Browsing websites that list sperm donors is weirdly similar to online dating. “Sanford is the total package,” one online ad begins, and goes on to describe his strong jawline and piercing blue eyes. With a degree in finance and a “charming demeanor,” he is more than a pretty face. You can listen to a voice recording from Sanford himself. If all that wins you over, you can have his baby without ever having to go on a date. For $635 Seattle Sperm Bank will ship you a vial of his frozen swimmers.
The fact that the main customers for many sperm banks are now single women explains the marketing technique.
“They tend to be highly educated, impatient and picky,” said Ole Schou, founder of Cryos International, the world’s largest sperm bank, based in Denmark’s second-biggest city, Aarhus. He added that its website is designed to resemble the dating site Match.com, because “finding a donor should be as close to finding a natural partner as possible.”
Outside the Cryos office a steady trickle of young men park their bicycles and head for the donor room, which is equipped with the usual pornographic magazines, a television and an inexplicable cactus. After they hand in their contributions, lab technicians test them and sort them by quality. The samples are labeled, frozen and stored in five large vats of liquid nitrogen at -196°C. When orders come in they will be shipped to homes, clinics and other sperm banks in more than 100 countries.
Fertility is a sizable industry, and commercial sperm banks are a crucial and profitable part of it. The global sperm-bank business could be worth nearly $5 billion by 2025, according to Grand View Research, a market-research company in California.
Demand has risen strongly. That is partly because people in rich countries are postponing their childbearing years, and as a result struggle to conceive. An even greater reason, however, is that in more places it is both legal and increasingly acceptable for lesbian couples and single women to have children. These groups make up 60 percent and 90 percent of clients at Cryos and SSB, respectively.
As demand rises, politicians and regulators are trying to exert more control. That has created a patchwork of rules that affect both supply and demand.
In some countries, such as Britain and the Netherlands, anonymous donation of sperm has been outlawed, contributing to sperm shortages. In others, such as France and Spain, donors must be anonymous. In Canada donors cannot be paid, and in most European countries they can be compensated only for expenses. In America there are no limits on remuneration.
As for buyers of sperm, many head for jurisdictions where waiting times and prices are lower or where the level of testing or information about the donor is greater. Some travel because restrictive rules at home prevent them from receiving donor sperm altogether. In Hong Kong and Switzerland, for example, only married, heterosexual couples are eligible for treatment with donor sperm. In France lesbians and single women are excluded.
This legislative hodgepodge represents opportunity for those that can export sperm. Thanks to dry ice, the internet and DHL, good-quality sperm has become highly tradable.
The industry has not always been in the hands of businessmen. For much of the 20th century, infertile couples would see a doctor who would pull his best-looking student from the corridor and use his freshly volunteered sperm to inseminate the woman, according to Rene Almeling of Yale University. No records were kept.
The HIV epidemic of the 1980s ended such shenanigans, however. Freezing, quarantining and testing both sperm and donors became crucial.
Worried about rising costs and legal liability, medical clinics left the business and commercial sperm banks filled the gap. The market has become highly competitive. Many customers need between six and 10 vials to conceive, and with many coming back for siblings, the business is all about the first sell. Cryos’ sales department is bigger than its science lab.
Sperm banks can be divided into two groups: those that regard sperm donation as a medical matter and those that do not. Companies such as Cryos are adamant that donation to a healthy woman is not a medical issue.
“It takes place millions of times each day without a doctor,” Schou argued.
Other sperm banks emphasize clinical expertise.
“We provide the highest-quality donors for the safest-possible babies and happiest families,” said Fredrik Andreasson, chief financial officer of Seattle Sperm Bank, which focuses not only on healthy donors but on “sellable” ones, such as doctors, and prides itself in accepting only 1 percent of donors and on testing for more genetic diseases than any other bank.
At several banks, prices for sperm have roughly doubled during the past decade. London Sperm Bank now charges $1,261 per vial. At Cryos the cheapest, anonymous vials start at $48, but the highest-quality ones, with an identifiable donor, extra tests and more information, cost as much as $1,900. Customers can gain “exclusive access” by buying out a donor for between $14,000 and $30,000. American banks tend to charge extra for information: Want to see a picture or hear the donor’s voice? That will be $25.
For Amy Graves and partner Claire Harrison, from Britain, information from Cryos about donors was crucial.
“As I was going to carry the baby,” Graves explained, “it was important to us that there were similarities between the donor and Claire.”
They settled on a man who loved soccer, like Claire, and martial arts, like Amy, and who shares Claire’s favorite color (red) and some of her facial features.
© 2017 Economist Newspaper Ltd., London (September 16). All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.
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