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Original poster

Sperm donations from dead men should be allowed

66 replies

Barracker · 21/01/2020 10:01

sperm donations from dead men should be allowed

I can see where this will go.
And I'm thinking, hell no.

Also, isn't it funny how men, who can donate their sperm so easily without any fuss, bother, medical intervention or risk to their health...aren't doing it in sufficient numbers, yet women are risking their bodies and lives to be egg donors and surrogate mothers because we must be altruistic.

Tha forthcoming "opt-out", "presumed consent" organ donation system with "no plans at the current time" to harvest reproductive systems or gametes is starting to look very disturbing.

OP posts:
OhHolyJesus · 21/01/2020 16:07

That's a good point @Clymene

There is a lot to explore mentally with infertility, I can understand how you become desperate and reliant on others to help you once you find out you need help.

Gay men obviously know from the beginning that starting a family you will require help from a third party.

I will look up the BBC piece - unless you can post? I only read the online story.

There's something about the disregard for sharing or giving away your DNA material in this that disturbs me. It's so flippant. I often think about children of surrogates or of shared parentage meeting and starting a relationship as adults and not knowing that they share DNA. The impact of that has not been explored anywhere but trashy weekly women's magazines.

Clymene · 21/01/2020 16:17

Here you go: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000d7pg

displaycase · 21/01/2020 16:21

Wrong because:

  • puts interest of wannabe parents over DC child
  • means offspring has a disturbing backstory (culled from the body of a dead man)
  • wrongly equates organ donation with gamete donation (gamete donation is about providing half the DNA that makes up you, not a replacement system part)
  • ICK factor
  • open ID donors is an acknowledgement that knowing your heritage matters. This is a step backwards
  • prevents a child from even having the possibility of knowing their donor (and perhaps shifts the burden onto the rest of the genetic relatives who can be traced via DNA testing).
The solution to dropping levels of sperm donors is to campaign to find more, or to overhaul the system of recruitment, not this.
Clymene · 21/01/2020 16:53

There are not dropping numbers of sperm donors @displaycase This is spin put on this weird story by the BBC - presumably in order to have a reason for giving it airtime.

@TheLidoOfThighs has linked to an HFEA report above

displaycase · 21/01/2020 17:28

I asked my donor conceived child what she thought of this and she said 'That's disgusting. It's a dead dude. Don't mess with a dead dude. I'd be freaked out. That's creepy."

Me: What about if you were given the heart of a dead person if you had heart disease?

"If it were a heart I'd take the heart but if it's sperm - you're not going to save someones life by donating sperm. It's selfish."

And the notion of a dead person as a donor?

"It's as if he never existed for you. It would be sad. Donor conceived people should be able to meet their donors"

@clymene - yes, it looks like the numbers aren't going down, although there might still be an overall shortage/projected shortage compared to demand.
also 1) the ammount of imported sperm (from the US and Scandinavian sperm banks) has increased as a percentage of total UK donors (so now over a third are imports compared to a quarter a few years ago) which suggests that local supply is not meeting demand

and 2) these figures maybe skewed by those women using known men as 'donors' - by freezing in a bank for up to six months and having the bank treat them as the donor this severs the parental obligations and responsibilities and gives the man the legal status of a donor. (this used to be the case a decade ago - don't know if it still is).

Anyway - that's moot. I think harvesting sperm from a dead man to create children is out and out unethical whether or not there is sufficient supply.

SpiderHunter · 21/01/2020 19:39

The impact of that has not been explored anywhere but trashy weekly women's magazines.

Actually, that is why there is now a limit to the number of children who can be born from the same sperm donor. I believe that each sperm donor can only donate to 10 families in the UK because it was decided that with 10 the chances of them meeting and starting relationships accidentally was negligible.

TheDIsiilusionedAnarchist · 21/01/2020 19:44

Maybe we should question why egg sharing is a thing (coercing poor women into egg donation via the incentive of free/reduced price fertility treatment) but not sperm sharing. Why is there no reduced price IVF if you donate extra sperm for other couples.

TheLidoOfThighs · 21/01/2020 20:16

There is sperm sharing.

TheLidoOfThighs · 21/01/2020 20:18

For reduced price IVF, I mean.

deydododatdodontdeydo · 23/01/2020 14:37

Maybe we should question why egg sharing is a thing (coercing poor women into egg donation via the incentive of free/reduced price fertility treatment) but not sperm sharing. Why is there no reduced price IVF if you donate extra sperm for other couples.

Possibly due to relative availability of eggs/sperm.
How many eggs does one woman donate compared to how many sperm a man does?
It seems likely eggs are more in demand than sperm, so there's more of an incentive to donate.

TheLidoOfThighs · 23/01/2020 18:01

As above, there is reduced price IVF in return for sperm.

Bluerussian · 23/01/2020 18:05

I don't think it's right. I get that a bereaved woman may wish she'd had a child with the man she loved and married but, if a spouse dies young, don't most people grieve but eventually move on? Widows (and widowers) remarry and are happy, have children.

It's gross. What on earth are they going to tell their kids when they're older? Yeuch.

MangoesAreMyFavourite · 24/01/2020 11:54

It's horrible. I thought it was sperm that had been donated before death but no.... It's collected afterwards.

Men get paid to wank but still don't donate enough!! They should link it to porn subscriptions - there'd be an ocean of sperm!!

DuLANGMondeFOREVER · 24/01/2020 12:38

I don’t think sperm banks would be informed if a donor died while they still had some of their sperm in storage? So some children may well have been conceived after the donors death, but through accident, not design.

I presume there is an upper limit on age for donators though? Assuming donors are fit, healthy and relatively young men at the time of donation, the odds of them dying before all banks sperm is used is surely very low? Especially in countries where the number of live births per donor is restricted.

ChattyLion · 24/01/2020 15:00

How are the donor conceived children supposed to feel when they find out?
It’s certainly not ethically justifiable because there is a scarcity of donors. Men are perfectly free to donate as living sperm donors in their lifetimes if they want to.

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