AIBU to think sperm donors should consent before each embryo is used?

So some poor woman will have been through the process of egg harvesting just for a man to say no?

Absolutely not!

If men are being paid for their sperm they are not truly donors, we give them far too much credit.

Some of them do. There is BBC podcast called The Gift about DNA ancestry tests and people finding out they were donor conceived or result of an affair, and they spoke to one sperm donor who was in contact with all his “children”.

No that's daft. They donate sperm so therefore expect that it will be used to create one or more children. If they do not consent for strangers to use it they don't donate. It's not rocket science.

Also I think it's weird that they can trace the donor. Like the donor surely doesn't want kids from this? They don't want to know the child.

They've already consented when they donated. It think that once gametes are created, they should legally belong to the recipient.

I am a donor child, from back in the day when donors were anonymous. I think donors should have the option to remain anonymous.

Men have the means to get literally hundreds of thousands of women pregnant and have no such qualms when they want to 'donate' their sperm in person. It's typical of a patriarchal society that men still control women's bodies to the extent where they make laws to stop them from getting pregnant, and ending pregnancies. Even women preventing future pregnancies via surgical intervention have to present their case for wanting sterilisation and, although it's been legal to request it since 1991, they are still often required to 'jump through hoops' if they are of child bearing age and/or have never had children. In my own experience, I know three women who had to battle for this proceedure despite having multiple children already. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that men are always trying to control women and our patriarchal society supports it.

Well, yes, I suppose it is the same. Maybe there needs to be a mutually agreed time of when consent can be withdrawn, either between the couple or legally set? Then at least everyone knows where they stand from the outset.

I don't claim to be an expert in fertility treatments and I was fortunate not to need them, but I do understand why the law has changed and support that, I also know it's a rough road for the woman with injections and hormones and risks involved with all that. A lot of prep work to have consent withdrawn so far down the track. Maybe remedied by him being asked before the use of the donation?

So women ça chose to have an abortion until 24, weeks of they change their minds but men shouldn't be able to change their mind before the woman is even pregnant.

Talk about a sexist view. Of course Jen should be able to change their mind for whichever reason.

That's the risk women take by using donor sperm to get pregnant just like men take a risk by just having sex.

That's fair enough, there isn't an ideal solution by any means.

Out of interest, would you apply that same rule to IVF with no donor egg or sperm used? Eg a heterosexual married couple using their own egg/sperm, husband changes his mind last minute?

I appreciate there are legal differences in terms of contracts signed etc that mean those aren’t directly comparable situations, but in terms of the cruelty to the woman that you talk about, that’s surely the same.

There was actually a case years ago when a couple had IVF and subsequently split. They had embryos in storage. Some years later the woman decided she wanted to use them as her last chance to have a child, she’d had ovarian cancer I think. Her ex husband refused as he did not want to be a father. The case went to the ECHR, who found for the husband. I understand why. Even if the woman asked nothing of him in terms of support, he would still have a moral responsibility for them.

I disagree with your view on anonymity. The rules around that were changed for the benefit of the children being born, and I think that should apply to as many of those children as possible, not only ones where embryos were created after a certain point.

The law was changed because it was proven to be in the best interests of the donor conceived child to know their genetic parentage.

In light of the new law, men should be evaluated and counselled before they decide to donate. They should be asked before the donation is taken out to be used if they still consent. That is where it should end. It would be nothing short of cruel for a woman to have gone through all the hormonal treatments and everything else needed to have a last minute change of heart. The only valid reason for a last minute change of heart is if the donor unexpectedly finds out some relevant information that may have disqualified him from donating, such as uncovering an unknown serious genetic condition.

Why shouldn't they be compensated? They paid a fortune to create embryos that are then just destroyed because the donor they used in good faith changed their mind. I support the donors right to do this, but it's hardly fair on a couple/individual who made a possibly life changing financial commitment before the goal posts around anonymity were moved.

As I said previously, anonymity should still be granted in cases where the sperm has already been used to create embryos, and apply the law to sperm donated in the future or being stored awaiting use. Donors can still withdraw their consent and have their stored sperm destroyed, but not once it has been used to create an embryo.

I agree with this.

Egg cells are impregnated with a sperm cell technically speaking. However, if it’s even gone this far, and for example a man decides to remove
consent, there would be something written in the original contract outlining what would happen in this situation, as the woman would have been through treatment then cell harvesting, and possibly embryos frozen, so it would be down to legal people to fight that one out.

The desire for a baby should not be allowed to trump all ethical issues arising from the creation of that baby. And I say that as someone who wanted children but was unable to have them because of fertility treatment.

I think when the embryos are about to be created, the donor should be asked to explicitly consent again to ALL those embryos being used in future with no chance to change their mind after that point. If they don’t consent to that, another donor is used who does consent.

Really, men should be making more responsible decisions about whether to donate in the first place. No one forces them to, and creating siblings is an entirely obvious and predictable use of your sperm if you do donate. Too many young men just see it as a lark and a way to earn some quick cash and don’t consider the long term implications.

If this is an issue for some people, then maybe the man should be asked when there is the intention to use his donation. "We're about to use your donated sperm, do we still have your consent to go ahead?" After that point, he shouldn't be able to change his mind about that particular use. There comes responsibility with choosing to donate. This would obviously apply to frozen eggs as well.

As well as the ethics discussed of an industry where you can buy babies it is also treating the man's genetic material as a commodity frozen and stored.

If a man has sex and ejaculates into a woman he has the risk of creating one pregnancy with one baby (or twins etc) with a 9 month end period where the story is over. No future babies can come about.

In sperm donation that one jizz could create multiple pregnancies over many many years. By which time the man could have matured and rethought the consequences of having many babies in the world. He may have his own children or met a partner who wouldn't be happy that another women is potentially pregnant with his child. The thought of their children meeting and being unknowingly in a sexual relationship.

With ancestry dna everyone can find out their parentage.

We should never accept having this sort of situation for men or women.

They absolutely should be able to withdraw consent and the cost of which is for the purchasing person to bear.

Just because the man may have consented once when they donated their sperm, why does that mean he should not be able to withdraw his consent? I can ask the same for most things that require consent. If I have sex with a man and given consent at the start, if I change my mind half way through does that mean I have lost my right to withdraw that consent? Consent is subject to change for all sorts of reasons.

I'd agree with the gamete donnor withdrawing consent with:

1. usage of all unmated gametes.
2. usage of any embryos after the cool down period (a few years) from the withdrawal.

Especially if the woman is using her own eggs, once they are used for the embryo, they are irreplacable.
But the donnor should be able to limit creation of more children decades ahead.

The system needs some level of predictability for all sides.

Only a tiny proportion of men donate sperm so I don't think it's fair to say that men in general are flippant about it.