There’s a shortage of sperm in Britain! Apparently, Britain needs donations for about 4,000 women per year; to reach that number, about 500 sperm donors per year are required, while only 300 are currently registered. Things were fine until 2005, when a law was enacted allowing children of sperm donors the right to discover the identity of their father at age 18; simultaneously, the number of women who could use the same donor’s sperm was limited further.
The first change scared off a lot of potential donors, shifting the supply curve of sperm to the left, while the second change caused the demand curve for individual donors to shift to the right.
Because there is no price that might help the market reach equilibrium, Britain has been forced to search elsewhere for donated sperm. The shortage is getting worse, with some women who want babies not having them, and others resorting to imported sperm. The simultaneous restrictions have made both potential mothers and some donors who might have been altruistic enough to donate unable or unwilling to participate.
The potential solutions are clear — either loosen the restriction on the number of women who can be inseminated by one donor’s sperm (the Dutch have a limit of 25 women per donor); pay for sperm, as in the U.S. and Spain; and/or reinstitute donor anonymity.
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Can they reinstate donor anonymity though? When it was removed it was backdated to allow identification of past donors so presumably if they reinstate anonymity then people will still expect to be identified one day.
Unless they delete the records (and given the British government the records are more likely to be left on an airplane to Russia than deleted) I don’t see how they can reinstate the expectation of anonymity.
I’d just like to add that, while this is a titillating subject and lends itself to flippancy, there is a real human cost to a lack of sperm donors.
If you know anyone who’s been through the agony of infertility, I don’t have to tell you this. If you don’t: take my word for it. It is agony.
The anonymity restriction has some (in my opinion) justifiable human-rights argument behind it. And geographical/numerical restrictions also make some sense. But not paying for donations? That’s just senseless squeamishness. If you’re providing an enormously beneficial life-changing service, at some personal risk (given the lack of anonymity), then why the heck shouldn’t you be paid?
The problem became even more accute after the pubs were allowed to stay open later.
I beleive there are plenty of available babies, if not sperm donors. Start encouraging these women to consider adoption.
According to HFEA figures, the numbers of sperm donors have gone *up* in the two years since the ending of anonymity, thus reversing a three year decline. The 307 donors in 2006 was 48 more than in 2005, and the highest figure since 2001.
http://www.hfea.gov.uk/en/1523.html
http://www.hfea.gov.uk/en/1459.html
The limit of recipients per donor hasn’t changed since 1991 btw.
I don’t have a huge problem with sperm donors being paid, or the numbers of children per donor being increased, but we should never go back to the days of anonymous donors. The donor-conceived are the ones who matter in this, not the parents, not the clinics, and not the donors.
If a sperm donor wants to be anonymous, then he simply shouldn’t be a sperm donor. I was a sperm donor over 20 years ago, and if I have any genetic children looking for me, I’ve made it as easy as possible for them to find me.
Ben, there are not plenty of infants waiting to be adopted. In fact there are plenty of parents waiting to adopt. It is also understandable that some mothers want children genetically related to them.
So, the donor doesn’t even get a minimal stipend for his time? I believe that anonymous sperm donors generally ARE paid in the US.
In the US, most blood is given by unpaid donors. But the blood isn’t free to to the hospitals and recipients, the cost of collection, testing, and storage are chargd by the Red Cross and other blood banks. With sperm donation, there is less overhead, especially for testing for diseases. No crossmatching, etc. is required to match the specimen with a recipient and you don’t risk killing the recipient by getting the crossmatch wrong.
It is easier to collect the sperm, no needles and special collection tubing and bags are required, and far less is required for correct handling of the specimen after collection.
But the altruistic difference is that in donating blood, you believe you are saving lives. In donating sperm, you believe you may be creating life or perpetuating your genetic lineage. I suppose this is an equal tradeoff.
British women appear to have forgotten that there are ways of getting pregnant that are a lot more fun and don’t require a sperm bank.