2023-08-14 20:25:00
DISPATCH — With dozens of online “classified ads” published every day, interest in “artisanal” sperm donations is not waning in France, assure AFP those who use them, despite the democratization of the process legal aid to procreation.
“I get a form of recognition from it: when the recipient to whom I made a donation became pregnant, she thanked me, I was able to see some photos of the baby”, delivers a man, parent of two children with the same woman via an informal donation.
Not wishing to start a family himself, this 37-year-old executive, who prefers to remain anonymous, explains to AFP that he wants to “leave a trace on Earth”.
The opening of medically assisted procreation (PMA) in August 2021 to female couples and single women could have diverted them from social networks and forums where “artisanal” donors and parents expecting a child meet. But this audience is still present on these parallel platforms.
Excluded
The “PMA for all” has in fact led to an influx of new requests for sperm donations – 15,000 in 2022 against 2,000 annually previously according to the Biomedicine Agency – and increased waiting times.
The “classic” PMA? A course too “complicated” and expensive, tells AFP Alma (all first names have been changed), 26, who feared as a young woman alone to have to “prove [sa] legitimacy” by obtaining the agreement of a doctor and a psychologist.
“These future parents believe they have the right to make family outside the institutional course”, analyzes the sociologist specializing in the François de Singly family.
Resorting to a sperm donation from an acquaintance (“friendly assisted procreation”) or from a (semi) stranger, sometimes makes it more possible to guarantee “access to the origins and control of information” on the parent, indicates Marie Jourdain from the Association of Gay and Lesbian Parents (APGL).
Children born to legal donations collected after September 1, 2022 will have the right to access information about their donor as adults. But sperm straws subject to the old legislation allowing the anonymity of the donor can be sold until March 31, 2025.
Karl, whose wife cannot benefit from a course of assisted procreation in France, wishes that other excluded from PMA “do not suffer the same psychological suffering”. At the rate of ten monthly donations, this 43-year-old consultant explains that he has caused four pregnancies in less than two years.
Another “illicit” donor, aged 64, claims to have fathered no less than 120 children since 2007, a figure that AFP has not been able to verify.
“I keep a list of births, which I only give to parents,” he says. In order to avoid the risk of consanguinity, the law nevertheless limits the number of children from the same sperm donor to 10.
Mediated since 2016, when he said he counted half as many births, the one who calls himself “Superdad” says he is no longer in contact with his four own children.
He leads several Facebook groups for connecting donors and “recipients”. Each member must specify whether they want co-parenting, and the desired method: “artisanal” using a pipette; “semi-natural” with penetration at the last moment; or “natural”.
“A lot of donors, when they arrive at a scheduled appointment for a craft donation, impose a natural method on parents”, regrets the moderator, who also cites cases of requests for financial compensation.
Added to this is the absence of guarantees of medical and genetic tests, but also a legal risk. “The donor can change his mind and recognize the child as his own from conception, at any time, within the framework of a solo project, or until the adoption judgment within the framework of a couple of women”, warns Marie Jourdan of the APGL.
A possibility that does not scare Alma, who gave birth to a baby boy in August 2022 thanks to an artisanal donation, and assures her: “It was the best decision I made in my life.”
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