Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1694573727475.pdf (Australia)
Human Reproduction, Vol.0, No.0 pp.

1– 7, 2010 Advanced Access publication on XX, XXXX doi:10.1093/humrep/deq314 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Reproductive epidemiology Copy Edited by: D.P.
Characteristics of men willing to act as sperm donors in the context of identity-release legislation Damien W. Riggs 1,* and Laura Russell 2 1Department of Social Work and Social Policy, Flinders University, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide, South Australia 5001, Australia 2School of Psychology, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia *Correspondence address.
E-mail: damien.riggs@ﬂinders.edu.au Submitted on June 11, 2010; resubmitted on October 12, 2010; accepted on October 14, 2010 background: Although ongoing legislative changes are important to protect the rights of all involved in assisted reproductive technol- ogies, it cannot be guaranteed that legislation will ensure the successful operation of reproductive health clinics, as is indicated by ongoing reports of a dearth of donor sperm in clinics in some countries.
methods: Data were 1428 proﬁles taken from a website that aims to facilitate relationships between those seeking donor sperm and men willing to donate their sperm.

Data were coded as three independent variables: age, relationship status and country, and four dependent variables: motivation to donate, willingness to be identiﬁed, willingness to be involved with children conceived of donations and beliefs about who should determine the level of involvement.
results: Non-parametric testing indicated that men aged under 26 or over 46, and who were either single or in a same-sex relationship, were most likely to be willing to be identiﬁed to children (P , 0.05), and to desire involvement with children (P , 0.01).

A signiﬁcant pro- portion of men aged between 26 and 46 years of age (P , 0.001) were motivated by a desire to procreate and were unwilling to be ident- iﬁed, as were a signiﬁcant number of men in opposite-sex relationships (P , 0.001).
conclusions: Although limited by its reliance upon a sample constituted by men living in western countries who completed a self- report proﬁle and who had not received counselling about their potential role as donors, this study draws attention to the potential impact of age and sexual orientation upon intentions to donate.
35 Key words: sperm donation / motivations / identity-release legislation / assisted reproduction Introduction For more than 40 years, advances in assisted reproductive technol- ogies (ARTs) have driven legislative change, offering as they do radi- cally new ways of conceptualizing kinship, reproduction and rights (Thompson, 2005).

It cannot be assumed, however, that legislative instances will automatically promote the operations of change in all reproductive health services.
A good example of this appears in the use of donor sperm.

Although legislation has been introduced in many countries to mandate for the release of identifying information about donors to children once they come of age, and while this is a positive step for donor-conceived children, in many instances this has resulted in an initial drop in the number of men willing to donate to clinics.
Importantly, however, research indicates that the numbers of men willing to act as donors in the context of identity-release legislation does gradually recover, albeit with a some- what different demographic of men (Blyth and Frith, 2008).
The 40 45 50 55 primary difference is that prior to the introduction of identity-release legislation, a signiﬁcant majority of donors have historically been younger men without families of their own, while post the introduction of legislation to mandate identity release this has shifted to a larger proportion of donors being older married men with children of their own (Daniels and Lalos, 1995).
While this shift accompanying legislative change is welcomed by some on the basis that the latter group of men might be considered more ‘responsible’ donors (Yee, 2009), it brings with it concerns over the potentially deleterious effects associated with declining sperm quality in older men (Ng et al., 1994).
Changes in the availability of donor sperm (and the particular groups of men now donating sperm in the context of identity-release legislation) are compounded by other legislation introduced to support the rights of a wider range of people to access donor sperm in many countries (such as lesbian couples and single women).

In other words, by allowing more people eligibility to access donor sperm, there is now a much greater demand upon the & The Author 2010.
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For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100 105 110 2 Riggs and Russell 115 120 125 130 135 140 145 150 155 160 165 170 already limited resources available.
As a whole, then, the issues ident- iﬁed here would suggest that while changes to legislation across many countries have primarily aimed to better regulate the use of ARTs involving donor sperm, they have also introduced new constraints or issues for reproductive health clinics.

this situation in Canada.

