The U.S. Should Abolish Anonymous Sperm Donations

Opinion|Why I Would Never Donate Sperm in the United States

In 2019, after thorough deliberation, I made the most meaningful decision of my adult life to become a dad. And, while joyously successful — I now have three sons and two daughters — I’ve never met them. That’s because I donated sperm to a fertility clinic in New South Wales, Australia, where I live. At this stage, a better word for me is “donor.”

Yet I’ve left open the opportunity of meeting my seven children (I’m eagerly awaiting news from two further pregnancies) once they reach adulthood. Anonymous donation isn’t allowed in Australian clinics, meaning my biological children can request contact with me after they turn 18. I sincerely hope they do if it feels right to them.

But I wouldn’t donate sperm in the United States. Anonymous donation, legal in most states, denies people conceived with sperm donations their right to know where they came from, and to an eventual relationship with their genetic dads. More broadly, the absence of legally enforced caps on the number of pregnancies a donation can lead to makes accidental incest an alarming possibility and forces people conceived via donors to grapple with the discovery that they are part of a potentially sprawling family in which they may struggle to form meaningful connections. Until the American fertility industry is more aggressively regulated, these practices can hurt all involved — most especially the children.

The consequences stretch beyond the borders of the United States, which by some estimates is one of the world’s largest sperm exporters. Many donor-conceived people born abroad originated from an American sperm bank.

The country continues to drag its feet on national reform. The Food and Drug Administration rejected a 2018 petition to require donors to provide post-conception medical updates so that their children could be screened for hereditary diseases. Congress hasn’t acted on assisted reproduction since 1992.

Australia is one of at least 15 countries in which people conceived via donors can identify their donors from at least age 18 (earlier in some places). In New South Wales, they can also track their half siblings through a central register. New South Wales also imposes a strict limit of five recipient families per donor — a number that feels manageable for people tracking down their half siblings, for the donors tracking down their genetic children and for the recipient parents looking after the well-being of their curious children.