Experts have warned that sperm donated in the UK is being exported and used to create large numbers of children across multiple countries, contradicting a strict 10-family limit that applies in the UK.
A legal loophole means that while a single donor can be used to create no more than 10 families in UK fertility clinics, there are no restrictions on companies making sperm or eggs available for additional fertility treatments abroad. The Guardian talked to the people affected.
Laura Dine, south Wales
Dine, 36, learned she was donor conceived at the age of 10. She had wanted to reconnect with the man she believed to be her biological father, who had left the family home when she was three years old. But her mother revealed that her biological father was, in fact, an anonymous sperm donor.
“It was one of my life’s missions to find my biological father.” Dine eventually tracked him down through DNA testing websites. In the process, she also matched with 25 half-siblings.
“I do little maths scenarios in my head,” says Dine. “About 5% of the UK population is on Ancestry.com. If we’ve identified 25 siblings on there alone – there’s going to be variables, but if you just directly extrapolate it, you’re looking at 500. Even if you take that down by a degree of magnitude, it makes me uncomfortable.”
She initially worried the donor would be put off wanting to establish a relationship when he became aware of how many biological children were out there. But he and his wife have been open and welcoming and Dine says they have an uncanny amount in common; they own the same breed of dog, both studied environmental sciences at the University of Plymouth and are both runners.
However, the steady accumulation of genetic half-siblings has, at times, felt overwhelming. “I matched with my first half-brother Sam back in 2017. In seven years I’ve gone from one to 25.”
She worried about the possibility of inadvertently forming a romantic connection with a blood relative and as a result says she has leaned towards dating men who are not from the UK. And discovering she is one of a large number of half-siblings has affected her sense of identity. “You hear about people’s parents meeting at Glastonbury. This isn’t very glamorous or romantic and the numbers add to that feeling. It does make you feel a bit mass-produced.”
Grace Halden, London
Halden is a solo mother by choice and used donor sperm to conceive twin daughters, who were born in 2019. Halden, who is a senior lecturer at Birkbeck, University of London, has a professional background in bioethics but says she was unaware of the possibility of her donor’s sperm being exported. “I selected a UK donor that I believed would be used for a maximum of 10 families. Everybody makes different decisions, but for me I wanted to keep the donor sibling pool as small as I could within my control.”
When she revisited her donor’s profile page some time after her daughters’ birth, however, she was alarmed to see a note stating “export only”. “I was blindsided. I felt as if I perhaps wouldn’t have made the decision I’d made if I’d thought exportation was an option.”
When she contacted the clinic, she was referred to the terms and conditions of the consent forms she had signed. “Sure enough, it was buried in there,” she said. After raising the issue on a local social media group, she realised others were making similar discoveries.
Halden has since been reassured that in her case, the donor’s sperm will not be exported and says the sperm bank has responded positively after she raised the issue. However, she is concerned there is a wider lack of transparency.
“Yes, it’s a business, but they’re in the business of creating people. The priority must always be the children who are created.”
Kevin Moore, Wiltshire
Moore, 39, is donor conceived and also a sperm donor. Now based in Wiltshire, Moore is originally from Florida, where, “in the 80s, when I was born, they didn’t keep on top of records”.
He is on a WhatsApp group with seven of his donor half-siblings, but says he has no idea of the total number. “There are a lot of stories coming out of the States with these huge family gatherings.”
With each addition it is harder to form a meaningful connection, he has found. “It’s just hard to establish a relationship with someone every year, every two years,” he said. “You have to go through the same life story … I’m like, ‘Not again.’”
Moore is also a sperm donor and has at least 14 biological children, based on the figure provided five years ago by the HFEA, the UK’s fertility regulator. “I was like, ‘Oh my goodness, that’s quite a lot.’ That’s where I think the 10 family limit feels a bit heavier. Even now, because there’s no limit within families, I could have 20 plus. That’s kind of intense.”
So far, the mother of one of his biological children – a 12-year-old girl – has been in touch. “As a first experience it was very respectful and nice,” he said, but it came at a time when he needed to support his own parents in the US who were having health problems. “You don’t know if and when they’re going to find you but you have to be prepared to have that conversation 20 times.”
Moore is in favour of “some sort of limit” and says 10 families feels about right. “For me, it raises the question of why one donor has to be used 50 times,” he said. “Is there not a better solution than this? You imagine these extended families of thousands and thousands of people. It’s less a personal issue for me, but more an issue for society.”
Liam Renouf-Macnab, London
Renouf-Macnab, 29, connected with four biological half siblings after taking part in the ITV documentary Born From the Same Stranger and has since been in touch with another three half siblings. “Seven feels manageable,” he says. “I’m building relationships with them and that’s been really amazing.”
From non-identifying information provided by the HFEA, he knows he is from a sibling pod of 17 and although this is feasibly within the 10-family limit, he says he felt shocked by the number.
“I feel proud to be part of a heritage that’s really connected to women’s rights, fertility rights, LGBT rights,” he says. “But the marketisation of the industry to create 17 children felt like something I had to deal with and process and think through.”
Renouf-Macnab would like to see tighter regulation of the industry, with sperm banks brought into public ownership and a legal obligation on the HFEA to inform donor-conceived people of their biological origins. “One thing I support is that donor-conceived people have the right to know. If the HFEA, at 18, contacted the people who are donor conceived to tell them, it would spur parents on to make sure they have those conversations early.”