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Hospitals across Korea are having trouble treating infertile couples due to a shortage of sperm for artificial insemination. This is the result of a drop in sperm donors after the Bioethics Law, which prohibits buying and selling of sperm, came into force in 2005.
Around 1 to 2 percent of adult males suffer from aspermia or insufficiently motile sperm that makes it too weak to fertilize eggs. One in every 20 infertile couples has this problem. In such cases, the only chance of having a child with at least the genetic traits of the mother is to use donor sperm from sperm banks.
When using donor sperm, physicians make sure it has been donated by men who match the blood type of the infertile husband, to ensure that children do not become suspicious about discrepancies later on in life.
Most sperm banks now give sperm only to couples if they bring a donor who can contribute to the existing pool. According to the Bioethics Law, if an infertile couple learns of the identity of the donor, the sperm cannot be used. This is to prevent buying and selling of sperm and ensure that the donor will not later sue to claim parenthood or financial compensation. Sperm that has been donated must be kept frozen for more than six months, and only that from unspecified people can be used, to enable testing for HIV or other latent communicable diseases.
Experts blame the drought on a lack of motivation for donors. People donate organs like kidneys and livers because they know that they will be used to treat sick people, often within the family, and many donate blood out of humanitarian concerns. But experts say it is rather difficult for people to donate sperm in a Confucian country like Korea given that donors know that their sperm could be used to create "their" offspring.
Donors must also meet stringent qualifications -- they have to be between 20 to 40 years old and of optimum proportions and be free from diseases like hepatitis, STDs and HIV. That narrows the field. And to prevent the birth of babies with the same genes to different couples, sperm from any one donor can only be used by one couple.
In France and in other European countries, different regions operate public sperm banks. In the United States, buying and selling sperm is authorized and scores of legal sperm banks are in business, with around 30,000 babies being born each year with the help of such facilities.
Park Nam-cheol, the head of the sperm bank at Pusan National University Hospital, said Korea urgently needs to create public sperm banks that are supported by the government as part of efforts to deal with the low birthrate.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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