Donor wins payout after sperm was given to gay couples against his wishes
A FERTILITY clinic has paid a five-figure sum to a donor whose sperm was used to help same-sex couples against his wishes.
Neil Gaskell, 49, said he wanted his sperm to go only to heterosexual couples when he agreed to be a donor in 2010 at a top IVF clinic in return for cut-price fertility treatment.
Campaigners said yesterday it should never have accepted his ‘discriminatory’ demand.
While admitting his view would be ‘divisive’, Mr Gaskell was adamant that any children conceived using his sperm – described as ‘Superman-strength’ by clinic staff – should have a father figure.
Instead he was left ‘shocked and numb’ to discover he had fathered five children for samesex couples, plus four born to single women, following an audit by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) regulator. Now Care Fertility – which has more than 20 UK clinics – has paid Mr Gaskell after a legal battle that was settled out of court.
Last night, veteran gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell said it should have ‘never agreed to Mr Gaskell’s discriminatory pre-condition for his sperm donation’ as it breached the Equality Act. ‘A donor cannot legally stipulate a ban on same-sex couples receiving his sperm,’ he told the Daily Mail.
However, Mr Tatchell said the clinic had little choice but to pay the compensation. But refuting Mr Gaskell’s views, he insisted: ‘Studies in several different countries have shown that children raised by
‘Destroyed his relationship’
two mums or two dads are no less happy and well-adjusted than those raised in heterosexual families with a mother and father.
‘What’s crucial to children’s welfare is the parent’s love, not their sexual orientation.’
Mr Gaskell and his ex-partner spent 14 years trying to conceive before they had their first child following IVF treatment in Australia in 2008.
After they returned to the UK in 2010 they decided to try again, and approached Care Fertility’s clinic in Manchester. An initial round of treatment failed and Mr Gaskell was approached by the clinic to become a donor, with experts saying he had ‘Superman-strength sperm’, he told the Mail on Sunday.
In exchange, they were offered a discount on their next round of IVF, a common and legitimate practice.
While staff filled out his consent form – months before the Equality Act came into force – Mr Gaskell said he was told he could place restrictions on his donation such as ‘Not for same sex-couples’, and did so.
The form said the donation would go to ‘a maximum of ten families’, so Mr Gaskell said he assumed that meant couples. Explaining why he didn’t want his sperm to conceive a child in a same-sex relationship or single parent family, he said: ‘If the donor-conceived children had a father figure, I thought it would reduce the chances of them making contact with me later on.’
Mr Gaskell, from Manchester, insisted that any suggestion he was homophobic ‘couldn’t be further from the truth’.
‘It takes a man and a woman to create a child, and it’s my view that if children are being born with my sperm they must have a mother and a father,’ he added.
Mr Gaskell – who fathered two more babies of his own – claimed the strain of finding out about the sperm donor children destroyed his relationship.
Care Fertility confessed that ‘mistakes had been made’. It said it was committed to helping would-be parents whether they were in heterosexual or same-sex relationships, and that sperm donors were ‘valued and respected’.
A HFEA spokesman said a ‘full investigation’ had been carried out and lessons were learned.