THE SWEDISH INSEMINATION ACT AND THE AVAILABILITY OF DONORS

Sweden was in 1985 the first country in the world to enact legislation concerned with the practice of donor insemination (DI). Included in t his legislation was the requirement that information about the identit y of the donors be kept and be made available to the resultant offspri ng upon 'maturity', should they seek this, This provision has attracte d much interest, debate and criticism, and claims have been made that this has led to a decline in the numbers of men coming forward to dona te semen in Sweden. This paper presents data covering the pre- and pos t-legislation period from one clinic, along with the only available da ta on all the Swedish clinics providing DI, which covers a more limite d post-legislation period, This data shows that there has been an incr ease in number of donors being recruited, suggesting that the possibil ity of future contact by genetic offspring has not had the negative im pact on the availability of donors predicted.