Paying for sperm won’t fix problems
Donor supply, safety and anonymity issues will all still exist, says Françoise Baylis.
A recent proposal to amend the Assisted Human Reproduction Act created plenty of confusion.
Liberal MP Anthony Housefather decries the fact that, in Canada, it is illegal to pay for surrogacy, arranging the services of a surrogate, eggs and sperm. Only reimbursement for expenditures is legally permitted.
Housefather wants to remove the prohibition on payment for reproductive services and reproductive materials.
The ethics of paying for bodily tissues (not just eggs and sperm, but also blood, plasma, bone marrow, kidneys, liver lobes and so on) are complex. Regarding sperm, it has been suggested there are too few sperm banks in Canada to meet demand, that not all sperm providers are truthful about their health status, and that sperm providers want anonymity. These concerns, however, will not be corrected by allowing payment for sperm.
First, paying men for their sperm will not increase the number of sperm banks. In the late 1980s, male friends at university regularly received flyers to provide sperm for the local fertility program. They were paid $25 for each visit — one sample per visit — and they could sell their sperm as many times as they wished. This changed in 1996, when Health Canada introduced semen regulations that included strict exclusion criteria. For each sale, the men were required to make at least two clinic visits, six months apart, for infectiousdisease testing.
A few years later, Health Canada introduced new rules and sperm in storage at that time had to be quarantined until it could be tested. The associated costs were steep, and as a result most sperm banks in Canada closed up shop. Those still in business were primarily distributors, importing sperm that met Canadian standards.
The number of Canadian sperm banks declined not because of lack of payment to providers but because of the cost of running this kind of business in a small market like Canada.
Second, payment for sperm does not guarantee honest disclosure about health status. In fact, the opposite might be true — fear of losing a payment might incentivize some to “shade” the truth.
Not so long ago, a Canadian couple in Port Hope had a child using sperm purchased from an American sperm bank. Later they learned the sperm was from a college dropout with a genetically linked mental illness. He was paid for his sperm but did not report truthful information.
Housefather suggests remov- ing the legal prohibition on paying for sperm and having the provinces regulate the collection and verification of relevant health-related information. There is no logical connection, however, between payment and the collection of relevant healthrelated information.
Health Canada is working to strengthen the Assisted Human Reproduction Act. This includes drafting new regulations on product safety “to reduce the risks to human health and safety arising from the use of sperm or ova for the purpose of AHR, including the risk of the transmission of disease.” Health Canada is drafting these regulations for the altruistic system.
Third, Housefather suggests that if payment for sperm is allowed, the provinces will be able to regulate the disclosure of information about sperm providers to the children so conceived.
People conceived using donor sperm should have access to medical and personal information about their donor once they reach the age of maturity or majority. This is not just morally correct but reasonable given the age of “ancestry tracing.”
But this has nothing to do with payment. Provinces can already regulate on this issue. For example, British Columbia recognizes the rights of donor offspring to access information about their gamete donor records.
Maybe one day similar laws will be passed in all Canadian provinces. The point for now is that the preference for known identity sperm donors has nothing to do with payment.
Considering the facts, paying men for their sperm is unlikely to increase the number of sperm banks in Canada, improve product safety or solve the problem of donor anonymity.
payment for sperm does not guarantee honest disclosure about health status. In fact, the opposite might be true — fear of losing a payment might incentivize some to ‘shade’ the truth.
Françoise Baylis