Not a favorite subject of mine, me being a dyke and all, but an important one. Some blog I was looking at mentioned in passing that there is a “sperm shortage” – in sperm banks, that is. Intrigued, I googled it.
There’s a shortage of sperm in Britain! Apparently, Britain needs donations for about 4,000 women per year; to reach that number, about 500 sperm donors per year are required, while only 300 are currently registered. Things were fine until 2005, when a law was enacted allowing children of sperm donors the right to discover the identity of their father at age 18; simultaneously, the number of women who could use the same donor’s sperm was limited further.
Britain faces sperm shortage, calls for donors
LONDON – Britain is facing a sperm donor shortage after reversing confidentiality laws and limiting the number of women who can use sperm from one donor, fertility experts warned Wednesday.
Britain in 2005 changed the law protecting anonymous sperm donors and allowed children to learn the identity of donor fathers — one reason, fertility experts say, there are fewer donors now.
“The only countries that seem to have enough sperm are those that pay — like the U.S. and Spain — or the countries that retain anonymity,” said Allan Pacey, a member of the British Fertility Society that warned of the shortage in the British Medical Journal.
Swedish Sperm Shortage Shocker
First they blame lesbian couples for using up all the sperm, which struck me as weird as we should be almost the only people using such services aside from straight couples where the man is sterile, which isn’t all that common. (Not that I don’t understand why that isn’t the case.) Then:
On top of that disappointing news, there is more to this cake wreck. Apparently in Sweden once a sperm bank child gets to that magic age of 18, he or she can legally locate donor-daddy.
That puts a crimp in the donation pool.
The icing on the cake? Electricity issues that regularly unfreeze the poor little swimmers and a high rate of um, those donor contributions that can’t swim. Perhaps back-up generators to address both issues should be in the budget?
Sperm shortage forcing women to Internet for donor
A shortage of Canadian donor sperm could be prompting women and their partners to turn to the Internet to find free donors, but that doesn’t make it healthy, or even ethical, say experts in fertility and reproductive technology.
Fertility experts suggest reforms to overcome sperm shortage
The authors cited the removal of donor anonymity in April 2005 – allowing children to trace their donor parent once eighteen – as a key causal factor for the shortage. Donor anonymity is optional in the US and many experts there believe this is why they do not have a sperm donation shortage.
Modern Medicine Solves World Sperm Shortage (Satire)
And besides, is it really a scientific breakthrough to accomplish what every 12-year-old teenage boy does automatically in his sleep? The creation of sperm, after all, has been happening for as long as anyone can remember, and I don’t recall any sperm shortage public protests or United Nations warnings about the world running out of sperm.
The article goes on to cite serious information about the causes of male infertility.
I’ve ranted before about sperm donors being hit up for child support. I don’t think any of the articles I looked at mentioned that as a reason, though the related issue of donor anonymity was raised repeatedly. See, ladies, you’ve made both marriage and fatherhood, even via sperm donation, so unprofitable for men that they won’t even jack off for you. I hope that men will take Roger Devlin’s advice: “A man must insist on nothing less than a legally binding promise to love, honor, and obey him before “consenting” to give a woman a baby.”