Donation is booming, but how to limit the risk of accidental incest? Sweden and Belgium have initiated discussions on the limit of sperm donors. The goal is to prevent close relatives from meeting and thus reduce the risk of hereditary diseases.
Reported by UNN with reference to Dagens Nyheter, L'Observatoire de l'Europe, and Politico.
Details
A number of EU countries plan to discuss restrictions on the number of children conceived by the same sperm donor to protect future generations from unintended incest and psychological trauma.
Sweden, with the support of Belgium, will raise this issue with EU ministers on Friday.
This issue has remained unresolved for too long... an international limit is the first step in the right direction
For reference
Currently, the trend on the continent is as follows:
- birth rates are declining;
- assisted reproductive technologies are becoming more widely available;
- the number of births conceived with the help of a donor is growing throughout Europe. Particularly for same-sex couples and single women;
- many countries are trying to attract a sufficient number of local donors;
- commercial cryobanks, called gametes – sperm or eggs – are increasingly transported across borders. Sometimes from one donor to several countries.
Donation limits – Sweden's experience
The Swedish Ethics Council began studying the issue in 2023 after an article published in the newspaper Dagens Nyheter reported that Swedish clinics were selling donor sperm abroad, resulting in one donor potentially becoming the father of over 50 children.
In Sweden, each donor can only donate to six couples. However, there are no restrictions on how many children a donor can father in different countries. Consequently, clinics use this loophole to circumvent national limitations.
Some cryobanks set their own voluntary limit on the maximum number of families or children per donor.
The fertility clinic mentioned in the Dagens Nyheter article had a voluntary limit of 25 families worldwide per donor.
Donors were informed about the export. However, the information is actually insufficient.
Many recipient parents did not know that their children could have up to 50 half-siblings.
Sperm donor with a dangerous mutation
Another threat: a donor with a rare cancer gene was discovered, whose sperm was used to conceive at least 67 children. Moreover, 10 of them after the cancer diagnosis was established.
This is another example of why we need to regulate this internationally
The European Sperm Bank, one of the largest cryobanks, offers sperm and egg donation in 80 countries worldwide. Donors undergo medical examinations and family screenings. However, these screenings would not have detected the TP53 cancer gene mutation, of which the donor is a carrier.
One can never be 100% sure of detecting everything. A centralized register can support and limit the number of donors, but to imagine that children conceived by donors will not develop any diseases is naive
Recall
A serial sperm donor, who became the father of 550 children, has been sued amid allegations that his prolific donations increase the risk of accidental incest.