Experiences and attitudes of Danish men who were sperm donors more than 10 years ago; a qualitative interview study
Stina Lou,
Stina Bollerup,
Morten Deleuran Terkildsen,
Stine Willum Adrian,
Allan Pacey,
Guido Pennings,
Ida Vogel and
Anne-Bine Skytte
PLOS ONE, 2023, vol. 18, issue 2, 1-13
Abstract:
Background: More knowledge about the long-term impact of sperm donation is essential as the donor’s attitude towards donation may change over time. Personal and social developments may prompt a rethinking of previous actions and decisions, or even regret. Thus, the aim of this study was to explore the experiences and attitudes of men who were sperm donors more than 10 years ago. Methods: From May to September 2021, semi-structured, qualitative interviews were conducted with 23 former donors (> 10 years since last donation) from Cryos International sperm bank. Two participants were non-anonymous donors and 21 were anonymous. The interviews were conducted by phone or via video (mean 24 minutes). All interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim and rendered anonymous. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Results: The analysis showed that most men had been donors for monetary and altruistic purposes, and now considered sperm donation as a closed chapter that was ’unproblematic and in the past’. Most men valued anonymity and emphasized the non-relatedness between donor and donor conceived offspring. Knowledge about recipients and donor offspring was seen as ’damaging’ as it could create unwanted feelings of relatedness and responsibility towards them. All men acknowledged donor conceived persons’ potential interests in knowing about their genetic heritage in order to understand appearance and personal traits, but also emphasized the donors’ rights to anonymity. Potential breach of anonymity was generally considered ’highly problematic’ as it was expected to disturb their families and force a relationship on them. Conclusion: This study reports on former donors who might not have volunteered for research due to lack of interest or protection of privacy. The majority of men valued anonymity and clearly demarcated a line between sperm donation and fatherhood, which was enforced by not knowing about the donor offspring or recipients.
Date: 2023
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0281022 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 81022&type=printable (application/pdf)
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0281022
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0281022
Access Statistics for this article
More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().