Oracle Online

Some pretty specific guidelines must be met when it comes to medical history and age. They don’t let just anyone donate life in this way. All the time you might spend filling out paperwork in hopes of being accepted is usually in vain, being that most applicants are denied acceptance into the program.

One major problem with the application process is lying. Aside from questions about health, disease, and family history, there are questions concerning lifestyle choices and drug use. Many will fib slightly in hopes of upping their chances of approval. But numerous small fibs add up to major trouble, and the liars can be easily weeded out in the physical process at the sperm bank itself.

Let’s see, I fit the 18-25 year old requirement, and I think my medical past is OK, but probably not good enough. So personally, I’m not even going to bother, after seeing three of my friends turned down already, some of who seemed to be perfect specimens. In addition to all these tough-as-nails requirements to take part in sperm donation, the Associated Press reported last year that the FDA proposed another obstacle for applicantsčwell, the gay ones, anyway.

No, they’re not worried about passing on sperm with gay genes. What they are worried about is HIV, even though artificial insemination isn’t usually attributed to being a vessel for transmitting the retrovirus. The new policy is to defer gay donors who have had sex in the past five years, even if they’re not HIV positivečeven if they’ve been in a monogamous, safe-sex relationship for years. On the other hand, a straight man who had sex with an HIV positive prostitute more than one year ago could still be considered acceptable. Numerous GLBT groups and periodicals like the Advocate express that the decision based on sexual orientation rather than sexual history is "scientifically unfounded." And that’s not my idea of equal opportunity, either.

I propose that it would be a better idea to implement screening that deals with higher-risk sexual practices like in some sperm banks where donors are tested for HIV on the day of the donation, and the vial of sperm then gets cryogenically frozen for 6 months. Then they retest the donor after those six months have passed before they use the sperm donation. (Some sperm has been frozen for more than 20 years before being successfully utilized, say UK researchers in the Human Reproduction Journal.) These rigid procedures should certainly ensure the safety and cleanliness of the sperm, whether from a gay or straight man.

This FDA regulation is supposed to apply only to anonymous donors. Direct donors are different. That would be, for an example, a gay couple who are using an already-agreed-upon surrogate mother who will be artificially inseminated with one of the men’s sperm. In some cases, sperm banks have been using the new FDA policy to block this from happening. That’s illegal, and I smell injustice.

So a straight guy has to wait one year before he can donate, but a gay guy would have to stay completely celibate for five years before being considered. That doesn’t sound worth it anymore. I don’t like the fact that even though I have such a slight chance of becoming a sperm donor in the first place, if I were gay, I’d have an even slighter chance.