Looking for the 'bulls'
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A sperm bank doctor reveals all
Maarten van Santen’s safes are kept frozen at minus 174 degrees celsius with the help of liquid nitrogen. There are nine knee-high steel containers in the sperm bank run by the Karlsruhe medical doctor. Inside them are sperm donations from around 300 men.
On an average day, the gynecologist receives offers from willing sperm donors – even despite a recent German court decision lifting the anonymity of such men. “The issue is not exactly a new one,” van Santen says. “This uncertainty has always been there.”
But the willingness to donate sperm is by far not sufficient in itself. “I’m searching for the bulls of this city,” the specialist in reproductive medicine says with a broad grin. Dutch-born van Santen, who has been running his sperm bank for 22 years now, is well aware of the off-colour joke potential of his profession, and so with a wink in his eye, he plays along.
Much more important to him are the genuine problems – meaning those of couples who earnestly want to have a child but who lack fertile sperm. Or a lesbian couple lacking a male for the purpose.
Yet the search for a bull also has a serious background. The quality of sperm in Europe now leaves much to be desired, van Santen notes.
“Per ejaculation there should actually be 100 million or more sperm cells. With Europeans, the average is now only 30 million. Our Western society is becoming infertile.” With Africans and Asians, whose sperm is also stored in his sperm bank, there is no such problem.
Since upwards of one-half of sperm cells can be destroyed in the cold storage, the doctor needs sperm of the highest quality. Four out of five men who try out are immediately disqualified.
“I already have enough German samples with the A blood group,” van Santen says. “Rarer blood groups are what we’re looking for.” As a result, he pays a bonus of 50 euros (Bt1,900) per donation – bringing the total to 100 euros.
But it is not just the “health” of the men that is decisive. Van Santen also sits down with potential sperm donors to get an idea of their motives.
“Now and then there will be somebody who in this manner wants to produce an heir. These I immediately reject.” The main motives that van Santen sees in sperm donors is money, followed by ego. Some men, though, genuinely do want to help.
The probability that a woman can be impregnated with the help of a sperm donation is about 35 per cent – or more or less in the same region as through conventional sexual intercourse.
This means that out of 100 couples treated each year by Van Santen, about two-thirds go back home without success. Most of them try for about a year. “I had one patient who, despite my concerns, kept at it for 24 months. In the end, she became pregnant.”
Yet the procedure is a battle not just in terms of the medical difficulties, but also one in view of the German mentality. “The biological background (of the sperm) is still the measure of all things, especially in the Catholic-heavy southern areas,” the doctor says. He himself has to endure two-edged comments when the discussion turns to his profession.
“But donation of sperm has become socially acceptable, for more and more men are infertile,” the medical practitioner says. For this reason, it is urgent that lawmakers establish clear rules.
“Children now have a right to find out who created them. It must be clear, however, that from such information absolutely no child support or inheritance rights can be demanded from it.” In the Netherlands, this has long been made standard practice.
Van Santen regards the biological aspects of fatherhood as being overvalued.
“I think the term ‘biological father’ is questionable. The sperm donor is not a father.” He also is not bothered by the fact that only five per cent of couples tell their children everything. “That is also the reason why the blood group is important – so that all the facts do not come out by sheer coincidence.”
The biological father of two children and father to two adopted children, Van Santen knows that men who accept sperm from an outside source have the most difficulty in such a situation. To him, these men are the true heroes.
And so, after a successful fertilisation he presents them with a book describing the various ways of being a father in the animal kingdom. The book’s title: “Papa Is Pregnant”.
