Belgium attempts to curtail sperm donation abuses with new regulations

Lawmakers in Belgium have implemented new rules surrounding sperm donation after reports emerged that men have fathered dozens of children above the current six-child limit, taking advantage of a highly unregulated industry.

Key Takeaways:

• Belgium's Federal Agency for Medicines and Health Products has announced new sperm donation guidelines after a number of stories emerged, revealing that men are fathering dozens of children.

• The new guidelines aim to allow donor-conceived children access to information about their biological fathers, and intend to help implement new standards within fertility clinics.

• The guidelines will not fix the real problem with the sperm donation industry, which is the intentional creation of a child without her biological father in her life.

The Details:

Belgium's Federal Agency for Medicines and Health Products (FAMHP) will be implementing new protocols within the sperm donation industry. One protocol will be the elimination of donor anonymity with the creation of a donor database, so that each child will have access to his or her birth father's information.

"The underlying principle is not that the donor's, but the donor-conceived child's interests come first. The child has the right to that information, so they can find out who their biological father is," Dirk Ramaekers, chair of the Federal Public Health Service and crisis manager, told The Brussels Times.

Belgian fertility clinics will also be subject to more stringent regulations, including regular inspections by FAMHP. Inspection reports will be published publicly in the hopes of keeping these clinics more accountable with more transparency.

The new guidelines will also include a better plan for implementing sanctions, and a reporting structure meant to deal with "serious events."

"The aim is not only to offer concrete solutions to the shortcomings that came to light during the crisis," Ramaekers said, "but above all to create a more transparent and safer framework for fertility care in Belgium, primarily for the benefit of families and donor children."

The Backstory:

Last year, it was discovered that a Danish sperm donor had fathered 55 children by 37 women via sperm donation — far beyond the six children per donor limit. Further, the man was found to carry a cancer gene, which may have been passed to the children.

A later discovery revealed that 93 donors within the country had also exceeded the six-child limit.

"Many things went wrong both at the government level and within the fertility clinics. These cases came to light last year, but the issues go back to 2007," Ramaekers explained.

The Big Picture:

Though authorities should be commended for thinking of the children who are donor-conceived (often, the rights of these children are ignored), the guidelines miss the mark because they still allow sperm donation.

While the new regulations give children access to information about their biological father, they don't solve the real problem of sperm donation — the intentional separation of a child from his or her father.

Every child has the right to know and be loved by their biological parents. When that cannot happen due to tragic circumstances, adoption seeks to heal the wound of child and parent separation. However, using a sperm donor to intentionally create a child who will be intentionally separated from her father does not seek to heal a wound; it creates a wound.

A Harvard Medical School study revealed that nearly half of children conceived as a result of egg or sperm donation sought out psychological or psychiatric care after learning how they were conceived.

The Bottom Line:

Unfortunately, attempts to regulate sperm donation miss the mark. The industry, which is an injustice to children, doesn't need more guidelines — it needs to be abolished.