Kenneth Glad
Countries across the region apply different rules to reproductive donation, making cross-border use difficult to monitor consistently. A new recommendation seeks to bring more of that activity under a shared system.
There is currently no Europe-wide limit on how many families can use sperm from the same donor. The European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) has recommended changing that by introducing an initial ceiling of 50 families per donor and gradually reducing it to 15.
ESHRE also recommends creating a common European donor register to track the use of donated sperm across national borders, writes broadcaster DR. The Danish Council on Ethics said that ethics councils in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland had previously recommended introducing a limit of this kind.
The issue has drawn greater attention following an investigation by DR, which reported that at least 210 children were conceived using sperm from a Danish donor carrying a serious cancer-associated genetic mutation. Several of the children inherited the mutation.
Denmark already limits one sperm donor to a maximum of 12 Danish families. The same donor’s sperm can still be used abroad under the rules of other countries, meaning a domestic cap does not necessarily show how widely that donor has been used across Europe.
Stricter limits could affect supply
The proposed figures were developed through discussions involving fertility doctors, biologists, laboratory specialists, patient organizations and others working in reproductive medicine.
Kirsten Tryde Macklon, a senior physician at Copenhagen’s Kingdom Hospital’s fertility clinic and chair of ESHRE’s ethics committee, has warned that setting limits too low could reduce the amount of donor sperm available and increase waiting times for prospective parents who depend on donation.
Donor-Conceived Children’s Rights (Donorbørns Vilkår), a Danish organization representing donor-conceived people, wants a lower ceiling than ESHRE has proposed. Its chair, Bodil Skov, supports restricting each donor to seven families and argues that the long-term interests of children conceived through donation should carry greater weight when such rules are set.
Skov has also said tighter limits could make donation more attractive because potential donors may be less concerned about eventually being genetically connected to hundreds of children.
Sources: DR, European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology, Danish Council on Ethics
