Sperm donors online - over the Internet

Sperm donors online - over the Internet

image-11.jpgThe internet has revolutionised the way we do many things and perhaps it’s most enduring and significant impact has been on how we communicate with one another. For some single women, it has even changed the way they can get pregnant. The Human Fertilisation and Embryo Authority (HFEA) last week announced that it plans to launch an investigation into the legality of websites set up to put women in contact with sperm donors. This follows the recent conviction of two businessmen who acted as “sperm brokers”. They ran a website that couriered fresh samples from donors to women for home insemination.

Most of these websites, however, simply provide a facility for women to make contact with potential donors and the individuals make their own arrangements. But the HFEA claims that the websites are putting women’s health at risk because they are unregulated and there is no official way of screening the donors for sexually transmitted infections such as HIV. Instead it is the sole responsibility of the individuals involved to make arrangements to be screened and ensure that the donor is disease free.

In contrast, fertility clinics operate within specific safeguards, which include screening donors prior to donation and storing samples for six months before use to ensure the male donor is negative for HIV. It is therefore true that there is a risk associated with DIY insemination.

But the HFEA’s objections smack of little more than nanny-stateism. I can’t help but feel they are reacting in this way because their nose had been put out of joint at the thought of people taking fertility into their own hands and undermining their authority. They have helped create an industry around getting pregnant and don’t like the idea that there are some aspects of it that they cannot regulate or control.

In essence what the HFEA is attempting to do is place restrictions around the actions of two consenting adults and what they do in the privacy of their own homes. I really don’t see that this is in their remit. The notion is absurd. What’s to stop women from joining a dating website, meeting someone and sleeping with them and falling pregnant that way? Is the HFEA proposing to ban all forms of dating, just in case there is sperm involved? In a way, all these websites do is provide the modern equivalent of a singles bar, but with the added benefit that both the man and the woman are aware what the other one really wants.

The rhetoric surrounding the condemnation of these sites is also highly patronising to women. There is a suggestion that women, overcome by raging hormones and deafened by the ticking of their biological clock, are acting irrationally and cannot be trusted to make decisions.

The truth is that if a single woman wants to get pregnant, she can. It’s been going on for millennia without the help of the internet. Surely it’s better that women are able to make an informed, reasoned decision, get to know the man and request a medical examination on their terms, rather than picking up a stranger in a bar. In fact, the women who use these sites are far from passive, vulnerable victims. They know what they want and are actively taking control in order to obtain it. They are more than capable of analysing the risk to themselves and can take responsibility for their decisions.

It also seems to me that this is an example of women making a stand and rejecting the unnecessary commercialisation of fertility, which is now so prevalent. Why should they be forced to pay thousands of pounds to procure sperm through “official” clinics if they don’t want to? Since when did the medical profession have a monopoly on sperm?

Of course, that’s not to say there aren’t potential problems with such websites. Legally, the donor remains liable for child maintenance and although couples may draw up contracts stating the donor will have no involvement in the child’s life this is not enforceable under the law. But it’s the HFEA’s responsibility to ensure that people are aware of the law relating to this, not to try to stop the practice itself. After all, men have been making women pregnant long before the HFEA.

Article: by Dr Max Pemberton 4th October 2010 www.telegraph.co.uk

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Posted: 04/10/2010 13:48:53



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