Sperm donation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sperm donation is the practice by which a man provides his semen with the intention that it be used to produce a baby in circumstances in which the man does not have sexual relations with the recipient of his semen. Attempts are made to impregnate a woman with the donor's sperm using third party reproduction techniques notably artificial insemination.
A man who provides or donates sperm in this way, known as a sperm donor, may donate his sperm directly to the recipient, or he may donate it at a clinic known as a sperm bank.
Sperm donation commonly assists couples unable to produce children because of 'male factor' fertility problems,[citation needed] but it is increasingly used as a means to enable single women and lesbian couples to have their own children.[citation needed] The sperm donor is the genetic or biological father of each child produced with the use of his sperm. When a donor's sperm is repeatedly used for impregnation, this will give rise to numbers of siblings and half-siblings.
Donors may be either anonymous or non-anonymous, although laws may require donors to be one or the other, or restrict the number of children each donor may father. Although many donors choose to remain anonymous, new technologies such as the internet and DNA technology has opened up new avenues for those wishing to know more about the biological father, siblings and half-siblings.
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[edit] Process
When a sperm donor provides his sperm through a sperm bank or fertility clinic he will usually enter into a contract to donate sperm 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 or sperm bank by way of masturbation in a private room or cabin, known as a 'production room' or a 'masturbatorium'. Many of these facilities contain pornography such as videos, magazines, and/or photographs in order to assist the donor to produce the ejaculate.
[edit] Types of donors
[edit] General
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Many sperm donors donate their sperm for purely altruistic reasons so that childless women or couples may produce their own children.[citation needed] Where such donations are through a sperm bank, the sperm bank will generally re-imburse the donor his reasonable expenses.[citation needed]
Some sperm donors may however, seek financial compensation, particularly those who supply sperm samples to order at specific times and at a specific sperm bank on a regular basis for what may be many months, in the knowledge that these samples will be used to produce a number of pregnancies. Many sperm banks therefore offer financial rewards which more adequately compensate for such a commitment.[citation needed] A sperm donor will rarely, if ever, know the exact number of pregnancies which his samples have produced, and indeed, an accurate or exact figure very often will not exist.[citation needed]
In the past sperm banks were keen to recruit as sperm donors men who had already fathered children. However, with the advances of microbiology, sperm can readily be checked for its fecundity, and sperm banks will now rely upon their own tests to ensure the quality of sperm.
Sperm donors are required to be fit and healthy and generally their 'sperm count' will be well above average to ensure that pregnancies may be easily and swiftly achieved by the use of their sperm. Sperm banks impose age restrictions on donors, usually from 18 to 40 or 45, but in practice the majority of donors are young men who are often college students.[citation needed]
Donated sperm may be prepared for use by artificial insemination in intra-uterine insemination (ICI) or intra-cervical insemination (ICI), or it may be prepared for use through other assisted reproduction techniques (ART). Donated sperm may also be used in surrogacy arrangements and for producing embryos with donated eggs for implanting in a woman who is not genetically related to the child she produces.
[edit] Anonymous or non-anonymous
Anonymous sperm donation is where the child and/or recieving couple will never get to know the identity of the donor, and non-anonymous when they will.
A donor who makes a non-anonymous sperm donation is termed a known donor.
[edit] Anonymous
Most sperm donors are anonymous, i.e. the clinic will never give contact information of the receiving woman/couple and the woman/couple will not be told the identity of the donor. However some information about the donor may be released to the woman/couple. A limited donor information at most includes height, weight, eye, skin and hair colour. In Sweden, this is all the information a receiver gets. In the US, on the other hand, additional information may be given, such as a comprehensive biography and sound/video samples.
The law usually protects sperm donors from being responsible for children produced from their donations, and the law also usually provides that sperm donors have no rights over the children which they produce.
[edit] Non-anonymous
Several countries, e.g. Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Britain, Switzerland, Australia[1] and New Zealand only allow non-anonymous sperm donation. The child may, when grown up (15-18 years old), get contact information from the sperm bank about his/her biological father. In Denmark, however, a sperm donor may choose to be either anonymous or non-anonymous. Nevertheless, the initial information which the receiving woman/couple will receive is the same.
[edit] Private donors
Besides the men who donate to a sperm bank there are also less institutional donations. For example, a would be mother may approach a friend, or may obtain a "private" donor by advertising. A number of web sites seek to link such donors and donees, while advertisements in same sex publications are not uncommon. Although artificial insemination is usually used, frozen sperm need not be. Most such donors meet the donees and are therefore usually known to the recipient. Private donations are usually free - avoiding the significant costs of a more medicalised insemination - and theoretically, where fresh rather than frozen semen is used the chances of pregnancy may be higher. Against this are the usually higher risks of disease transmission and the risk of a legal dispute regarding access or maintenance. The laws of some nations (e.g. New Zealand), allow for recognition of written agreements between donors and donees in a similar way to institutional donations. In others, e.g. Sweden[2], this is not guaranteed.
