Experts have warned that sperm donated in Britain is being exported to other countries and could be used to produce huge numbers of babies around the world, breaching the strict 10-family limit in place in the UK. The GuardianWhile a single donor cannot be used to create more than 10 families in U.K. fertility clinics, there are no restrictions on sending sperm or eggs abroad from the country. This legal loophole is being exploited on an industrial scale. It also increases the possibility for some donor-conceived children to have dozens of biological half-siblings in Europe and beyond.
Meanwhile, experts are calling on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to tighten restrictions. Professor Jackson Kirkman-Brown, president of the Association for Reproductive and Clinical Scientists (ARCS), said: “If you believe it is necessary to apply the 10-family limit in the modern world, then logically it should apply everywhere, regardless of where the sperm comes from.” The Guardian“There are statistics that show that some children living in large families do struggle with this,” he said.
Separately, speaking to the outlet, University of Manchester professor Lucy Frith, who is researching donor-conceived experiences, said that making contact with biological half-siblings is often viewed positively. However, she added that “when the number of siblings started to increase (it) started to feel unmanageable to make contact and relationships with an increasing and uncertain number of people.”
“There is no set figure as to when a number becomes ‘too high’ and it depends on the individual, but generally more than 10 people is considered a large group,” he said.
“Once you freeze sperm it doesn’t age,” Mr Kirkman-Brown said. This means donated sperm can be used for years or decades. “You may even get older donor siblings than your parents, which is something we haven’t seen before,” he said.
“Donation is presented to donors as a beautiful gift to help someone have a family, not as, ‘We’ll maximize the number of births from your germ cells and make as much money as possible from that,'” said Professor Nicky Hudson, a medical sociologist at De Montford University.
The rule of enforcing the limit of 10 families in licensed clinics is regulated by HEFA. According to the regulatory body, 10 is the number people feel comfortable with in terms of the number of potential donor-conceived children, half-siblings and families.
Rachel Cutting, compliance and information director at the HFEA, said: “As the HFEA has no control over donations outside of licensed clinics there will be no oversight of how often a donor is used in these circumstances.”
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Experts are now calling on the HFEA to get tougher. Lucy Frith said: “The HFEA is limited by its statutory duties, but it can stipulate that it will only import gametes that meet the UK limit (10 families) from outside the UK.”
“For the HFEA to say it is outside its remit is not good enough,” said Sarah Norcross, director of fertility charity Progress Educational Trust. “I’m not against more than 10 families, if some, being outside the UK, but 75, which some of these banks have agreed to, is a lot of relatives. Even if they say we can’t control the number of families abroad, they can insist that the number is made available to the recipient,” she said.
Notably, The GuardianUntil five years ago, the United Kingdom imported sperm mainly from the US and Denmark. But between 2019 and 2021, the UK exported 7,542 straws of sperm. Additionally, Cryos, the world’s largest sperm and egg bank, opened a unit in Manchester this April.
“The European sperm bank, which accounts for 90% of exports, enforces a donation limit of 75 families worldwide and estimates that its donors help an average of 25 families,” the report says.
“The idea of having a lot of children is already embedded in our cultural imagination. We don’t have that for women,” said professor Nicky Hudson. She added that this is not an idea encouraged by women. One of them told her that it “feels like human trafficking”.
