Sperm preservation in children: a prescription for consistency with both child protection and the criminal law

Abstract

People under the age of 18 with cancer sometimes require treatments that render them infertile. It may therefore be necessary, during the brief interval between diagnosis and the commencement of cancer treatment, to offer them the opportunity to produce sperm, through masturbation, for cryopreservation. The article provides a framework for justifying this as a clinical activity, and avoiding it being construed as a sexual activity under the terms of the criminal law. Of equal importance, the article puts into place measures to ensure that this clinical activity is entirely consistent with the safeguarding principles of child protection.