However, In response to these problems arising from legislative change, other forms of legislation have been introduced or are being considered in some countries.
These include allowing donors to be reimbursed for their time, when previously this was not the case; Yee (2009) pro- vides a discussion of these responses are not only frequently contested (Daniels and Lewis, 1996; with regard to payments to donors), but legislative change is often slow, and as the discussion above would suggest, cannot solely be relied upon to effect the short-term change required to meet the demand for donor sperm.
As a result, the reality of the current shortage of donor sperm in many western nations is one that must be acted upon in ways other than legislative change.

One readily available response to this shortage is to focus upon the demo- graphic characteristics that research indicates are associated with a willingness to donate sperm in the context of identity-release legis- lation, and to target these groups of men.
Unfortunately, previous research on willingness to donate in the identity-release legislation has produced mixed ﬁndings.
context of Some of the research indicates that older, married and heterosexual men with children of their own are more likely to be motivated to donate for altruistic reasons (Daniels et al., 1996), and that this group of men are more likely to be willing to be identiﬁed to donor- conceived children in comparison with younger, single and hetero- sexual men (Lui et al., 1995; Janssens et al., 2006; Thorn et al., 2008).
Conversely, other research has suggested that single hetero- sexual men are more likely than married men to be willing to meet children conceived of their donations (Frith et al., 2007).
What appears to mediate these two ﬁndings is the degree of contact considered reasonable by these differing groups: married het- erosexual men with children of their own report being willing to their engage in a one-off meeting with children conceived of donations, while single heterosexual men report a greater willingness to have an ongoing relationship with such children (Godman et al., 2006).
A further characteristic that has been investigated more recently are differences between heterosexual and gay men with regard to their willingness to be identiﬁed and their motivations.

Research suggests that gay men, in general, are more willing to be identiﬁed, and that while donating for altruistic reasons, may also donate as a way of staking an identity claim to paternity if it is per- ceived that there are no other options available in this regard (Riggs, 2008; Ripper, 2008).
As the above summary would suggest, then, there are some discre- pancies over what constitutes an ‘ideal’ donor in the context of ongoing legislative change, particularly with regard to the removal of anonymity for donors.
The present research was developed in response to this, and sought to explore, via an examination of a large sample of men whose proﬁles appeared on a website designed to facilitate contact between recipients and potential sperm donors, the characteristics that would appear to indicate which men are most likely to respond to calls for sperm donation in the context of identity-release legislation.
Materials and Methods Participants Participants were individuals whose proﬁle appeared on the website sperm-donors-worldwide.com during the months of March and April, Inclusion was determined by two factors: the completeness of 2009. their proﬁle (individuals were excluded if three or more responses of inter- est for the current study were left blank), and their country of residence (only countries with 100 or more proﬁles were included in order to ensure adequate numbers for statistical analysis).
No other information was available in the proﬁles that would provide further information about the experiences or histories of the men listed on the website.
Speciﬁcally, no information was recorded in the proﬁles about whether men had donated previously (either in a private arrange- ment or to a clinic), and no information was recorded about whether the men had accessed counselling or other forms of support prior to expressing willingness to act as a sperm donor (and the website itself does not offer this service).

Our data set consisted of donor proﬁles, accessed in full upon purchas- ing 1 month’s membership to the website sperm-donors-worldwide.com.
Owing to the nature of the data, where participants publish their proﬁles in the public domain, and where the data utilized were non-identiﬁable, it was deemed that ethics approval was not required.

Instead, permission to use the site’s proﬁles for the purpose of this study was gained via email from the site’s creator (Emma Hartnell-Baker of Queensland, Australia).
Neither of the authors of the present paper had previously (or since) made use of the website with the purpose of accessing donor sperm, nor did the authors make contact with any potential recipients or donors listed on the website.

Sperm Donors Worldwide, also known as FSDW/DIY baby (Free Sperm Donors Worldwide/Do It Yourself Baby), is a website designed to ‘help single women, lesbian and infertile couples become pregnant using artiﬁcial insemination’.
Men register as donors by placing their proﬁle on the site, which can be accessed by prospective recipient members of the site from across the globe.

Membership to the site requires a monthly fee, however, the website is very clear in stating that while it is nominally a commercial business (i.e.

people looking for donor sperm pay to access the proﬁles), the commercial aspects are limited to paying for the upkeep of the website and the expenses of admin- istering it.
In other words, the owner of the website makes no money per se from individual ‘matches’ between donors and recipients, and the website also clearly states that its purpose is not to facilitate payment for sperm donation (which in some of the countries listed on the site is currently illegal).

