Overview
IVFAustralia provides a sperm donor program where the donor is either a known donor (where the donor is known to the recipient) or a de-identified donor (where the identify of the donor is not known to the recipient but details will be made available for later access by the offspring once they reach 18 years of age).
Accessing De-Identified Donor Sperm
Availability of donors:
There is currently a severe shortage of donor sperm in Australia. For this reason, persons wishing to access donor sperm through IVFAustralia have the opportunity to join a waiting list. However, unless there is an intake of sperm donors, it could be 12 months or more before sperm becomes available.
The process:
The first step is a consultation with a fertility specailist who will discuss the process, assess the health of the couple, and arrange any preliminary testing that is needed.
The couple (or single women if applicable) will then need to meet with a counsellor and discuss the long term implications of treatment using donated sperm.
After that, if donor insemination is the right method of treatment, the couple will either see a nurse to start treatment or join the waitlist if there are no donors currently available.
Becoming a Sperm Donor
Who can become a donor?
All semen donors at IVFAustralia must adhere to practices developed by the Reproductive Technology Accreditation Committee of the Fertility Society of Australia, and the National Health and Medical Research Council, including:
- donors must be older than 18 years of age and younger than 46 years of age
- donors must be shown by blood tests before and after six months of quarantining of the semen samples to be free of serious infection or genetic conditions
- donors must have never previously donated at any other fertility clinic
- donors must have no medical conditions or illnesses, either in himself or in his family that may be passed on to future children.
The Process:
The first step is a consultation with a fertility specialist, followed by a semen analysis and compulsory counselling. We discuss legal, social, genetic and moral implications of the donation as well as the health checks and procedures involved.
Sperm donors need to be prepared to discuss and provide the following types of information:
There are significant screening tests undertaken on sperm donors including blood group, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, cystic fibrosis, syphilis, chlamydia, chromosome analysis and HIV status. The sperm is stored for six months at which point the donor’s blood is tested again for infectious diseases before a sample is used.
Legal Considerations:
In Australia it is an offence under Australian law to have a commercial arrangement for human tissue, including sperm, eggs and embryos. This offence carries a maximum sentence of 10 years imprisonment.
IVFAustralia can therefore have no contact or direct dealings with any overseas commercial sperm bank. However, this does not preclude an individual patient from buying semen samples overseas on their own initiative to be used during treatment at IVFAustralia.
Sperm from one donor is currently able to create a maximum of 10 families. NSW legislation on Assisted Reproductive Technology is under review and we expect that the new guidelines will suggest no more than five families can be created from one sperm donor. IVFAustralia currently aims to provide enough sperm from one donor for a family so that if siblings are desired they have the same biological father.
Recent proposed changes to NSW legislation (link), suggests that the donor may place conditions on their consent, including that a particular recipient only use their sperm. It is believed that this change to legislation is for the best interests of the child.
IVFAustralia will also support fertility treatment for couples who access donated sperm from other sources. However, there are very strict legal and ethical rules around this approach and IVFAustralia are required to comply with these.