Sperm donation

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Sperm donation is the provision by a man of his sperm with the intention that it be used in the artificial insemination or other "fertility treatment" of one or more women who are not his sexual partners in order that they may become pregnant by him. Where pregnancies go to full term, the sperm donor will be the biological father of every baby born from his donations. The man is known as a sperm donor and the sperm he provides is known as "donor sperm" because the intention is that the man will give up all legal rights to any child produced from his sperm, and will not be the legal father. Sperm donation may also be known as "semen donation".

Sperm donation should be distinguished from 'shared parenthood' where the male who provides the sperm used to conceive a baby agrees to participate in the child's upbringing. Where a sperm donor provides his sperm in order for it to be used to father a child for a woman with whom he has little or no further contact, it is a form of third party reproduction.

Sperm may be donated by the donor directly to the intended recipient woman or through a sperm bank or fertility clinic. Pregnancies are usually achieved by using donor sperm in assisted reproductive technology (ART) techniques which include artificial insemination (either by intracervical insemination (ICI) or intrauterine insemination (IUI) in a clinic, or intravaginal insemination at home). Less commonly, donor sperm may be used in in vitro fertilization (IVF). See also "natural insemination" below. The primary recipients of donor sperm are single women and lesbian couples, but the process may also be useful to heterosexual couples with male infertility.^[1]

Donor sperm and "fertility treatments" using donor sperm may be obtained at a sperm bank or fertility clinic. Sperm banks or clinics may be subject to state or professional regulations, including restrictions on donor anonymity and the number of offspring that may be produced, and there may be other legal protections of the rights and responsibilities of both recipient and donor. Some sperm banks, either by choice or regulation, limit the amount of information available to potential recipients; a desire to obtain more information on donors is one reason why recipients may choose to use a known donor or private donation (i.e. a de-identified donor).^[2]