Sperm donation and privacy in a growing world

-- By JessieChao - 09 Oct 2020

Sperm donation early years

During the early years of sperm donation sperm banks were run mostly by men to help same sex couples who could not conceive on their own. Sperm donation was often shrouded in secrecy with the belief that the infertile man was an inadequate partner and couples were advised not to tell anyone about using a sperm donor. The donors were chosen by the doctors after the sperm bank sent printed catalogues of the donor’s physical characteristics. Due to the anonymity donors could lie on their profiles and parents would be none the wiser. The sperm banks promised anonymity to the donors and protected this confidentiality at all costs.

Sperm donation with the rise of technology

As the internet expanded prospective parents could have donors marketed directly to them with features such as their height, if they wanted to have contact with the offspring, and academic information. Parents could receive a questionnaire as well as a description from the donor. Parents could choose to pay more to receive a more detailed profile.

Donor offspring got older and many started reaching out to the sperm banks to get in contact with the donor to which the sperm bank would reach out to the donor to request updated medical information; however, if the donor did not respond then the donor was never told that the offspring wanted to make contact. This extreme emphasis on donor confidentiality dissipated as the rise of the internet and DNA testing websites expanded creating an easy and often unintentional way for donors to be discovered.

Donor Sibling Registry (DSR) was created by a donor conceived child and his mother where people can input their donor number and be connected with all of the siblings who also input that number as well as possibly the donor. This created a new way of life for donor offspring as some found over 50 half siblings as there was not a cap on how many families could receive the same donor sample. As a result of DSR, many families choose to attend family reunions with donor siblings and raise their children showing them the photos of the donor siblings. DSR is able to match over 1,000 people a year.

Sperm banks as an act of politics

As reproductive technology improved, sperm banks were not as needed as before because if a male had a low sperm count the doctors could still help the couple conceive in ways other than sperm donation. Consequently, the banks started heavily advertising to lesbian couples as well as single women which helped to normalize those family structures as there was and still is stigma surrounding parenting in same sex or single mother households. Women were able to take control and there was a huge push for greater donor transparency. Due to this push parents started to get the option of using a donor’s sperm for a higher price who said he would respond if the offspring reached out at 18. The donor had to reach out in some fashion be it anonymous or not.

The law and sperm donation

Shockingly, in the US there are no laws that limit the amount of inseminations that can be conducted using the same sperm donor. Even though there are not laws surrounding this, some sperm banks have taken it into their own hands. The California Cryobank stated that they limit an individual sperm donor’s sperm to go to 20-25 families. However, this still presents a huge problem as many families do not report their live births coupled with the fact that one family could have multiple children. The future sperm donor offspring are not protected as they could still have upwards of 50 siblings. With technology growing at an ever-increasing state and privacy dissipating I wonder what future offspring families will look like. If it continues as it is now the large offspring relationships will not be surprising as sperm donation is no longer shrouded in secrecy; however, if the market does not change, we will have clan like sprawling families. Parents now know what they are signing up for when they are buying sperm so there might be a push to limit the number of families in which one donor’s sperm is given and these large half-sibling troop might be a thing of the past.

There have been numerous lawsuits concerning sperm donation and frankly the law is not keeping up with technology. In a lawsuit concerning donor 9623 the donor’s name was accidentally leaked via email to parents who had used his sperm. He procured at least 36 children and donated sperm over 14 years. He stated that he had a 160 IQ, spoke four languages, and was pursuing a doctorate in neuroscience engineering. As a result, the sperm bank advertised him heavily. Unfortunately, it turned out that he had never finished college, had a record, was hospitalized as he suffered from bi-polar with schizo-effective disorder and was suicidal relying on disability. Many of his offspring have similar issues and due to privacy holding supreme parents did not know of these conditions in order to provide early intervention support for their children and would have likely never known without the rise in technology.

Anonymity no longer attainable for donors due to technology

Since 2017 the California Cryobank requires that all donors disclose their names and have contact with the offspring when the offspring is 18 years old due to DNA testing, internet searchability, and facial recognition software. Anonymity is not a promise that sperm banks can keep. Sperm banks used to focus only on the parents and donors without considering the feelings, hopes, wants, and dreams of the offspring as it ultimately did not impact the company's bottom line. However, good or bad, this technology has obliterated the privacy of sperm donors we are now in an era where privacy is hard to protect and, in many cases, purely ambitious.