Choose Daddy app that lets women pick a sperm donor
A SPERM bank has launched a smartphone app that allows women to browse potential donors to father their child.
The app is being marketed as perfect for busy women, allowing them to ‘ plan your family on the go’. Would-be mums can browse men by a series of characteristics including height, ethnicity, education and hair colour – and even if they have a good sense of humour.
They can then create a wish list of their desired traits, and will receive alerts from the London Sperm Bank as new donors become available.
To obtain a sample, the user must pay £950 via the app, which will allow the sperm to be delivered to a fertility clinic of their choice. But campaigners have criticised the so-called ‘choose Daddy’ app, saying it makes a mockery of fatherhood.
The London Sperm Bank says the app is the first of its kind, and is designed to ‘address the acute shortage of donated sperm’.
Much like dating apps, it includes a biography of the potential father with their educational history, job and personality traits.
For example, a Latvian dance instructor who has green/hazel eyes is described as ‘passionate’ with a ‘good sense of fun’, while an Iranian student with brown eyes and black hair says he is a ‘humble, well-mannered and honourable’ person who knows four languages, but has ‘restrictions’ on who can access his donations.
Dr Kamal Ahuja, of the London Sperm Bank, said finding a donor will now be as easy as ordering from shopping websites. ‘You make all the transactions online, like you do anything else these days,’ he told the Sunday Times. ‘This allows a woman who wants to get a sperm donor to gain control in the privacy of her own home and to choose and decide in her own time.’
The app has met all the criteria set by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which regulates IVF. It is understood around half of the UK’s private and NHS IVF clinics have registered with the service.
But it has been criticised by campaigners for ‘trivialising’ parenthood. Josephine Quintavalle, of the Comment on Reproductive Ethics group, said: ‘ It’s digital dads. Choose Daddy. This is the ultimate denigration of fatherhood.’