Sperm donation

The gift of Sperme is a practice which makes it possible a man to give his Sperme so that a child can be born. The donor can make this gift in a Clinique or a Banque of sperm. In certain countries, as in France, it is based on the exemption from payment, the Anonymat and voluntariate. In other countries, anonymity can be prohibited by the Loi. The law can also limit the number of children whom a donor can generate by this practice.

The sperm donation has been used for several decade, it was established in 1973 in France with CECOS (Center of Study and Conservation of Eggs and human Sperm). More: 38000 children were born on the French territory thanks to more: 9300 donors. Each year, they are more: 4000 couples with being petitioning. The request being quite higher than the offer, the couples receivers are confronted with very important times about one, even two years. For the Ovocyte S, this time is even longer, higher than two years.

History

The Artificial insemination with Don of Sperme (IAD) is a technique which goes back to a little more 100 years, since the first successful attempt date of 1884, by Doctor William Pancoast in the United States.

Since the Forties, it is possible to freeze the Spermatozoïde S without modifying their aptitude for fecundation, and the first births of children designed with frozen spermatozoa go back to 1953.

In France, CECOS were created in 1973 to ensure congelation and the conservation of the Spermatozoïde S. These centers are charged to make sure that collected sperm is more fertilizing possible while avoiding the transmission of the hereditary or infectious diseases.

The law on the Bioéthique dating of July 29th, 1994 regulates the general operation of CECOS.

Indications

Sterility of the spouse, either by absence or scarcity of the Spermatozoon S, or by absence of being able fertilizing the latter. One uses in this case the gift of Sperme after the attempts at ICSI failed.

Genetic anomaly at the spouse, who would be likely to be transmitted to the child in the event of normal procreation. The Diagnostic pre-implantatoire can be an alternative.

Sexually transmitted disease serious at the spouse, such as for example the AIDS.

Stages of a request for sperm donation

A couple receiver makes a request, the file is examined during a multi-field meeting to which assist the Clinicien, the Biologiste, the Psychiatre and the Généticien of CECOS. One checks the indication clinical, biological and genetic and one makes sure of the good psychological assumption of responsibility.

If the opinion is favorable in writing the formless CECOS the couple receiver and also addresses a certificate to the Court of Bankruptcy or with the notary auprès whose the assent must be given.

Then CECOS research within its samples of sperm, that which comes from a donor to which the characteristics are closest to the couple receiver: Blood group compatible but also skin color, of hair and the eyes.

Technique

Collection of sperm

The donor must go in a private clinic or banks of sperm and the collection is done by Masturbation.

Conservation of sperm

Sperm collected is frozen in the form of spangles of 0.25 ml and preserved in the Azote liquid at - 196°c.

Once frozen it must be preserved without being used for 6 months at the end which it is checked that serologies of the donor are always negative and this in order to avoid any transmission of sexually transmitted diseases.

With the passing, one currently knows that the spermatozoa can keep to be able to them fertilizing after being frozen during 10 years.

Procedures of the sperm donation

There exist four different techniques:

the IAD which corresponds to a simple deposit of sperm defrosted on the level of the cervical glaire. This technique is applied directly to the cabinet of the Gynécologue.

the IIU-D which associates insemination will intra uterine (IUU) with the sperm donation.

the FIV-D which associates the traditional technique of (FIV) in vitro fertilization and the gift of sperm.

the ICSI-D which associates the technique of the microinjection and the gift of sperm.

Regulation

If the exemption from payment of the gift of gamètes achieves the unanimity of the practices and the laws in Europe, the principle of the Anonymat divides the various countries.

The Germany, the Austria, the Sweden and the Swiss , and more recently the Netherlands and the the United Kingdom, refuse, for example, the principle of anonymity. Whereas, on the other hand, the France, the Spain and the Norway impose in their law the anonymity of the third donor of gamètes.

Thus the sperm donation is not anonymous any more in the United Kingdom since April 2005, the children designed after April 2005 by medical help with procreation with recourse of a donor, will be able at the 18 years and 9 months age to ask for the identity of their biological father.