Further, the site does not provide an insemination service, but does offer information about self-insemination and links to self-insemination kits, which can be purchased online through third parties.
Procedure Two of the independent variables chosen for analysis within this study—‘age group’ and ‘relationship status’—were selected due to their signiﬁcant pre- dictive ability indicated by previous research (Lui et al., 1995; Daniels et al., 1996; Janssens et al., 2006; Thorn et al., 2008).
While indicated as a poten- tial predictor variable in previous research (Riggs, 2008), sexuality was not included as the category was not included in proﬁles (although coding for same or opposite-sex relationships could be validly coded, and thus was used as a subset of the relationship status measure).

Country of residence was also included on the assumption that there may be differences between countries on the basis of legislative differences.
The dependent variables of ‘motivation, identity-release status, involve- ment with offspring, and who determines involvement’ were also chosen 175 180 185 190 195 200 205 210 215 220 225 Characteristics of men willing to act as sperm donors Q13 on the basis of previous research ﬁndings (Lui et al., 1995; Daniels et al., 1996; Janssens et al., 2006; Riggs, 2008; Thorn et al., 2008).
Assessment of these variables was made through one of two ways: either speciﬁc responses within proﬁles to questions that called for forced choice answers (this was the case for ‘identity-release status and involvement with offspring), or the codiﬁcation of open ended responses provided in ‘Motivation and Who Determines proﬁles (this was the case for Involvement’).
With regard to the forced choice response relating to identity-release status, potential donors had the option of selecting one of three cat- egories: ‘known (child can request information at age 18)’, ‘anonymous’ and ‘undecided’.

No further speciﬁc information was provided within the proﬁles as to why men selected one of these categories.
Donor desire for involvement or contact with offspring was also coded by the three forced response categories on the website consisting of: ‘Desired, Limited Involvement and None’.

In developing the coding system for the variables of ‘Motivation and Who Determines Involvement’, 50 randomly selected proﬁles from the sample were initially analysed to determine preliminary categories based on common themes within these two variables.
Speciﬁcally, common and similar proﬁle responses were grouped under distinct and meaningful categories, comprising similar terms, ideas and themes.

This process was continued until saturation of responses was achieved within the 50 proﬁles selected.

The categories generated for each of these two dependent vari- ables were then compared against each of the remaining proﬁles to deter- mine which best represented the open-ended responses in each proﬁle.
Categories generated for the variable of donor motivations consisted of: ‘Helping Others, Empathy, Valuable Genetics, and to Procreate’.

Helping others consisted of terms such as: ‘give’ and ‘accommodate’, where donors primarily reported their motivation as included terms or ideas such as: seeking to help others.

‘empathy’, ‘compassion’ and ‘awareness’, whereby donors typically reported being motivated by an understanding family of members or partners.
‘Valuable genetics’ included terms such as: ‘good stock’, ‘quality’ and ‘valuable’, whereby donors reported being motivated by the belief that they had much to offer poten- tial recipients and offspring as a result of their genes.

‘To procreate’ involved terms such as ‘reproduce’, ‘have babies’, ‘father a child’, ‘multiply’ and ‘show fertility’, and was described as a motive for donors who sought a chance to procreate, whether or not they sought to play a role in the child’s future.
fertility problems upon friends, colleagues, ‘understanding’, the effects of ‘experience’, ‘beneﬁcial’, ‘precious’, ‘facilitate’, ‘Empathy’ ‘assist’, ‘aid’, ‘agreement’, ‘open to discussion’, Donor understandings of who should determine the level of contact with any child conceived of their donations was determined by their response to an open-ended question presented after the ‘involvement’ forced response question.
The category of ‘negotiable’ included terms such as: ‘mutual’ and ‘needs talking about’, wherein donors were willing to discuss their level of involvement with the recipient(s) of their donation and agree on a comfortable arrange- ‘parent’s decision’ consisted of terms such as: ment.

