Free Sperm Donor Gets Flak from FDA
A man from the San Francisco Bay area, who has been donating sperm to women who would like to have children for free, has drawn criticism from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), as well as from doctors.
36-year-old Trent Arsenault of Fremont has a website through which he meets women that he donates sperm to. He has since fathered 14 children, with four more on the way.
The FDA, however, has sent Arsenault a letter telling him to stop what he is doing, as he does not follow FDA requirements for getting tested for sexually-transmitted diseases prior to making a sperm donation. The FDA reportedly described, in that letter, the service that Arsenault provides as a business. Arsenault, however, begs to differ. “This is not a business or a clinic,” he said. “It’s just people partnering up to have a baby out of compassion.”
According to Arsenault, a minister’s son, his motivation for doing what he does is to be able to help people who would like to have children, but who cannot afford conventional sperm banks. Arsenault shared: “I always had known through people praying at church that there’s fertility issues… I thought it would just be a neat way of service to help the community.”
Bioethicist Arthur Caplan of the University of Pennsylvania, however, said: “There’s a danger of accidental incest or inbreeding if you’re the father of 14 children and a habitual sperm donor… nobody should be involved as a sperm donor on that level. It’s not safe.”
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