Denmark: Shortage of immigrant sperm donors

Immigrants in Denmark who suffer from infertility must return disappointed from the country's sperm banks, unless they want a blond baby with blue eyes.  There are almost no young immigrant men who donate sperm.

Peter Bower, head of the Nordic Cyrobank sperm bank, says that there's a serious shortage of sperm donors of non-Danish background and that this is something that all sperm banks have to deal with.  There are many patients who contact the bank and wish to get sperm from an ethnic donor, but the bank must just disappoint them.  If not every day, then several times a week, they turn away patients.

Bower can only speculate about the reasons for this, but thinks that it might be since there's no tradition for adoption and sperm donations in among others Muslim cultures.

Helle Lykke Nielsen, Middle East researcher at Syddansk University, agrees on that point.  But she points out a more basic reason.  In the Middle East, and in most Third World countries, children are a purely familial issue.  People don't scatter their children and genes.  
 
She also points out that women who have children outside of marriage are punished harshly, and that this might deter the men.  The idea that the family's development takes place outside the marriage is unthinkable in all Middle Eastern countries.

Denmark leads in sperm donations and Peter Bower points out that donors from all races and cultures are wanted, both in Denmark and abroad.

Source: bt.dk (Danish)

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