Attitudes of donors and recipients to gamete donation

Abstract

An anonymous questionnaire was circulated at two gamete donation clinics to survey the attitudes of donor insemination patients (n = 71; 89% response rate), sperm donors (n = 52; 85% response rate) and ovum donors (n = 5; 63% response rate) to the release of medical records with non-identifying information, or with identifying information of the donor involved. The majority of established sperm donors agreed to the release of medical records with or without identifying information. In the subset of potential sperm donors 85% would not enter a sperm donation programme unless anonymity was maintained, but 60% would agree to the release of non-identifying medical records. Sixty per cent of recipients of donated spermatozoa would agree to the release of medical records with identifying information of the donor, but 85% stated that they would not tell their children of their genetic origin. There is a significant difference between the attitudes of potential sperm donor recruits to these questions and those of established donors and recipients of donated spermatozoa. In conclusion, the results of this survey show that although established sperm donors would continue to donate spermatozoa if their status of anonymity was withdrawn, recruitment of new donors would be significantly reduced. This would be to the detriment of gamete donation programmes and to the subfertile couples who request this form of treatment.