Wednesday 27th July 2011 - Published by Lara Page - Account Manager
Web Dating Spawns Online Sperm Bank
The London Sperm Bank is to launch an online database of donors, in an effort to modernise and encourage easy use of their facilities.
The website is to function much in the same way as an online dating site, with listings of donors’ physical, emotional and intellectual attributes.
In a shift intended to normalise the undertaking, the website allows single women, same sex and childless couples to select the father of their child with ease and convenience.
“Women can search our donors online from home and make their choices,” says Dr Kamal Ahuja of the London Sperm Bank.
Around 100-150 sperm donors from different races, cultures and religions are to be included in the catalogue, with informal descriptions of hair and eye colour, occupation and hobbies. The individual listings are also to include staff assessments of donors’ personalities.
The London Sperm Bank was founded with the noble intention of addressing an acute sperm donation shortage in the UK. The London Sperm Bank incorporates ‘The Dr. Louis Hughes Sperm Bank’ and ‘The London Women’s Clinic Donor Bank’, to form the UK’s largest provider of donor sperm.
Once seen as a somewhat unsavoury practice, the online project aims to show donors to be rounded, real people, with compassionate and humanitarian objectives. The website gives a previously unseen level of detail, including written statements from men, in which they explain why they are donating sperm.
This bolsters the image of sperm banks, and the practice has seen positive changes in how it is perceived. Six years ago saw a change in law, allowing children of anonymous donor parents to trace their biological fathers from the age of 18. Consequently, sperm donation has a more sympathetic, human face.
The website is to launch online at www.londonspermbank.com <http://www.londonspermbank.com> on 17 September. For more information, visit the organisation’s website, or find the London Sperm Bank at 113-115 Harley Street, London, W1G 6A.
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