Answering a distress call through egg and sperm donation

I once delivered a paper on the issue of egg and sperm donation at a forum where I posited that it is the summit of love sharing between the living. At the end of my presentation, a few members of the audience asked the usual questions on how safe and prevalent this practice is and how God will view the practice. I answered their questions as they are more routine than not and once I got down from the podium, I thought that was the end of my presentation. I also thought I sold the audience on the issue. I was utterly wrong.

At the social networking event that followed the presentation, a mammoth crowd formed around me, challenging my call for egg and sperm donation. What is interesting is that the issues they raised at the networking event were not raised during the actual presentation event. From their positions, I saw some misconception and misunderstanding of the issues, especially as they border around social, health, religious, ethical concerns. Another interesting thing the experience showed me is that people do not always want to discuss the issue in public. When they do discuss, they give what is generally regarded as ‘official positions’ and not what they really feel.

A major concern that was recurrent in this discussion was that of genetics: who owns the baby? An elderly man who first came to me asked me straight away whose baby will it be if he donates his sperm to a woman and she gets pregnant and eventually delivers a baby? Whose child would he see the baby as – his or the ‘foster’ father’s? This line of questioning was extended to the level of the society – how will the society see and treat the child born with a donated egg or sperm?

I must confess this is one of the most potent challenges people have in donating or receiving eggs and sperms in the treatment of fertility challenges. It is not difficult to understand these concerns in this part of the world where succession is not based on acknowledgement of, but on biological relationship with, the child. The issue is compounded by inheritance issues and the increasing deployment of DNA testing in settling paternity claims.

This DNA deployment is one reason donor sperms are less readily accepted than donor eggs. Maternity controversies are less common than paternity cases because inheritances mostly done along patrilineal lines and the proof of pregnancy almost always settle maternity doubts. It is ironical that such concerns persist here where there has been no known case in Nigeria that someone born with a donor sperm has been denied inheritance or succession.

On the health grounds, egg or sperm donation is medically safe. Medicine has shown that a woman is born with approximately two million immature eggs and a vast majority of these eggs will die through a process known as atresia. Of this number, only about 400 eggs will ever mature naturally. Egg donation does not impact this number. Men, on the other hand, produce sperms daily and sperm donation does not hamper this production process or inhibit the man’s sexual experience.

The biggest religious and ethical issues with egg and sperm donation, as with the donation of other human tissues, border around the issues of compensation, human dignity, free and informed consent, and adequate post-procedure care for both the donor and the recipient. Responsible egg and sperm donation process fully provides for these concerns to the extent that ethicists, not only recommend, but also extol, the practice.

Generally, egg and sperm donation is no different from blood donation, apart from the differences in the donation process. Of the three tissues, egg donation has the more robust process, requiring a regimen of injections over a period of time. Sperm donation, on the other hand, has the simplest process that could last less than five minutes to conclude.

Just like blood donation, egg and sperm donation is an expression of our very human nature, being our ‘brother’s keeper’. We are encouraged to assist others who are in need in ways we can such that egg and sperm donation could be a way of assisting our infertile brothers and sisters who are in need of having their own children.

In the same way we donate blood to our relatives, friends, accident victims we hardly knew, and to even blood banks for use by people we may never know, are all part of our social expectations as members of the human society, egg and sperm donation is also a response to societal call and a commendable activity.

While blood donation helps maintain the lives of people in dire need of it, egg and sperm donation not only enlivens the lives of people weighed down by the burden of infertility, it also helps in the creation of new lives – God’s greatest gifts to humanity. If one takes a look at the joy that flows into families that have battled infertility for a long time at the birth of their own child, he or she would understand the full import of the gift of children.

Our society has defined childbearing as the first and foremost charge of God and the raison d’être for marriage, unfortunately. Childbearing has been elevated to be the biggest measure of success of couples in this clime, and any childless couple are looked with pity irrespective of their material or other successes. It is this culture that places childless couples in distress situation, a call you will not make to your enemy. If you have experienced infertility or has seen someone going through this challenge, you will understand how egg and sperm donation is a humanitarian response to the distress call of our neighbours and the summit of our contribution to humanity.

As the world just celebrated this year’s World Infertility Month, a period to move the issues that pertain to infertility to the front burner of the world’s discourse (June), it would be good for us as individuals and as a nation to adopt the practice of egg and sperm donation. We should promote sperm and egg banks, in the same manner we promote blood banks, so couples in need of these gametes could have ready access to them as and when they need them. Luckily, a fertility clinic in Nigeria recently announced the birth of a baby from a frozen egg, a feat that never happened in Nigeria before now; and is now offering the egg freezing service to Nigerians.Please answer the distress call.

Dr. Owie is a consultant gynaecologist and fertility physician with The Bridge Clinic, Lagos.