how to explain the shortage in Belgium?
@BELGAIMAGE
In the case of male infertility, certain existing treatments, such as in vitro fertilization, artificial insemination with a spouse, hormonal treatments… For other couples, as well as for many lesbian couples or for single women, there is also the solution to appeal to the sperm of a donor. Just need to find a…
Belgium has indeed faced a long-standing shortage in this field. According to the latest figures from the Belrap (Belgian Register for Assisted Procreation) report, 9,140 injections of donor sperm had taken place in 2019. Until then, Belgian fertility centers relied on 60 to 95% of their stock in sperm banks in Scandinavian countries, due to a lack of Belgian donors. But due to the health crisis as well as increasingly restrictive legislation, the foreign offer is decreasing.
Not the demand: in assisted reproduction centres, waiting lists are getting longer, prices are rising. In 2021, the sperm straw amounted to 300 euros in Belgian centres. This year, a couple wishing to appeal to sperm donation must pay 700 euros for a straw (not reimbursed by social security), with a success rate of around 10%, according to Le Soir.
Taboos
“The culture of giving is underdeveloped in our country“, lamented in the evening Candice Autin, head of clinic at CHU St Pierre. “There is a form of taboo, linked to masturbation, to a sexual connotation, which is disturbing. Who in your entourage has already told you that he was a sperm donor? Donner son sang, we talk about it. Donate his sperm, no! Homoparenthood and single parenthood do not represent a problem in public opinion, but no one wonders about the origin of this sperm“In our country, assisted reproduction centers are prohibited from advertising or encouraging donations.
In addition to this absence of a culture of giving (attributable to Puritanism?), other factors explain the shortage in Belgium. Until the end of 2021, French law prohibited homosexuals and single women from benefiting from sperm donation. And even in 2022, many French women came to increase demand a little more in Belgium, given the longer waiting times across the border.
Anonymous donations
Unlike other countries, there is also no real financial incentive for sperm donation in Belgium, which is only compensated from 50 to 75 euros (and up to 100 euros in Montlégia) to cover the costs of giver. Many candidates are also rejected. Within the CHC MontLégia, “we keep maybe three out of ten“, specified to the Future Dominique Raick, medical biologist responsible for the PMA laboratory.
The rest is heavy: donors must be between 18 and 45 years old, undergo a thorough medical examination, the sperm is kept in quarantine for six months before use, pending confirmation of negative serological tests…. In Belgium, donations from the same donor cannot lead to the birth of children in more than six different women, and are, except in the case of a so-called “directed known donation” procedure, always anonymous.
Towards the lifting of anonymity?
In Denmark, the child can at the age of eighteen ask to come into contact with the donor, if the latter consents. According to some experts, the fact that this is not possible in Belgium further complicates the situation.
“The child has a fundamental right to know his story and where he comes from.pointed in Le Soir Géraldine Mathieu, lecturer at UNamur and specialist in children’s rights. Discrimination is created between children born naturally and from PMA. Most doctors are against it for fear of seeing a further decrease in donors“. Which is not the case of Géraldine Mathieu, who mentioned the example of the United Kingdom, where the lifting of anonymity was accompanied by an awareness campaign.
In the long term, sperm donations across the Channel have ended up going up, added the expert, “and donor profiles have changed, giving way to older men, who already had children, driven by an altruistic concern. If we lift anonymity, we obviously need campaigns and the locking of legal filiation. In reality, it is necessary to inform, which is sorely lacking today in Belgium“, she concluded.