The Swedish insemination act and the availability of donors

Abstract

Sweden was in 1985 the first country in the world to enact legislation concerned with the practice of donor insemination (DI). Included in this legislation was the requirement that information about the identity of the donors be kept and be made available to the resultant offspring upon 'maturity', should they seek this. This provision has attracted much interest, debate and criticism, and claims have been made that this has led to a decline in the numbers of men coming forward to donate semen in Sweden. This paper presents data covering the pre- and post-legislation period from one clinic, along with the only available data on all the Swedish clinics providing DI, which covers a more limited post-legislation period. This data shows that there has been an increase in number of donors being recruited, suggesting that the possibility of future contact by genetic offspring has not had the negative impact on the availability of donors predicted.