In Belgium

The sperm donation is governed by several laws in Belgium, the regulations are numerous:

the gift is not remunerated, is voluntary and strictly anonymity;
the law of July 2007 prohibits in particular that the sperm of a donor fertilizes more than six different women;
any volunteer is retained like donor only if:

it has less than 40 years;
its sperm is of excellent quality resisting congelation well;
it is of sexually transmitted diseases or genetic anomalies;
it has a healthy perception of its act.

In the United States

If the principle of exemption from payment guarantees a certain ethics, it also causes a shortage. By the United States the donor is remunerated for its gesture. With 15 dollars the standard gift, the candidates do not miss.

In the United States as in Canada, of the privately held companies make trade of it, including on Internet. Thus the choice of the biological father is done on catalog where one can choose between a sportsman, a scientist, a businessman, or a mannequin. With, with the choice, promises of big size, eyes blue, fair hair or of high IQ.

In France

The sperm donation is governed by the law of Bioéthique of 1994. The management of the gifts of gamètes (ovocytes and spermatozoa) is governed in France by the confederation of CECOS (Center of Study and Conservation of Eggs and human Sperm). This confederation gathers all the public centers authorized to collect and distribute the spangles of sperm.

The regulations of the sperm donation in France are numerous:

the gift of spermatozoa is not remunerated and is voluntary;
It is the fact of a couple having already at least a normal child. A man alone could not make sperm donation but since August 2004 the law does not force any more to be in couple.
the man donor must be old less than 45 years.
If the donor lives in couple, its joint must give its agreement;
the donor should not be carrying genetic diseases or transmissible infectious illness by sperm. Tests are carried out and sperm must be preserved 6 months before being given in order to check that serologies of the donors are quite negative.
the gift is Anonym, i.e. the couple donor does not know the destination of sperm and the couple receiver does not know the origin of it.
the gift is addressed to an heterosexual couple in age to procreate and not being able to have of child for medical causes; the woman alones or the homosexual couples cannot thus be receivers.
the gift as well as the request are kept secret.
a gift can be used only to give 5 children, in order to avoid the risk of later Consanguinité. Newborns of the same sample of sperm can indeed meet and procreate together, the limitation of the number of children per limiting gift this risk.
the choice of sperm is carried out by taking account of the physical characteristics like the color of the skin or the hair and the blood groups of the couple receiver. This in order to avoid a too great contrast of physical appearance enters the child and his parents.
a two years sorrow of imprisonment and 30 500 euros of fine is envisaged if a taking away is carried out apart from the CECOS or if the rules of hygiene and safety are not complied with at the time of a gift.

In Great Britain

In spite of the abolition of the anonymity of the gift in 2005, one notes a rise of the number of the donors.

Results

The success rates are about the same ones as those obtained with identical sperms not congelés ; they depend also much on the Fertilité of the woman.

Ethical characteristics, problems

the anonymity of the donor poses the ethical problem to cut the child of its biological filiation. This filiation, independently of any emotional consideration, fact part of the biological history of the child. It enters the field of the “right at the origins”. The development of trackings of genetic disease according to the family criteria of the antecedent is not possible any more. It is a mutilation of the history of the child. To give up this anonymity should be able to be associated with an evolution with the legislation which would dissociate the right to knowledge of the parent of those of family and social paternity. No text should prevent the major child from wanting to establish a contact (nonprivileged by the text) with this parent.

Since July 1999, the French law allows in exceptional circumstances, the recourse to a diagnosis préimplantatoire (screening tests carried out on the embryos designed at the laboratory before their transfer in the uterus), in order to identify genes responsible for serious genetic diseases. These tests are authorized only if the couple with a strong probability of giving rise to an ill child.

The sorting and the selection of embryo are thus possible in France. But it is very framed and is authorized only for serious medical causes.

In October 2000, a fertile American couple had recourse to a technique of medical help to procreation, only with an aim of profiting from a diagnosis préimplantatoire in order to select the genetic characteristics of the gamètes used at the time of in vitro fertilization, to be able to put at the world a baby able to cure their leukaemic young girl.

This first world raised an important ethical question: is there the right to design and select an human embryo with a single aim of looking after an ill child?

In Maryland, a couple of lesbians of about thirty years, all the two deaf persons, deliberately chose to have a deaf child so that the child resembles to them. They thus asked a friend, deaf person and whose parents are deaf since 5 generations, to make the sperm donation.

See too

assisted medical Procreation

References

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