America donors are usually anonymous.
In Australia and the United Kingdom, national registries have been established to try and match people to their donors and half siblings via DNA matching. In the USA there is a very successful web-based registry called the Donor Sibling Registry which has helped to facilitate more than 1,000 matches between people who share genetic ties -- offspring, half-siblings and donors -- through the unique donor identity numbers assigned by the sperm banks to the donors. Meetings between donors and their offspring and between half-siblings have in general been extremely successful and are becoming increasingly common occurrences.
However, even sperm donors who have not initiated contact through a registry are now increasingly being traced by their offspring. In the current era there can be no such thing as guaranteed anonymity. Through the advent of DNA testing and internet access to extensive databases of information, many sperm donors have recently been traced and thus exposed the fact that they were a donor to their wife or girlfriend as well as to their wider family.
In 2005 it was revealed that an enterprising 15-year-old used information from a DNA test and the internet to identify and contact his genetic father, who was a sperm donor. This has brought into question the ability of sperm donors to stay anonymous.
Many donor-conceived people point out that although a man might have been a sperm donor to their mother and social father, that man is not a donor to them rather he is their biological father. Hence, the term 'donor' is not an appropriate description in the context of discussing a donor's conceived relationship to their immediate male ancestor. More accurate terms to use are biological father, abdicated father and male progenitor.
The morality and ethics of sperm donation can cause much heated debate. Despite these issues, many people justify sperm donation as morally acceptable because it enables some who otherwise would not be able to conceive to have children.
See also
External links
- Cryos International Sperm Bank (International Sperm Bank located in Denmark)
- Donor Conception Network (A non-profit organisation based in the United Kingdom which provides information & support to patients, parents & offspring)
- National Gamete Donation Trust (UK donor recruitment charity, advising donors and intending parents on donation issues)
- UK Donorlink (UK Voluntary Information Exchange and Contact Register for donors and donor-conceived people)
- Donor Conception Support Group (A non-profit organization based in Australia which provides information & support to patients, parents & offspring)
- Donor Sibling Registry (A non-profit organization which assists individuals conceived as a result of sperm, egg or embryo donation to make mutually desired contact with others with whom they share genetic ties -- donors, offspring & half-siblings)
- Infertility Network (A registered Canadian charity which provides information & support to patients, parents & offspring)
- Tangled Webs (An international action group challenging donor conception)
- The Sperm Bank of California (Sperm bank located in United States)
- Xytex (Sperm bank located in United States)
- SpermCenter.com (Searchable listing of U.S. sperm donors from all United States sperm banks)
- Fertility Stories (Stories of couples using donor insemination and of children born as a result of donor insemination)
- Genome Resources (A sperm bank located in the United States)
- The Rainbow Flag Sperm Bank (the only sperm bank to tell the mother who the donor is when the child is three months old)
- The Australian Sperm Donor Registry (a registry for private donors)
- FreeSpermDonors (a Yahoo group for private donors)
- Pink Parents (a UK-based organisation for LGBT families, has a registry of private donors)
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