My son (18) wants to be a sperm donor!

[Hedgehogscanclimbtrees]

I have found out that my son has an appointment at a sperm donor clinic tomorrow! I tried to speak with him about it, but he just said that he's 18 now and he wants the money. I tried to explain the enormity of becoming a FATHER but he dismissed that and said it wasn't the same thing. I pointed out that, by law, children can contact their sperm donor fathers once they are 18, but he was unbothered. I feel he is doing this just because it's £35 for a wank, with no thought about potential consequenses & impact on his future life & future relationships.
If I were thinking about settling down or starting a family with a man, it would put me off to think that he had been that cavalier about his sperm in the past. I would also worry about multiple children turning up! AIBU???

It's his choice.

He will never be a father to any children conceived with his sperm through donation. He won't play any part in raising them, won't have any obligation to financially support them. He will in no way be their father.
He can even leave a letter giving family medical history and a request to not be contacted when the child is over 18 and gets his details, if he wants to.

I guess if your name is Mike Jones, then you might be alright.

But if you have an unusual name (like my husband does), well there’s probably only one person with his name in the world, so he’d be easy to find.

In fairness, the children of donnors can contact their biological fathers once they turn 18, and their biological fathers have no obligation to take on parental responsibilities or even to want to remain in contact. There aren't barely any consequences

I wouldn't like this, knowing I could have grandkids out there who I couldn't see.

These days I'd think the likeliest way they might find you is through Ancestry or similar. Home DNA testing is so popular that there's no longer any realistic mechanism for anyone to be a genetic parent without the child being able to find at least some relatives. That means it does have a potential impact on the family of the person doing the donating too, so I can see the concern.

When I was at college in the early 90s it was quite a common way of raising some cash, along side identity parades!

This is untrue. Since 2005, at 18, donor conceived children can ask and be given all details held on the donor including names and last known addresses. As well as the ancestry dna route to identifying the person that pps have mentioned. Donors consent to this.

if this is genuine op (and fair play if you are just highlighting how outrageous it is that young people are targeted with ads encouraging them to donate sperm and eggs - egg retrieval being a riskier procedure too), id look up some stories online to give him a real sense of how this affects people personally, both donor-conceived people and donors who are contacted. I listened to a YT interview yesterday with a lady conceived by surrogacy on the negative impact on her. The interviewer was donor conceived and talked about it being horrible to know she was ‘conceived through a wank’.

It can't be that much money in total, can it? Surely there's a limit to how many children can be created with one man's sperm by now. At least one would hope so!

@Justinpassing no name needed although often it is. For example if you test as ‘justinpassing’ & your ancestry is rooted broadly in UK for last 500 years you will prob have one or two 3rd cousin matches. This means they will share a set of great great grandparents with you, odds are one will have a family tree or if not I can create one for them, if used real name.

They will match with other more distant cousins & the ancestral names will repeat & eventually I’ll find out who you are .

If you are in the UK then you don’t just turn up to the clinic, have a wank and get handed £35. That’s not how it works. It’s a super long process involving interviews, medical, tests etc before you reach the stage of being able to donate. This is why there is a shortage of donors. If he’s only it it for the paltry amount of money on offer I highly doubt he will make it anywhere near to the donation stage, so I really wouldn’t get worked up about it.

Presumably even if he did donate sperm, it’s unlikely a couple would choose him unless he has a lot going for him, and desperation for £35 indicates he won’t sound very good on paper just yet? Maybe I have the wrong end of the stick from movies but don’t couples/women usually look for things like “top cellist in symphony orchestra, represented country in athletics, med student” etc when choosing their ideal sperm?

I bet he does

😂😂😂

💦

My gardener has found out that he has another adult child via ancestry DNA.

^^

Bit Lady Chatterley

This!

Lol

Why would it put you off a potential future partner because you found out they gave a sperm donation for a child that is not going to be in their life?

In the 80s I can recall a male colleague saying he had taken a gap year to travel and part of it included being a sperm donor and if I recall correctly it was a kibbutz in Israel.

The conversation garnered interest and at least three other men said they had done the same thing many times over.

You are wrong. It still astounds me (and it really shouldn’t) that people on this site with zero knowledge of a subject insist on giving out incorrect information on said subject.

They are reasonably picky i think (I've seen some UK sperm banks claim they turn away 90% of applicants, though that may be exaggerated for marketing purposes). It's not unusual for donors to be 18-25 as physical health & good fertility is obviously very important. Most sperm bank profiles will have some basic info on education level and career, and many of them ask donors to write an open letter to the future children.

I was told that my clinic’s sperm bank only accepted 1 in 8 or 1 in 9 potential donors. Many men are rejected despite having no health or fertility issues, simply because their sperm doesn’t survive the freeze-thaw process very well.

Other potential donors may find out that they have fertility issues, or that they’re a carrier for one of the genetic disorders that the clinic screens for. This could come as a shock.

All donors ought to receive implications counselling, but I don’t know if this is compulsory.

OP, I would just scare the hell out of him and make this into a huge deal. All you need to do is plant enough seed of doubt that he decides it's not worth the risk.

Tell him that for many women this would be an absolute deal breaker, he could end up ruining multiple future relationships over this. Tell him that the laws used to keep donors anonymous but that changed and we have absolutely no way of knowing what future law changes could bring - a few people in power who view it differently to him could sign into law that he needs to pay child support and there would be nothing he could do about it. For all he knows, the child could have a claim on his will someday.
Also let him know that it's a huge gamble having a child out there who doesn't know their father. Your DS might be fine with that, but the child might not. He'd better be prepared for anything down the line including an angry adult male at his door wanting to ruin his life.

Possibly some of this sounds a little OTT but you just need one thing to land and give him pause for thought.

Hello Granny!

they did in my family members case. ended horribly. steer your son away op it’s not worth the money, honestly.

While I understand your concerns its very different to becoming a father... its just finating a bit of spunk a d you do sound a little OTT about it

An old boss of mine donated in the 90s, way before the law came in about passing on details and so far no one has contacted him via Ancestry etc.

However, he knows for a fact he has children out there as he was a very regular donor but after a few year was contacted and told he could no longer donate as he had reached the maximum number of successful donations

OP - you can just point out the facts but it's up to your DS
Like a pp mentioned, he'd be better off looking at medical trials maybe

did the law change that youre not anonymous anymore

and all for 35 quid why doesnt he get a job instead