Events

Banking Crisis: What Should Be Done About the Sperm Donor Shortage?

Progress Educational Trust
Main Lecture Theatre, Royal Society of Medicine, 1 Wimpole Street, London W1G 0AE, UK
25 June 2009 -

An evening debate organised by the Progress Educational Trust (PET) in partnership with the Royal Society of Medicine, supported by the British Fertility Society.

An acute shortage of donor sperm is diminishing the capacity of the UK's public and private health sectors to treat infertility, resulting in growing concern and lengthening waiting lists at clinics. The shortage is widely attributed to the removal of entitlement to donor anonymity. Since this came into force, the total number of donors has actually risen slightly, but this has been countervailed by a decreasing willingness to donate sperm to banks for use by multiple families, resulting in a worsening shortage overall.

The experience of countries such as Sweden holds out some hope of a long-term recovery from the shortage, albeit with an increase in the average age of donors. In the meantime, the shortage appears to be boosting 'fertility tourism' abroad and unregulated sperm provision via the internet, as demand for donor sperm outstrips supply.

Proposed solutions to the shortage include:

• increasing the number of families that an individual is permitted to donate to (above the current UK limit of 10);

• optimising clinic infrastructure (by organising it as a 'hub and spoke' model);

• improving donor recruitment and public awareness campaigns;

• increasing 'loss of earnings' compensation to donors;

• explicitly remunerating donors and commodifying donation (rather than adhering to an altruistic model);

• deregulating the licensed import of donor sperm from overseas;

• reintroducing donor anonymity.

This event saw these and other solutions to the donor sperm shortage debated by a panel of experts with contrasting perspectives.

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Speakers

• Susan Golombok
  Professor of Family Research and Director of the Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge's Faculty of Politics, Psychology, Sociology and International Studies

• Dr Mark Hamilton
  Lead Clinician at the Aberdeen Fertility Centre and Consultant in Charge of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Aberdeen's School of Medicine and Dentistry

• Dr Allan Pacey
  Senior Lecturer in Andrology at the University of Sheffield's Medical School

• Laurence Shaw
  Associate Director of the London Bridge Fertility, Gynaecology and Genetics Centre

• Laura Witjens
  Chair of the National Gamete Donation Trust, and altruistic egg donor

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Chair

• Emily Jackson
  Professor of Law at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Deputy Chair of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority

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Partners and supporters

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• British Fertility Society