The category of ‘mother’/‘parent’s’ ‘choice’/‘wants’/‘desires’/‘request’, and indicated that donors were happy to comply with the wishes of the recipient(s).
‘Child’s Decision’ comprised comments such as: The third category, ‘child’s choice upon maturity’, and ‘child’s wishes’, whereby donors were happy to be contacted if the child wished to meet them.
Statistical analysis Analysis of the coded data was undertaken using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS version 17.0), with multinomial logistic regression analyses employed to determine any associations between the indepen- residence, age-group and dent demographic variables (‘country of 230 235 240 245 250 255 260 265 270 275 280 285 relationship status’) and the four dependent variables and their categories: ‘motivation’, ‘identity-release status’, ‘involvement with offspring’ and who logistic regression analysis was determines involvement.
Multinomial employed due to its suitability to larger data sets as well as its ability to process dependent variables with more than two categories (Pampel, 2000).

Multinomial regression analysis is further suited to categorical data as it examines speciﬁc contrasts between the categories of each dependent variable as well as their relationship with the independent vari- ables.
This, in turn, reduces the redundancy of repeated tests, and thus increases the probability that associations between dependent and inde- pendent variables within the data occur due to signiﬁcant differences within the actual data set when compared with a hypothetical population generated on the basis of a null hypothesis (Riggs, 2008) Individual x2 tests were also undertaken to explore more speciﬁcally the signiﬁcance of the association between the four dependent variables and independent demographic variables.
The assumption of x2, which states that no .20% of cells can have a cell frequency count of ,5, and that no cells may have a cell frequency count of zero, was met for all x2 analyses.

Results Participant characteristics Of the full number of proﬁles (n ¼ 2112), 1428 were included in the sample.

The countries included (i.e.

those with .100 participants) were Australia, Canada, the UK and the USA.
The majority of donors resided in either the UK [39.5% (564)] or the USA [39.4% (562)], with [13.9% (199)] of the participants residing in Australia and 7.2% (103) residing in Canada.

Of the participants included, 18.4% were18–25 years, 33.8% were aged 26 –35 years, 34.1% were aged 36–45 years, 11.2% were aged 46 –55 years and 2.6% were aged 55 + years of age .
Participants’ relationship status was also recorded, with most par- ticipants reporting being single (63.7%) with the remainder falling in the website category of ‘in a relationship’ (36.3%).

Of those in a relationship, 16% (n ¼ 83) were in a same-sex relationship, while 84% (n ¼ 435) were heterosexually married.
290 295 300 305 310 315 Q2 320 Motivation variable When all of the variables were initially entered into a regression, the output indicated that donor motivation was only predicted by the age group of the donor, and to a lesser degree, their country of residence.

The ﬁnal regression model for motivation revealed that the association between the combined independent variables included in the model (i.e.
the two that were signiﬁcantly related to it—the remaining vari- able was excluded from the model) and the dependent variable was a product of the data set: x2 (21, n ¼ 1355) ¼ 60.29, P , 0.001, where the combined effect of the two variables accounted for just 2 ¼ 0.55.

Table I over half the variance among donors; Pseudo R shows the distribution of independent demographic variables: age group and country of residence in relation to donor motivation.
In relation to country of residence, a signiﬁcant association between country and motivation was found: x2 (9, n ¼ 1358) ¼ 19.62, P , 0.05, whereby men residing in all four countries were more likely to donate in order to help others compared with other motivations.
Sec- ondly, men of all countries were more likely to be motivated by a desire to procreate than due to empathy or a perception of having 325 330 335 340 4 345 350 18–25 26–35 36–45 46–55 55+ 355 Country Australia UK USA Canada Table I Frequencies for motivation variable.
Riggs and Russell Motivation ............................................................................................................................................................ Total Help others ............................................................................................................................................................................................. Age group Valuable genetics Procreate Empathy 211 (87%) 335 (74%) 330 (73%) 98 (64%) 20 (54%) 146 (78%) 390 (72%) 418 (78%) 63 (68%) 12 (5%) 28 (6%) 22 (4%) 12 (8%) 3 (8%) 12 (6%) 39 (7%) 19 (4%) 7 (8%) 2 (1%) 18 (4%) 18 (3%) 4 (2%) 5 (14%) 12 (6%) 17 (3%) 14 (2%) 4 (4%) 16 (7%) 74 (16%) 98 (20%) 40 (26%) 9 (24%) 21 (10%) 95 (18%) 83 (16%) 18 (20%) 241 450 468 154 37 191 541 534 92 360 365 370 375 380 385 390 395 valuable genetics, with the motivation of procreation most strongly pronounced (after helping others) among men in the UK and the USA.
This pattern in motivations extended to age group, whereby men of all age groups were signiﬁcantly more likely to donate to help others, and to a lesser degree to procreate, than to be motivated by empathy or a perception of valuable genetics; x2 (12, n ¼ 1355) ¼ 44.79, P , 0.001.

