Ten years ago Canada wiped out the market for a young studly man's greatest resource, as new legislation banned fertility clinics from paying sperm donors.
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This was a big problem for our local fertility clinics and likely cost some tall dark and handsome young bucks a chance for pleasurable financial gain.
It also hurt lesbian couples as they were, in many cases, the ones who needed that sperm to start their families.
“Payment for sperm donation has been criminalized. If I give so much as a bus ticket to somebody to come up and give a sperm donation I could be put into prison for five years,” local fertility chief Marinko Biljan told me at the time.
(I wanted to ring Biljan up today to see if he had another great quote but learned that he died of ALS three years after our chat, aged just 49).
The sperm payment ban became part of 2004's federal Bill C-6, (anti-cloning bill) partially because of some emotional testimony from a young woman.
Olivia Pratten of Vancouver was distraught because she'd never know her sperm-donor father.
“I know that my biological father was paid $50 for his sperm in 1981. What are the implications for me 22 years after the fact? I am left to forever wonder whether he understood the full consequences of what he did. Did he pocket the money, thinking to himself, ‘Isn't this great being paid for something I do every day?’ Did he think that his sperm would not stay sperm, that it would become a person – me? Had he not been paid, I would at least know that he had the right intentions and that I am related to someone who wanted to help someone else first before helping himself. Allowing people to sell their gametes, to sell their biological ties is degrading and cheapens the essence of what it means to be human.”
The committee was swayed by this and made recommendations to ban paid sperm donations, which was then enacted and passed into law.
So since 2004 a man can't get paid to donate sperm and there's absolutely no upside to donating sperm for free, in fact one would be a fool to do so and indeed one local fertility clinic tells me that almost nobody donates sperm.
A friend contacted me a few weeks ago panicking because a woman with whom he had a sperm-donor arrangement had suddenly filed papers threatening to sue him for support.
He was outraged and perplexed and said that he couldn't afford payments or even a lawyer.
Here's why now is the time to discuss reversing the ban on paid sperm donations: the law, when passed in 2004 was “proposed for 10 years,” according to Paige Raymond Kovach of Health Canada. Further review and discussion was promised and the feds were supposedly open to revision.
Ten years is up.
By the way, if you're angling to become a donor, consider that one has to be aged under 35 to donate sperm. This seems like an unkind snub to me as I was conceived from the juice of a man over age 50 and I turned out ok.
This was a big problem for our local fertility clinics and likely cost some tall dark and handsome young bucks a chance for pleasurable financial gain.It also hurt lesbian couples as they were, in many cases, the ones who needed that sperm to start their families.
“Payment for sperm donation has been criminalized. If I give so much as a bus ticket to somebody to come up and give a sperm donation I could be put into prison for five years,” local fertility chief Marinko Biljan told me at the time.
(I wanted to ring Biljan up today to see if he had another great quote but learned that he died of ALS three years after our chat, aged just 49).
The sperm payment ban became part of 2004's federal Bill C-6, (anti-cloning bill) partially because of some emotional testimony from a young woman.
Olivia Pratten of Vancouver was distraught because she'd never know her sperm-donor father.
“I know that my biological father was paid $50 for his sperm in 1981. What are the implications for me 22 years after the fact? I am left to forever wonder whether he understood the full consequences of what he did. Did he pocket the money, thinking to himself, ‘Isn't this great being paid for something I do every day?’ Did he think that his sperm would not stay sperm, that it would become a person – me? Had he not been paid, I would at least know that he had the right intentions and that I am related to someone who wanted to help someone else first before helping himself. Allowing people to sell their gametes, to sell their biological ties is degrading and cheapens the essence of what it means to be human.”
The committee was swayed by this and made recommendations to ban paid sperm donations, which was then enacted and passed into law.
So since 2004 a man can't get paid to donate sperm and there's absolutely no upside to donating sperm for free, in fact one would be a fool to do so and indeed one local fertility clinic tells me that almost nobody donates sperm.
A friend contacted me a few weeks ago panicking because a woman with whom he had a sperm-donor arrangement had suddenly filed papers threatening to sue him for support.
He was outraged and perplexed and said that he couldn't afford payments or even a lawyer.
Here's why now is the time to discuss reversing the ban on paid sperm donations: the law, when passed in 2004 was “proposed for 10 years,” according to Paige Raymond Kovach of Health Canada. Further review and discussion was promised and the feds were supposedly open to revision.
Ten years is up.
Lesbians might lead the charge to reverse the ban, as they are one of the groups most directly affected by the law - about one-in-four sperm donations goes to female-female partnerships.
As for the tortured and tormented young Olivia Pratten, her court battle to learn her sperm donor father's true identity was tossed out of Supreme Court a couple of years ago.By the way, if you're angling to become a donor, consider that one has to be aged under 35 to donate sperm. This seems like an unkind snub to me as I was conceived from the juice of a man over age 50 and I turned out ok.