Sperm donation: Why? Is it straight forward?
Picture this. You are sat in a waiting room with a few other bashful looking men. Last time you were here you provided personal information, had a health test for serious genetic diseases and were offered counselling to help you consider the implications of this decision (which you initially thought wouldn’t bother you). And now, today, is when you are going to start donating sperm – the first appointment to begin the weekly donations for three to six months. Let’s define ‘donating’ before we carry on: ejaculating into a cup so that your sperm can be frozen and used in fertility treatment, research and training. In this scenario, you have decided and began the process of donating your sperm. But why?
Donating sperm is not as simple as it sounds. There are various health checks you need to undergo and considerations about how it may impact you and your family in the future. For example, any children born from your sperm have the capability to contact you when they turn 18 years old. Evidently, this decision is not a short-term commitment.
Obviously, it’s a lot simpler not to donate sperm. It is also a lot easier not to donate blood – but over 807,000 people donated blood in 2019/2020. But I can guarantee, you are more likely to masturbate in your free time as opposed to draw blood. Why then, are we much less likely to donate our sperm over our blood?
The wider implications are much greater when donating sperm. It is a serious responsibility – you do not have any legal rights over a child conceived using your sperm, but you have to be aware that in 18 years time someone might be contacting you to say they are your genetic child.
There are three main motives for donating sperm: money, generosity and the desire to pass along your DNA. Money. Certain countries incentivise sperm donation by offering money. For example, a man in North Carolina, America, earnt $12,000 for a year’s ‘work’ as a full-time sperm donor. In Europe, you can be compensated up to €560 per month (€40 per donation). Not providing a financial incentive for sperm donation allows the process to be altruistic, as is believed in Australia and the UK where it is only legal to pay donors for reasonable expenses (up to £35). Studies have investigated donors' willingness to donate with and without financial compensation and opposing conclusions have been made. Some say people would continue to donate without financial incentive and others have found people would cease to donate if compensation was discontinued. Either way, many countries have differing policies regarding altruistic vs incentivised donation.
Generosity. By donating you are giving people an opportunity to conceive a child. Couples turn to sperm donation when they are burdened with male factor infertility. More precisely, when sperm quality is the confounding factor of a couples infertility. Alternative reasons for requiring donated sperm include single women and women in a same sex relationship wanting to conceive. Or, men knowing they carry an inheritable disease may choose to use donated sperm to avoid passing the disease onto their children. Donating sperm transforms lives – a pretty straightforward reason for doing so.
There is always more to a story than the simple pros and cons. The desire to pass on your DNA is a narcissistic motive to donate and has resulted in sperm donation receiving a lot of negative press. There is a new term surfacing. Fertility fraud. There are more and more stories emerging of gynaecologists who have used their own sperm to inseminate their patients. Patients who expected to be receiving an anonymous sperm donation are discovering that it was in fact their doctor who provided their sample. Certain states in America have criminalised the act of fertility fraud by doctors – it is treated as sexual assault.
Alongside doctors ruining the beauty and generosity of assisted conception, there are also ‘serial donators’. These are men who have fathered tens to hundreds of children – usually providing their sperm privately and unlicensed. Disturbingly, parents usually do not discover this about their donor until they have given birth. At this point they are learning that their child has (in some cases) hundreds of siblings. If it is also the case that these siblings are all in the same geographical area it can become a worry for parents. What if these children (siblings) meet and start a relationship? It is a disturbing realisation.
Donating sperm is not as straightforward as it initially sounds. There are many factors to consider which can have lasting implications on one’s life. However, it cannot be ignored that the act, regardless of people's motivations, is life changing for those receiving the donations. And this should be the sole motivation to donate – to help someone else in need and not to feed your self-importance or your bank.
