MX Columns

mX Column: The Sperm Shortage in Australia

Men once worried that advances in IVF and female independence would render them obsolete.

Of course there are lots of things women need men for but, biologically speaking, sex and babies are the main things.

But it turns out that women do still need men in the babies department.

Sperm donations are at an all-time low in Australia, dropping 70 per cent since the introduction of new legislation ruling out anonymity for donors.

Now in NSW, a state with 7 million people, there are only 10 registered sperm donors.

In the past, the fertility clinics relied on cash-strapped uni students for donations. But donors can no longer be paid. (Okay, update: This is a bit of a bone of contention. It seems some men do get remunerated for “travel and medical” expenses. It’s not a huge amount and in most cases covers time, travel and counselling without much extra fat in there. Feel free to comment if you understand it to be different.)

The law changes also mean that while men who donate their sperm are not legally obligated to be involved with their child’s life, when the child is 18 they will be able to seek their biological father.

Compounding this, any one donor can donate sperm to up to five different women. (Interestingly, if the donor has biological children made – ahem – naturally with two other women, he will only be able to donate to three additional women.)

Imagine not one but more than five teenagers turning up on your doorstep nearly two decades from now, all wanting to meet their dad, and possibly each other.

I don’t blame the men for running scared.

It must be difficult enough to walk away, emotionally speaking, when you know your anonymity is intact, never mind about wondering if any offspring will turn up one day.

Coupled with the critical sperm shortage is the higher number of women concentrating on their careers in their 20s and 30s, or women who have been unlucky in love, turning to donor banks in the absence of a man.

Since 2008 the number of women having babies on their own has been on the rise.

Even Hollywood has cottoned onto the trend.

Jennifer Lopez stars in a new romantic comedy called The Back-Up Plan. The movie’s promo line is “Fall in Love. Get Married. Have a Baby – Not Necessarily In That Order.”

With no sign of Prince Charming on the horizon, Lopez’s character Zoe decides to have a baby on her own via artificial insemination, only to meet the man of her dreams after falling pregnant.

What would you do?

Of course it’s a fluffy rom-com, but the film also parallels society as a whole trying to deal with this phenomenon.

When you think about it, sex-free baby-making is a pretty new trick for humankind, so it’s understandable we don’t have it right yet.

The old laws governing sperm donation were too relaxed. Now, it seems they are too restrictive.

But this is real life, not a Hollywood happily ever after and we owe it to ourselves to find the best way forward – fast.

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