[edit] Limitation
- Further information: Sperm donor limitation by country
Where a sperm donor donates sperm through a sperm bank, the sperm bank will generally undertake a number of medical and scientific checks to ensure that the donor produces sperm of sufficient quantity and quality and that the donor is healthy and will not pass diseases through the use of his sperm. The donor's sperm must also withstand the freezing and thawing process necessary to store and quarantine the sperm. The cost to the sperm bank for such tests is not inconsiderable. This normally means that clinics may use the same donor to produce a number of pregnancies in a number of different women.
A sperm donor generally enters into an agreement with the sperm bank to supply sperm usually once a week for a period of between four months and two years, depending on the extent to which the sperm may be used to produce the maximum number of pregnancies permitted (if any). A single donation (i.e. one ejaculate) prepared into samples for intra-cervical use (ICI) or a donation prepared into 'washed' samples for intrauterine insemination (IUI) will enable each sample to have about the same chance of producing pregnancy as sperm delivered through sexual intercourse. Samples prepared for other ART uses may allow more pregnancies to be produced from one donation. A single donation prepared into samples for IVF for example, may be sufficient to fertilise up to eight batches of eggs. The success rate for embryos subsequently implanted in a woman is approximately between 20 and 45% per treatment cycle (see assisted reproduction). 'Washed' or 'unwashed' samples may also be used for ICSI thus increasing the number of pregnancies produced from a single donation.
The number of children permitted to be born from a single donor varies according to law and practice. Laws vary from state to state, and a sperm bank may also impose its own limits. The latter will be based on the reports of pregnancies which the sperm bank receives, although this relies upon the accuracy of the returns and the actual number of pregnancies may therefore be somewhat higher. Nevertheless, sperm banks frequently impose a lower limit on geographical numbers than some US states and may also limit the overall number of pregnancies which are permitted from a single donor. When calculating the numbers of children born from each donor, the number of siblings produced in any 'family' as a result of sperm donation from the same donor are almost always excluded (but see below for the provisions in various states).
Where a limit on the number of offspring which are allowed to be produced from each donor is imposed, this is usually in order to reduce the chance of consanguinity by the half-siblings of the donor. Nevertheless, some donors may produce substantial numbers of offspring, particularly where they donate through different clinics, where sperm is exported to different jurisdictions, and where countries or states do not have a central register of donors.
Sperm banks frequently publish their 'pregnancy rates' which are success rates according to the number of pregnancies achieved as a percentage of the total number of treatments provided. Sperm banks may also publish 'birth rates' giving the number of live births as a percentage of treatment cycles. These rates vary from clinic to clinic, according to the method of insemination or ART used and of the ages of the recipients. Sperm from a sperm donor may be used by a clinic until the maximum number (if any) of live births in each case has been achieved.
Sperm may also be donated through an agency rather than through a sperm bank. The agency recruits sperm donors, usually via the internet, and it also advertises its services on the internet. Donors undego the same kind of checks and tests required by a sperm bank. However, in the case of an agency, the sperm will be supplied to the recipient woman fresh rather than frozen. A woman choses a donor and notifies the agency when she requires donations. The agency noifies the donor who supplies his sperm on the appropriate days in a container provided by the agency. This is collected and delivered by courier and the woman uses the donor's sperm to perform her own inseminations. The whole process preserves the anonymity of the parties but it is largely unregulated and, because the sperm is not quarantined, it carries risks which are not associated with sperm banks. Donors providing sperm in this way will not be protected by laws which apply to donations through a sperm bank or fertility clinic and will, if traced, be regarded as the legal father of each child produced by their sperm. In addition, agencies rarely impose or enforce limits on the numbers of children which may be produced by a particular donor.
[edit] Donor tracking
Even when the donor had chosen to be anonymous, there are still opportunities to find the biological father for curious people conceived by donor sperm. Registries and DNA-databases are useful for this purpose.
[edit] Tracking by registries
- Further information: Donor sibling registration
Some donors are non-anonymous, but most are anonymous, i.e. the donor conceived person doesn't know the true identity of the donor. Still, he/she may get the donor number from the fertility clinic. If that donor had donated before, then other donor conceived people with the same donor number are thus genetic half-siblings. In short, donor registries matches people who type in the same donor number.
[edit] Tracking by DNA-databases
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, one sperm donor has recently been traced. In 2005 it was revealed in New Scientist magazine[3] 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.
[edit] International comparison table
- Further information: Sperm donor limitation by country
[edit] See also
- Sperm bank
- Egg donor
- Donor conceived people
- Posthumous sperm retrieval
- Artificial insemination
- IVF
- Surrogacy
- Third party reproduction
[edit] References
- ^ the Economist
- ^ Swedish personal data act
- ^ New Scientist article about a 15-year-old who found his donor using a DNA test
[edit] External links
- Sperm Donation at the Open Directory Project
- HFEA (the UK's regulatory body - lists all UK clinics offering sperm donation)
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