Today, an increasing number of Australians are turning to informal sperm donors. So naturally, they’re turning to social media apps in droves to aid in their quest to grow their families. This shift reflects changing attitudes towards traditional fertility clinics and showcases the personal stories of both donors and recipients navigating this unregulated landscape.
For Nick Lovett, a sperm donor since the mid-1990s, one of his most important conversations took place between he and his wife, Nancy, before their wedding. The couple had a stressful nine-month wait ahead of them to see if they’d get to have children together. Inspired by their talks, Lovett felt moved to try to help families looking for support. To date, he has given sperm to nine families, resulting in 17 kids.
“This is something I hadn’t fully anticipated at ages 26 or 27,” Lovett shared, reflecting on his choice to become a donor. His experience illustrates what drives informal donations, where personal connections and altruism often come into play.
Brooke Withington, a single mother of three, suddenly was left wondering if she could have more children. Advice from a loved one connected her with informal sperm donation through a Facebook group, which encouraged her to further investigate this alternative. While looking for the right donor, Withington interviewed about 15 men from the Australia-based group, which is open to women, too.
In her successful quest, Withington put safety and health front and center. On behalf of her friend, she asked the donor for STI screening results and genetic information and set up an initial meeting to assess compatibility. “I wanted a donor that was doing it out of the goodness of their heart, not to get something in return,” Withington emphasized.
She set forth her condition that any donation would occur through artificial insemination, utilizing a syringe to insert sperm into her cervix. Today, Withington is pregnant with her seventh child! This will be the third child she’s had with the donor she connected with on Facebook.
For people such as Withington, the experience is hardly unusual within this new terrain. Sarah Jefford, LL.M., is a reproductive family creation lawyer. She has since been a tireless advocate for stronger national regulations of sperm and egg donation. Australia’s existing framework, according to Jefford, is mainly focused on state-by-state regulations—which leads to inconsistencies and gaps in oversight.
“We have some states that have registers for donor conception and children born via donor conception, but we don’t have a national register — and the state registers don’t communicate with each other,” Jefford explained. This lack of coordination is concerning, to say the least. Siblings might unknowingly come face to face without realizing their biological connection.
Anastasia and Lexie’s story is just one of many that showcase the risks and challenges involved with informal sperm donation. Though they conceived their first child in 2006 via intrauterine insemination with relative ease, they ran into unexpected roadblocks while trying to have their other children. DNA tests revealed no biological relationship between their first son and the two younger boys. This unexpected finding led us to wonder whether the donor was a reliable provider of sperm.
Anastasia expressed frustration because the narrative covering their family made the boys seem like clones. She confessed, “we have served our children a platter of falsehoods.” This particular experience sheds light on the dangers that families are exposed to when funding streams from informal donations are not rigorously regulated.
As an important detail, Jefford pointed out that there are caps on how many families any individual donor can assist. These regulations are not always enforced at home either – across Australia. “Unfortunately, there are limits to what we can do to regulate donations that happen outside of a fertility clinic,” she stated.
The movement toward informal sperm donation could be indicative of changes in society overall in terms of family dynamics and parenting. Withington, who participated in the Commission’s hearing on school facilities, explained how the impacts on her children would last as they age. “I think when you’re going through this, it’s a bit worrying that the siblings could meet up and not have any idea that they’re half-siblings,” she remarked.
For Withington, maintaining transparency and open lines of communication between donors and recipients is the key here. She picked a donor who only funded nine families. In the process, he created a group messenger chat to help connect them all with each other, and to help everyone stay informed about their siblings’ siblings.
I picked my own donor, limited to nine families at the maximum. He further set up a messenger chain for the other parents so we could all easily collaborate to keep track of our siblings. This model creates a supportive environment for families taking the journey together.
As informal sperm donation gains popularity, experts like Jefford emphasize the importance of education and awareness surrounding the implications of such choices. “I do think that we can put in place rules around people finding each other through social media and people being educated and aware about what it means to find a donor,” she suggested.
Nick Lovett, Brooke Withington, and Anastasia open up about their journeys to expose the potential within informal sperm donation networks. They provide insight on the difficulties that exist within this process. Families, too, are finding innovative ways to thrive and bond. The lack of unified regulations leads to critical concerns regarding safety, ethics, and long-term impact on all users.
