The Interim
Health minister David Dingwall announced June 5 that Canada is going to ban the sale of human sperm. The proposed bill, which will be tabled at the end of June, reads: “N person shall sell, purchase, barter or exchange sperm or offer to sell, purchase, barter or exchange sperm.” The measure will be a key part of the long awaited legislation to regulate the commercial baby trade.
The 1993 report by the $28 million Royal Commission on the New Reproductive Technologies on which the legislation is based, recommended allowing compensation for sperm donors for compensation only, not financial incentive.”
Sperm bank officials say the money they now pay donors to compensate them for time and out-of-pocket expenses—ranging from $40 to $100 a specimen, satisfies that recommendation.
But the government may be planning to go further, banning any sort of payment to donors.
Murray Kroach, a Toronto gynecologist and reproductive biology specialist who runs a sperm banking service for his patients, said he expects that almost every one of these donors would say no if they weren’t being compensated. “In this day and age, very few people are going to be willing to do this just out of the goodness of their heart.”
The potential loss donors also concern officials at Canada’s largest private sperm bank. “We feel we’ll lose about 80 per cent of our donors if they aren’t compensated for their effort,” said Cathy Roberto, assistant clinical director with ReproMed Ltd.
The resulting shortage of sperm would lead doctors to either import sperm or send their patients out of the country to be artificially inseminated.
Canada’s sperm industry is largely unmonitored under Canadian laws. Estimates on the number of babies born by artificial insemination in Canada ranges from 1,500 to 6,000 according to Dr. Rona Achillies, one of the researchers with the 1989093 Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies.