With regard to procreation as a motivation, this was most sig- niﬁcantly associated with men aged between 26 and 45 years of age.
Identity-release status variable When all of the variables were entered into the regression, the output indicated that donor preference for identity-release status was only predicted by age-group and relationship status.

The other independent variable (country) did not contribute signiﬁcantly to the variance explained and therefore was excluded from the ﬁnal model.
The for identity-release status revealed that the ﬁnal regression model association between the combined independent variables included in the model (i.e.

those that were signiﬁcantly related to it) and the dependent variable was a product of the data set: x2 (10, n ¼ 1361) ¼ 29.93, P , 0.05, where the combined effect of the variables accounted for almost half of the variance between donors; Pseudo 2 ¼ 0.45.
Table II shows the distribution of relationship status and R age group in relation to identity-release status.

Chi-square tests conducted on both of the independent variables in the ﬁnal model demonstrated the signiﬁcance of the apparent differ- ences in Table II, whereby men overall, regardless of age, were willing for their identity to be known to children conceived of their donations, x2 (8, n ¼ 1415) ¼ 15.63, P , 0.05.
For those who nomi- nated to be anonymous, this was most signiﬁcantly associated with men aged between 26 and 46 years of age, with fewer men outside of this age range seeking to be anonymous.

This same pattern was repeated among men who were undecided, who constituted overall the second largest group of respondents across all ages.
The overall effect observed in Table II also extended to the relation- ship status, wherein all men, regardless of the relationship status, were signiﬁcantly more likely to be open to an identity-release status com- pared with being anonymous or undecided; x2 (2, n ¼ 1364) ¼ Table II Frequencies for identity-release status variable.
Identity-release status ................................................................... Total Anonymous Undecided Known ........................................................................................
Relationship status Single In a relationship Age group 18–25 26–35 36–45 46–55 55+ 517 (59%) 100 (11%) 262 (53%) 130 (26%) 253 (30%) 102 (21%) 174 (67%) 29 (11%) 250 (53%) 91 (19%) 257 (53%) 84 (17%) 107 (67%) 20 (13%) 24 (65%) 3 (8%) 58 (22%) 135 (28%) 141 (30%) 32 (20%) 10 (27%) 870 494 261 476 482 159 37 12.307, P , 0.01.
The results also showed that single men were signiﬁ- cantly more likely to display a preference for identity release or to be undecided, while those in a relationship were signiﬁcantly more likely to state a preference to be anonymous donors than would be expected in an even distribution.

The composition of relationship was further explored, and Table III shows the distribution of relation- ship composition (i.e.

same sex or opposite sex) with regard to identity-release preferences.
Chi-square analysis suggested that those in same-sex relationships were signiﬁcantly more likely to prefer to be known donors as opposed to anonymous or undecided, while those in opposite-sex relationships were signiﬁcantly more likely to prefer to be anonymous or undecided rather than being known donors; x2 (2, n ¼ 368) ¼ 23.91, P , 0.001.
Involvement with offspring variable When all of the variables were entered into the regression, the output indicated that donor preferences for involvement with offspring were only predicted by the donors’ relationship status and country of 400 405 410 415 420 425 430 435 440 445 450 455 Characteristics of men willing to act as sperm donors Q15 Table III Frequencies of relationship composition for identity-release status variable.
Identity-release status ............................................................................................................................................ Total Known .............................................................................................................................................................................................
Relationship composition Anonymous Undecided Same sex Opposite sex 50 (83%) 40 (14%) 1 (2%) 177 (60%) 9 (15%) 76 (26%) 60 293 residence; Age group did not contribute signiﬁcantly to the variance explained and thus was excluded from the ﬁnal model.
The ﬁnal regression model the association for involvement revealed that between the combined independent variables remaining in the model and the dependent variable was a product of the data set: x2 (8, n ¼ 768) ¼ 32.740, P , 0.01, where the combined effect of the variables accounted for just over half of the variance between donors; Pseudo R2 ¼ 0.54.

