For prospective parents put off by the idea of obtaining sperm from a stranger via a sperm bank, the alternative of using a donor from one’s circle of acquaintances is an expensive affair. To have the donor certified, recipients must pay up to 50,000 kroner. The same goes for egg donors.
Tag: sperm bank
Inside World’s Biggest Sperm Bank
Denmark: Ole Schou was 27 years old when he had a dream. It was 1981 and he was a graduate student at a business school in the Danish city of Aarhus.
In the dream, Schou saw an icy blue sea and, caught in the waves, hundreds of frozen sperm. “It was such a peculiar dream that I could not forget it,” he recalls, “so sometime later I walked into the university library and asked for any literature on sperm and fertility.”
Schou started reading and became obsessed. “My dream had given me another dream,” Schou says. “I was going to build a sperm bank.”
That dream came true. Cryos, the company Schou started up 25 years ago this month, is today the world’s largest sperm bank. Schou estimates that Cryos has been responsible for more than 30,000 births, producing more than 2,000 babies a year, and in what has been called a new Viking invasion the company exports sperm to more than 70 countries. Cryos and similar companies, such as the European Sperm Bank, have helped turn Denmark into the sperm capital of the world. Read full article.
Give Me Back My Sperm, Donor Says
An Israel woman has filed a petition at the Supreme Court against the Health Ministry in an attempt to regain access to five units of sperm from a man who now regrets his donation.
The woman, whose name has not been revealed, is the mother of a two-year-old daughter who was conceived artificially using the donor’s sperm.
In order to provide her child with a biologically related sibling, the woman acquired five further units of the same donor’s semen from a sperm bank.
The donor, whose name also remains protected, claims that a recent religious epiphany made him wish he had never donated.
Israel is a global centre for assisted births, including artificial insemination. Sperm donors can expect to earn between £50 to £130 per donation, and in exchange, are guaranteed absolute, lifelong anonymity.
Sperm banks, donors help single women become mothers
More single women are taking matters into their own hands to start a family without a partner. They are part of a growing group called “Single Mothers by Choice.” Read full article.
In Sperm Banks, a Roll of the Genetic Dice
For more than a year, the Kretchmars carefully researched sperm banks and donors. The donor they chose was a family man, a Christian like them, they were told. Most important, he had a clean bill of health. His sperm was stored at the New England Cryogenic Center in Boston, and according to the laboratory’s Web site, all donors there were tested for various genetic conditions.
Court Orders Former B.C. Lesbian Couple to Divide Left-Over Sperm
A lesbian couple from British Columbia divided all their assets when they broke up in 2006 but forgot about 13 tubes of sperm that were being stored in a sperm bank.
Ed Houben, Sperm Donor, Has Fathered 82 Children
Ed Houben was a virgin until the age of 34. Now he’s the biological father of 82 children. Der Spiegel reports that the 42-year-old Dutchman performs his services for free, offering women and couples a chance to conceive a child without the expense of using a sperm bank.
Texas Sperm Donor doesn’t Owe Child Support Court Rules
National bodybuilding champion Ronnie Coleman of Arlington thought he had an ironclad arrangement. Coleman agreed several years ago to donate sperm at a California sperm bank for a friend who used to live in Arlington, but he made clear that he had no interest in being a father to any child who was eventually born.
DIY Sperm Banking? Some Clinics Offer At-Home Kits
On Monday, the Cleveland Clinic launched its “NextGen” sperm banking kit. Potential customers can request the kit, collect the sample “in the comfort of their own home,” as the cliché goes, and then send the kit back by overnight express.
Would you use a home sperm-banking kit?
Last week MSNBC.com reported that the prestigious clinic has launched a sperm banking kit — except that you won’t actually be doing any “banking” (no need to make room in the freezer). The kit really only handles the “collection” part of the process. According to the MSNBC report, customers get the kit, “collect the sample ‘in the comfort of their own home,'” and send it back to the Cleveland Clinic Andrology Laboratory and Reproductive Tissue Bank for storage and safe-keeping.
The thinking is that the new kit — called the NextGen Home Sperm Banking Service — will allow any guy who may be worried about his ability to conceive a child later to store his sperm in case he needs it at a future date — for example, if he is undergoing cancer treatment. The NextGen site notes that you need a referral from a physician to use the service, which costs $689 for the first bank, plus $140 annually to store the sperm, after the first year. Withdrawal and shipping fees also apply.
MSNBC writer Brian Alexander notes that the University of Illinois at Chicago offers much the same DIY sperm-banking kit, which they call “Overnite Male.”
There’s some debate about how well the sperm will fare when collected outside of a medical facility, then being flown hundreds or thousands of miles via overnight express to get to the bank for storage. The article notes that men in rural areas may find the service the most useful, since major cities already have sperm banks.