The first sperm banks began as early as 1964 in Iowa, USA and Tokyo, Japan and were established for a medical therapeutic approach to support individuals who were infertile. As a result, over 1 million babies were born within 40 years.
Sperm banks provide the opportunity for individuals to have a child who otherwise would not be able to conceive naturally. This includes, but is not limited to, single women, same-sexed couples, and couples where one partner is infertile.
Where a sperm bank provides fertility services directly to a recipient woman, it may employ different methods of fertilization using donor sperm in order to optimize the chances of a pregnancy. Sperm banks do not provide a cure for infertility in individuals who produce non-viable sperm. Nevertheless, the increasing range of services available through sperm banks enables people to have choices over challenges with reproduction.
Individuals may choose an anonymous donor who will not be a part of family life, or they may choose known donors who may be contacted later in life by the donor children. People may choose to use a surrogate to bear their children, using eggs provided by the person and sperm from a donor. Sperm banks often provide services which enable an individual to have subsequent pregnancies by the same donor, but equally, people may choose to have children by a number of different donors. Sperm banks sometimes enable an individual to choose the sex of their child, enabling even greater control over the way families are planned. Sperm banks increasingly adopt a less formal approach to the provision of their services thereby enabling people to take a relaxed approach to their own individual requirements.
Men who donate semen through a sperm bank provide an opportunity for others who cannot have children on their own. Sperm donors may or may not have legal obligations or responsibilities to the child conceived through this route. Whether a donor is anonymous or not, this factor is important in allowing sperm banks to recruit sperm donors and to use their sperm to produce whatever number of pregnancies from each donor as are permitted where they operate, or alternatively, whatever number they decide.
In many parts of the world sperm banks are not allowed to be established or to operate. Where sperm banks are allowed to operate they are often controlled by local legislation which is primarily intended to protect the unborn child, but which may also provide a compromise between the conflicting views which surround their operation. A particular example of this is the control which is often placed on the number of children which a single donor may father and which may be designed to protect against consanguinity. However, such legislation usually cannot prevent a sperm bank from supplying donor sperm outside the jurisdiction in which it operates, and neither can it prevent sperm donors from donating elsewhere during their lives. There is an acute shortage of sperm donors in many parts of the world and there is obvious pressure from many quarters for donor sperm from those willing and able to provide it to be made available as safely and as freely as possible.