Table IV shows the distribution of these independent demographic variables in relation to desired involvement.
Chi-square tests conducted on both of the independent variables included in the ﬁnal model demonstrate the signiﬁcance of the appar- ent differences in Table IV, whereby men overall, regardless of relationship status, desired no involvement: x2 (2, n ¼ 768) ¼ 8.35, P , 0.05.
The overall effect observed in Table IV also extended to country of residence, wherein all men, regardless of where they lived, were signiﬁcantly more likely to seek no involvement with chil- dren conceived of their donations compared with active or limited involvement; x2 (6, n ¼ 797) ¼ 12.43, P , 0.05.

For those who sought limited contact or actually desired contact, this was most sig- niﬁcantly associated with being single.

With regard to relationship composition (i.e.


same sex or opposite sex), Table V shows the distri- bution of the composition of relationships in relation to desired invol- vement.
A x2 test revealed that men in same-sex relationships were signiﬁcantly more likely to desire active involvement with children con- ceived of their donations compared with other involvement options, while men in opposite-sex relationships were signiﬁcantly more likely to desire no involvement compared with other involvement options than would be expected in an even distribution; x2 (2, n ¼ 217) ¼ 87.42, P , 0.001. Who determines involvement variable A multinomial logistic regression analysis revealed that who deter- mines involvement was not signiﬁcantly associated with any of the independent variables.
The data showed that the majority of donors believed involvement should be determined by recipient parents (45.2%) and via negotiation (49%), with only 5.8% feeling the decision should be left to the child, although this ﬁnding was not signiﬁcant; x2 (16, n ¼ 563) ¼ 22.46, P .

0.05.
0.05.

Discussion The results from the present study conﬁrm previous ﬁndings to some degree, while also offering clariﬁcation about particular aspects of the association between demographic characteristics and motivations, desire for involvement and willingness for identifying information to be released among sperm donors.

Table IV Frequencies for involvement variable.


Involvement ............................................................ Total Desired ........................................................................................
Relationship status Limited None Single 97 (14%) 153 (21%) 474 (65%) In a relationship 37 (10%) 97 (33%) 160 (57%) Country Australia 14 (14%) 38 (36%) 52 (50%) UK USA Canada 60 (18%) 112 (35%) 152 (47%) 59 (16%) 100 (34%) 156 (50%) 4 (7%) 12 (22%) 38 (71%) 724 294 104 324 315 54 Table V Frequencies of relationship composition for involvement variable.
Involvement .............................................................. Total Desired ........................................................................................

Relationship composition Limited None Same sex 36 (60%) 22 (37%) 2 (3%) Opposite sex 67 (22%) 101 (35%) 125 (43%) 60 293 Our ﬁndings indicate that an altruistic motivation was the primary motivation associated with men across all four countries and all age groups.
This conﬁrms the emphasis upon altruism among donors as noted by Yee (2009), although the ﬁndings of the present study suggest that a signiﬁcant proportion of men aged between 26 and 45 were also motivated by a desire to procreate.
With regard to openness to the release of identifying information to donor-conceived children, a willingness to be known was associated with men across all ages and among both single men and those in a relationship, conﬁrming Blyth and Frith’s (2008) suggestion that legis- lating for identity release will not necessarily impact upon numbers of men willing to donate sperm per se.
Interestingly, however, and with regard to the ﬁndings of previous research that identity-release legislation may impact upon the demographic of men willing to donate (i.e.
a shift from younger single men to older married men; see Daniels and Lalos, 1995), it is important to note that the present research found that a higher proportion of men in relation- ships and men aged between 26 and 45 preferred to be unknown 560 565 570 515 520 525 530 535 540 545 550 555 460 465 470 475 480 485 490 495 500 505 510 6 Riggs and Russell compared with single men or men outside these age ranges (the majority of whom were aged under 26).
The ﬁndings did, however, conﬁrm those of Riggs (2008), that men in same-sex relationships were more likely to consent to identity release than were men in het- erosexual relationships.

Finally, and with regard to level of involvement with donor- conceived children, overall more men were likely to nominate no involvement than any other level of involvement, thus supporting the ﬁndings of Lui et al.
(1995), who found that the donors in their sample typically desired little active or ongoing involvement with chil- dren conceived of their donations.

