Sperm unlikely to cross Tasman

An Auckland fertility expert doubts a drive by an Australian clinic to find New Zealand sperm donors will succeed.

"If they had asked, we would have told them it's exactly the same problem in New Zealand," Dr Guy Gudex, clinical director of Fertility Plus at National Women's Hospital, said yesterday.

One factor that may be putting off potential donors is that they must be willing to have their names put on a register should their biological children want details at a later age.

Reproductive Medicine, based in Albury, New South Wales, wants donors between 18 and 40 years old to cross the Tasman, offering accommodation and "out of pocket expenses".

The clinic said it had advertised locally "but with little success and for that reason, find it necessary to search further from our own region".

New Zealand women are waiting up to two years for a volunteer sperm donor and the clinic's advertisement in New Zealand newspapers at the weekend is worrying some fertility groups and doctors.

However, Dr Gudex said he did not have a problem with it. "If they want to try, that's fine. I just think they'll find exactly the same issues as we do."

Inducements are not allowed under New Zealand or Australian law but expenses are usually offered.

The Albury clinic is reported to have offered Canadian students a free trip to Australia as part of its expenses package a couple of years ago. In the end, it had enough responses locally to meet demand.

The register of donor names is now a legal requirement in Australia and New Zealand, and fear of identification or sometimes a concern from the partner of would-be donors are thought to be reasons for the shortage of volunteers.

Fertility Plus had only had one new volunteer sperm donor in the past two years, Dr Gudex said.

'When I started 15 years ago, it wasn't too difficult getting a donor and couples could usually choose from two or three."

Now, heterosexual couples might only have one donor available, and most single women or lesbian couples had no chance of an anonymous donor.

However, Dr Gudex did not believe identification was a major factor here.

"New Zealand clinics have voluntarily insisted that donors be identifiable for the last 10 years anyway. So any impact that might have had putting men off would have been over the last 10 years."

Fertility New Zealand executive director Sian Harcourt said there were issues for children if their donors lived outside the country.

"I think if people are going to donate, we really encourage them to do it here and that's for the wellbeing of the child, the wellbeing of the family, the wellbeing of the sperm donor."

She said doctors had been alarmed initially by the advertisement but like Dr Gudex, she felt the number of people crossing the Tasman would be low.

- NZPA