6 days ago
Fears grow about silent siblings with the rise of social media sperm donations
Changing patterns in fertility rates and how Australian women fall pregnant have raised concerns about the rise of informal sperm donation and a lack of national oversight when it comes to the potential for some men to donate heavily in a concentrated area.
For years, women have turned to websites, apps and informal groups on social media to find a potential father for their unborn child. A growing trend of women putting off pregnancy until later in life and shortages of sperm and egg donations at clinics has helped lead to a "boom" in informal sperm donations, says Dr Evie Kendal.
"Trying to ban informal sperm donation itself will functionally be impossible," the bioethicist from Swinburne university told Yahoo News Australia. "But we can absolutely educate people about the health risks involved in informal sperms donations ... and we can absolutely consider it the same as other forms of donation in terms of having guidelines regarding the number of families that can perhaps be contributed to from a particular donor."
While she admits that is a tall task, when combined with making sperm donation through clinics more accessible, "so that people don't feel like they have to run that risk of using an informal donor", that will go some way to mitigating some of the worst risks.
"There's risk of exploitation, there's risk of unsafe practices ... and there's the risk that after the fact the donor that might actually demand parental rights and it might be difficult to prove they had engaged in a donation," Dr Kendal said.
Related: Aussie parents call for end to stigma around growing 'triangle families' trend
At a more societal level, the public health scientist said it's worrying that a donor could provide sperm to a number of women in a given area, leading to a situation where individuals aren't aware of half-siblings they have in the community.
"The problem we're seeing at the moment is a sperm donor being used for too many families and creating many half siblings that are potentially even living in close proximity," Dr Kendal told Yahoo.
"So these are children who are potentially growing up together and don't know that they're half siblings. And of course, some of those children may, in the future, actually have romantic relationships with each other, not realising that they're half siblings."
It sounds unlikely, but that exact scenario has played out in Victoria recently after one Melbourne man donated sperm to 15 women he met via social media groups and a sperm donation app, The Age reported last month. In total he created 27 half-siblings, some of whom reportedly lived within a few kilometres of each other without realising they were related.
There are multiple Facebook groups dedicated for men willing to offer up their sperm to women who want to have babies. While some are state based, the top group – Sperm Donation Australia – has just shy of 22,000 members. It was started by Adam Hooper who did not respond to Yahoo's attempts at contact, but last year told told the ABC his Facebook group "put the idea of men donating on the map".
Meanwhile Tinder-style apps like Just a Baby: Become a parent promises to let users swipe through various member profiles so they can; "Find People. Make Babies".
While informal sperm donation is perhaps impossible to regulate, experts in the space want to see tougher rules for such online groups and apps.
Fertility lawyer Stephen Page, who also sits on the board of the Fertility Society of Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) has raised the same concerns as Dr Kendal about the potential of multiple half-siblings not knowing about each other.
"There's no regulation, you can set up a website, you can set up an app and bang the drum and get men coming along saying that they will be donors," he told the ABC last month.
He would like to a see system enforced where donors need to provide formal ID to the admin of such online groups which is passed on to a regulatory authority, and men are monitored for the number of donations.
Push for more affordable IVF amid declining fertility rate
For many people hoping to become parents, cost-of-living pressures are deterring them from fertility treatment, which in many cases has become increasingly expensive in Australia.
The average number of children born per woman was 1.51 in 2024, well below the 1.8 just a decade earlier.
With Australia posting a record-low fertility rate in 2024, experts say low-cost IVF options will be crucial to addressing the decline in births.
A recent survey by Connect IVF found that almost half of Australians surveyed said fertility services were not affordable, potentially leaving same sex couples and others to seek out alternative options.
Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@
You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube.
