Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

The HFEA figures actually show that the numbers of sperm donors have gone *up* four years in a row since the ending of anonymity, thus reversing a three year decline. The 384 donors in 2008 was the highest figure since 1996, and 160 more than in 2004 just before anonymity ended.

I was a sperm donor in the early 80′s btw, and I believe the ending of anonymity was long overdue. Anyone who is not prepared to meet the people that result from their donations is not fit to be a donor.

Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

The HFEA figures actually show that the numbers of sperm donors have gone *up* four years in a row since the ending of anonymity, thus reversing a three year decline. The 384 donors in 2008 was the highest figure since 1996, and 160 more than in 2004 just before anonymity ended.

I was a sperm donor in the early 80’s btw, and I believe the ending of anonymity was long overdue. Anyone who is not prepared to meet the people that result from their donations is not fit to be a donor.

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Let’s face it – men aren’t THAT stupid.

As soon as the protection of anonymity was lifted, by changing the law, it was crystal clear that the very next change in the law would see donors being hounded and their lives destroyed by the Child Support Agency.
So men, en masse, stopped donating.

It’s not rocket science.
If you make it possible for someone to be punished for doing a good deed, then they will stop doing it.

Frankly, I think those men who continue to donate are foolhardy in the extreme.

@bloke: Clinic sperm donors are not financially liable for children conceived using their donations, and so have nothing to fear from the Child Support Agency.

Like I said before:

“The HFEA figures actually show that the numbers of sperm donors have gone *up* four years in a row since the ending of anonymity, thus reversing a three year decline.”

There were 77% *more* donors in 2008, than in 2004 just before anonymity ended. Click on my name to go to the HFEA website and check the figures for yourself. It’s not rocket science.

@Mark Lydon
- donors are not liable YET.

Wait for it, that change will come.
Especially now the State is feeling the financial pinch.

I reiterate: anyone who donates sperm is a fool. It will cost them enormously at some point down the line.

Clinic donors aren’t liable and never will be.

What’s your agenda here? Do you work for a clinic, or are you a former donor perhaps? Or a parent of a donor-conceived child? You seem curiously eager to talk men out of donating.

In general in the uk donors have increased, it is interesting to note at the same time as the increase in donors on private sperm donation websites, that there has been a big increase in the recipients, a large factor that has caused this is the recent changes in law allowing Civil partnerships and also the new law contained in the Human Fertilisation & Embryology Act 2008 which allows both the birth mother and her same sex partner to be named in law as the parents with the donor, being seen as just that, with no legal rights or responsibilities as long as the donation was not through sex with the birth mother. We are at a point where both new same sex couples and long term same sex couples are looking to conceive at the same time, so there is a great need for donors at this time.

The only problem with this is where you have a few named donors donating to lots of recipients to produce hundreds of half siblings, the way it works is, a donor that wants to be a biological donor to as many children as possible, will donate under any terms, and recipients are happy to get the terms they want, while other donors that only agree to certain things, such as being known to the child will not donate very much or at all.

Yes @bloke there is some risk to the donor, but not if the donor donates through a clinic, the possibility of the government passing a law retrospectively to make named donors from a clinic being financially responsible and getting this past the human rights law is just about zero. The risk as a private donor are greater only if the donation is to a single female, but that still is a very small risk, I do not agree with your comment ” anyone who donates sperm is a fool. It will cost them enormously at some point down the line. ” not in money terms, although there may be emotional costs and benefits to the donor.

If a donor is careful about how they choose to donate and who they donate to, and here i have to agree a lot are not, then it is quite possible to donate to married/civil partnership/single recipients with no or very very slight risk financially and set against that risk is the pleasure that comes with knowing you have helped someone and that part of yourself has gone on to the next generation, with so many people being single these days, it is good for men as well as women, although it may reduce the need of women to live with a men.