It must be noted, however, that the men who placed a proﬁle on the website examined in this study were not provided with any counselling or education about the possible need for contact on the part of children conceived of their donations, which may well have inﬂuenced this ﬁnding.
For those in the present sample who did nominate involvement, single men and men in same-sex relationships were most likely to desire involvement, with the latter ﬁnding conﬁrming those of Riggs (2008), who found that gay men were more likely than heterosexual men to desire involve- ment with children conceived of their donations.
The ﬁndings presented here thus shed considerable light on some of the characteristics that would indicate the most likely candidates for recruitment for donation in the context of identity-release legislation (i.e.

single men and men in same-sex relationships aged under 26 or over 45).

It must be noted, however, that in some countries clinics preclude potential donors who identify as homosexual (Kirkman, 2004; Riggs, 2008).
This would suggest the need for ongoing revisions to legislation or clinical practice so as to ensure that such donors are made eligible.

However, it must also be noted that as men in same-sex relationships (and to a much lesser degree, single men) are increasingly able to start their own families through surrogacy, foster care, adop- tion or shared parenting arrangements, these groups cannot necess- arily be relied upon as a primary source of recruitment for sperm donors.
Nonetheless, legislative change to ensure equitable access for all is both desirable and necessary.

Given that it cannot be relied upon that the groups identiﬁed above will continue to display the same willingness to act as donors, it is important that clinics also consider ways of addressing the barriers for other groups of men to be recruited as donors.
In this regard, a number of authors (Lui et al., 1995; Frith et al., 2007; Riggs, 2009) have called for better information about the emotional, personal and social implications of sperm donation for potential donors, and that accessible counselling and support services should be provided to men (both those who have donated and those who are considering donating).
This may be particularly so for those men in the 26 –45 years age bracket, whose indecision about identity disclosure may at least in part be due to the fact that this group of men may be exploring possibilities for starting their own families.
Of course, such services should also be offered to men outside this age bracket, and particularly younger men who may not have yet considered having children, but who may do so at a later date and who may be negatively affected by previous choices about sperm donation.

Despite the utility of the ﬁndings presented here and the rec- ommendations from them for increasing the numbers of men willing to donate in the context of identity-release legislation, several limit- ations must be noted.
Firstly, the proﬁles examined in this research were of men listed on a website designed to facilitate free donation 575 580 585 590 595 600 605 610 615 620 625 of sperm in private arrangements, but which provides no information per se about the possible needs of children conceived from donor sperm.
As such, it is difﬁcult to determine the extent to which the same patterns would apply to the highly regulated ART clinic sector (which employs rigorous donor screening methods and includes edu- cation and counselling requirements so that potential donors are fully aware of the experiences of donor-conceived children and their likely desire for contact when they come of age).
Moreover, it must be noted that information provided by the donors was self-reported and thus must be interpreted with caution, as self-report may be likely to accentuate the level of exaggeration and self-marketing under- taken by donors as they strive to attract potential recipients and fulﬁl their potential individual motivations (Almeling, 2007).
Secondly, since exclusion criteria required that countries were represented by 100 donors or more, only four countries—Australia, Canada, the UK and the USA—were analysed.

Owing to these all being westernized cultures, generalizability of the ﬁndings to other cultures must be undertaken with caution, particularly since country of residence was found to play a role in predicting donor motivations and desired levels of involvement.
Nonetheless, and in conclusion, while some of the trends identiﬁed in this paper may be relatively time-limited and context-speciﬁc (i.e.
they may be limited to westernized countries and may change as more diverse groups of men are involved in having children than has been the case in the past), clinics, policy makers and researchers would do well to take note of the trends identiﬁed, treat them future donor sperm recruitment seriously in the development of agendas and inform the support services provided to sperm donors themselves .

Authors’ roles of devised D.W.R.


: the the manuscript introduction, participated in the discussion, conducted analyses and undertook revisions; L.R.

: collected and coded data, wrote the wrote the analyses and undertook revisions method, conducted and of the manuscript.

project, wrote 630 635 640 645 650 655 Q2 660 Q2 665 Acknowledgements The authors wish to acknowledge the sovereignty of the Kaurna people, the First Nations people upon whose land they live in Adelaide, South Australia.
670 Funding No funding was sought or received to support the undertaking of this project.

Access to the website was purchased using funds from a Faculty of Health Sciences Small Research Grant from the University of Adelaide awarded to the ﬁrst author.

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