Donor Unknown: Adventures in the Sperm Trade

Donor Unknown... a film about identity, genetic inheritance and the family of the future
JoEllen Marsh's life began 22 years ago in a pornography-lined, "collection" cubicle at the Los Angeles headquarters of California Cryobank, a private semen cryopreservation organisation. From there, the sample produced by her biological father, donor 150, was sent to Pennsylvania, where nine months later JoEllen was born to her biological mother, Lucinda Marsh.

Twenty years later, a remarkably accepting JoEllen is calmly recounting the story of how her innate desire to connect with her extended donor family has evolved into the subject of an absorbing documentary. Donor Unknown: Adventures in the Sperm Trade, is a compelling film that raises intriguing questions about nature versus nurture, modern medicine's evolving ethics and the shifting composition of contemporary families.

"Even when I was very young," says JoEllen, "I realised that my family wasn't like other families." Informed by her lesbian mothers from an early age that "a kind man they didn't know" had helped her to be born, the concept of a traditional father – or rather the lack of one – simply never arose.

"My upbringing seemed completely normal to me, as it was all I knew," says JoEllen, who grew up with a younger sister, Mollie, 16, born to the same mother but conceived from a different sperm donor.

But JoEllen had a lot of questions that couldn't be answered. "The way I moved was not like the rest of my family. And if you don't know who your father is, you wonder about the strangest things – what are his ears like? What is his forehead like? Why do I have these interests when no one else in my family does?"

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Woman happy to tell her child - she does not know who her father is

Jessica McCallin has already chosen a name for her unborn daughter. She will be called Freya, after the Norse goddess of fertility. ‘Freya is one of my favourite girls’ names,’ she says. ‘I didn’t know the meaning but, when I found out, I knew straight away that would be her name. It’s perfect.’

It’s somewhat fitting, too. Because Freya’s father is a 6ft Dane in his 20s, with greeny-blue eyes and blond hair. But beyond those few physical characteristics, neither Jessica nor Freya will know any more.

This is because last June, Jessica, 36, flew to Copenhagen and was artificially inseminated with the sperm of an anonymous Danish donor — and more and more British women are doing exactly the same thing.

Last year, about 500 to 1,000 British women were treated in Denmark, resulting in between 100 to 200 pregnancies. ‘It was an incredibly easy process,’ recalls Jessica, who is single. ‘After a few months of monitoring my cycle, I booked a flight to coincide with the time I ovulated.

‘I’d found out about the Danish sperm bank through a friend. It occupied a few rooms in a tasteful period building in the centre of Copenhagen.

‘The nurse put me at ease. I didn’t feel a thing as she carried out the procedure, and it was over within minutes. Then, half an hour later, I was back strolling round the streets of Copenhagen. I felt very comfortable about what I had just done.’ So why did Jessica go to Denmark rather than use a British sperm donor?

The head of the world’s biggest sperm bank, one of 15 private clinics in Denmark, says the number of women travelling to the country for treatment has soared.

Cryos International, based in Aarhus, was set up in 1987, has 427 donors on its books and supplies sperm to 65 countries. Half of all women who have treatment in Denmark have come from abroad.

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Study of children raised by lesbian parents using known or unknown sperm donors

There is no evidence that lesbians’ children are hurt or damaged by meeting their sperm donor fathers, a small study says.
The study, by researchers at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, used data from the US National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study.

Seventy-eight teenagers were studied, Reuters reports.

A third of the donors knew their offspring, just over a third were permanently anonymous and 18 could be contacted once the child turned 18.

Using questionnaires and interviews, the researchers found no difference in the mental health of teenagers who knew their fathers or did not.

Another study, by the University of Cambridge, interviewed 23 sperm and egg donors who all said they had positive experiences with meeting their offspring and most saw them regularly.

Both pieces of research were published in the journal Human Reproduction.

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