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One last time before the vote: the LGBTQ community drew attention to their concerns at Pride Zurich on Saturday.
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Sperm banks store the donor sperm in liquid nitrogen. Because of the marriage for everyone, new donors are now being sought.
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If marriage is accepted for everyone, lesbian couples in Switzerland will soon be able to legally fulfill their desire to have children by donating sperm.
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However, some things are still unclear, such as: will lesbian couples be able to choose their donor?
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The place where children’s dreams come true is in the former industrial quarter of the city of Zurich, next to the supermarket and employment center. The OVA IVF Clinic is one of seven sperm banks in Switzerland. Around 100 couples are being treated here to become parents through artificial insemination.
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Soon there should be more. If Switzerland says yes to marriage for everyone on September 26th – and this decision is clearly emerging – sperm donation will also be legalized for married lesbian couples.
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Most donors are open
The Zurich fertility clinic is already preparing for the change in law. “I have been consistently addressing the topic in the first meeting with potential sperm donors for two years now,” says Peter Fehr (63), the clinic’s medical director. Fehr would like to know whether it would theoretically be okay for the donors if one day not only heterosexual but also homosexual couples became parents thanks to their sperm. “Most men say that they would also donate to lesbian couples,” says Fehr.
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According to the doctor, lesbian couples who are interested in sperm donation and would like a preliminary talk have already reported. Today they have to organize a sperm donor abroad or privately if they want offspring.
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“Demand for sperm donation is growing”
The Fertisuisse center in Olten SO is also preparing for the change in the law. “We are always looking for new donors – now we are particularly happy about every application,” says Anna Raggi (48), doctor at the center in Olten and member of the board of the Swiss Society for Reproductive Medicine. “The demand for sperm donation is growing,” she predicts.
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The sperm banks assume that the existing structures will be able to meet the increasing demand. Raggi expects, however, that her clinic in Olten will have to roughly double the number of donors, from 20 today to around 40.
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It is true that there are still lesbian couples who rely on a private solution for cost reasons or who go abroad to find donors because of the more liberal laws. There it is sometimes allowed to choose the donor. The doctor believes, however, that a majority will rely on registered sperm donation in Switzerland in the future. Above all because of the better legal protection that goes with it.
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Not everything has already been clarified
The sperm banks in Switzerland are small because recruiting new donors is time-consuming. We only accept people who are very healthy and whose sperm quality is top-notch. The law also stipulates that a maximum of eight children may be conceived per donor and that samples must generally be destroyed after five years. Couples are not allowed to choose the biological father – the sperm donor who comes as close as possible to the legal father in terms of appearance and blood type is chosen.
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With the opening of sperm donation to lesbian couples, the question arises how this will be regulated in the future. Will couples be able to choose a donor? And if not, what criteria are used to select the biological father? That has not yet been clarified. If the reproductive medicine specialist Fehr has its way, the couples should be able to choose. Doctor Raggi, on the other hand, is against it because, from her point of view, this would be unfair to heterosexual couples.
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Implementation as soon as possible
It is also unclear whether sperm donors can or must choose whether they want to make the sperm available to heterosexual or homosexual married couples or only married couples of the same or unequal sex. “That is a question that we still have to clarify,” says Raggi. However, sperm donors are already being informed that their donation could also be given to homosexual couples in the near future.
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Fehr assumes that an additional contract will be concluded with the previous donors. The doctor says: “We are trying to implement the change in the law as quickly as possible.”
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Almost 800 sperm donors in 20 years
The number of children conceived in Switzerland through registered sperm donation is low: there were just 108 births last year, as figures from the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) show. This can be single or multiple births. There are no statistics on children conceived by private sperm donations or those conceived abroad.
Anonymous sperm donation has been banned in Switzerland since 2001. This means that from the age of 18 the child has the right to know the identity of the donor. In 2020, only one child asked the federal government for information. However, the number is likely to increase in the next few years when more children born after the change in law will come of age.
777 men have volunteered to donate sperm in the past 20 years. A single new donor was added last year. (lha)
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The number of children conceived in Switzerland through registered sperm donation is low: there were just 108 births last year, as figures from the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) show. This can be single or multiple births. There are no statistics on children conceived by private sperm donations or those conceived abroad.
Anonymous sperm donation has been banned in Switzerland since 2001. This means that from the age of 18 the child has the right to know the identity of the donor. In 2020, only one child asked the federal government for information. However, the number is likely to increase in the next few years when more children born after the change in law will come of age.
777 men have volunteered to donate sperm in the past 20 years. A single new donor was added last year. (lha)
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