Australia is calling for a centralized database to track sperm donors amid fears the current system could lead to a range of family complications.
“We need a central registry across Australia and a central bank so everyone works from the same…and it doesn’t depend on which doctor they go to,” Rebecca Kerner, chair of the Australian and New Zealand Infertility Councilors Association, he told the Guardian.
The current system in Australia doesn’t track sperm once they leave their state of origin: with six states and two territories, there’s a lot of genetic material floating around out of control.
Each state and territory also has its own laws regarding the monitoring and release of donor information to donor-conceived individuals.
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The current system tracks and limits one donor to enough material for five to 10 families, but nothing prevents someone from doing so in every state, raising fears of “prolific” donors who could end up fathering dozens of children across the country.
Partners Jen and Jane hold hands during the fertility process at a fertility clinic in Sydney, Australia. (Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images)
This would lead to the potential for someone to have, therefore, dozens of half-siblings across the country, leading to the risk of “accidental incest” and trauma when someone discovers they are part of a much larger family than they realised.
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“Sperm has been transferred across states in Australia, and once it leaves a state, no one keeps track of what happens to it,” said Amiee Shackleton, director of Donor Conceived Australia. “When donor-conceived people find out they have so many siblings, it’s very distressing.”
BER 12: A laboratory worker fills a test tube at the Sydney IVF Clinic in Sydney, Australia on Thursday October 12, 2006. The Australian government spends around A$100 million a year to subsidize fertility treatments. (Jack Atley/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The system also doesn’t track anyone unless they’ve donated within a fertility clinic, which raises concerns about the rise of informal sperm donation, thanks to the Internet. Shackleton said thousands of people have bought sperm or eggs online.
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Adam Hooper, one of Australia’s most “prolific” sperm donors, with 20 donor-conceived children, flew to Brisbane, Western Australia last year to distribute his sample in bowls to women eager to get a sperm donor, The Daily Mail reported.
On Thursday, October 12, 2006, a lab displays a slide with sperm on it at the Sydney IVF Clinic in Sydney, Australia. (Jack Atley/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Some would-be mothers turned to Hooper because they were finding it difficult to raise money for IVF treatment or because clinics were out of samples. Taking money for donations is illegal in Australia, although compensating men for travel, parking or other expenses is not.
Hooper said he wanted to foster a close-knit group of mothers who could bond over their children’s shared DNA, telling the Courier Mail it was important to him that children ‘feel like they know where they come from’.
The same fear exists in the United States, even though the country’s population is 10 times that of Australia: The New York Post in 2017 called for increased regulation of sperm donors, noting a similar fear of sexual intercourse between unfamiliar half-siblings their connection.
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Professor Fiona Kelly, dean of the law school at La Trobe University in Australia, said creating a central database would be a complicated process, but that states could do it if they were willing to put in the effort.
“If all state governments were willing to come together and agree on a uniform law adopted by each of them, it could be administered and funded at the state level,” Kelly said.
