Woman sues US regulator for right to private donor's sperm

A Californian woman
is suing the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over its sperm donation policy.

The woman, who
wishes to remain anonymous, is in a same-sex relationship and wants to conceive
a child using a friend's sperm by home insemination. FDA regulations, however,
require all sperm donors — including both those who donate through clinics and privately
- to undergo medical tests, which the plaintiff claims restricts her freedom
to have children.

The lawsuit,
filed by the campaign organisation Cause of Action on the woman's behalf, states
this requirement is unfair because heterosexual couples do not have to undergo costly
and time-consuming tests before they have intercourse. The lawsuit also claims
the FDA is controlling what should be a private matter and the rules are 'unconstitutional
to the extent that they operate to regulate noncommercial, sexually intimate
choices and activity'.

The FDA requires
all sperm donors to undergo urine and blood tests within the week of each
donation, even informal or private donations, effectively treating non-commercial
donors the same as fertility clinics and sperm banks, Cause of Action argues. Each
infectious disease test ranges from $250- $500 and a physical examination costs
around $300.

Cause of Action's
chief counsel for regulatory affairs, Amber Abbasi stated: 'If there are donors
like this who are not charging as a service, and not service as a business, the
FDA should not be intervening'.

'This means the
FDA can reach into your bedroom and tell you how to procreate. The FDA [is] taking
the position that donors, even when there's no commercial element, are ''an
establishment'', just like a sperm bank and have to register. This is a serious
burden on the reproductive freedoms of both the recipient and the donor', she
said.

However, other
commentators have supported the FDA's efforts to ensure sperm donations are
safe. Dr Mitchell Rosen, director of the University of California at San
Francisco Fertility Preservation Center, said: 'What the FDA is trying to do is
protect the people, that's their job'.

'From a medical
perspective, you don't want to infect another individual, that would be the
worst scenario you could possibly imagine', he said.

Abbasi countered
that the concern is the FDA's overreach into private lives. 'We don't think the
FDA's intentions are bad -they are trying to protect the public from
communicable diseases', she said, 'but this is literally stepping between two
people who have agreed to have a child; the FDA should not regulate that'.