Sperm has become one of
the hottest commodities being sold in Ghana and many parts of the world.
The target market for this new booming venture are couples suffering
from male infertility, lesbian couples, and single women who pay huge
amounts of money to access it.
“Selling of sperm is
gradually becoming the new business frontier booming in Ghana because it
has many uses in today’s society: making babies, sperm banks, and
putting volume in limp hair in order to make it long,” a medical student
at the University of Ghana Medical School, who sold sperm five times to
a Fertility Centre in Accra for GH¢10, 000, told Economic Tribune (ET).
The medical student, who
gave his name only as Mensah, said even though selling of sperm was a
risky business, it was also rewarding as well.
“I use the proceeds from
this business to pay my fees and also support my close pals. Who knows
how long I will continue? But whatever happens, I
know I can look back
on many happy families that I have helped to create,” he stated.
Mrs Naomi Suame, a shop
owner at East Legon and many parts of Accra, has been married for 15
years and has two children, none of whom biologically belongs to her
husband.
“I discovered my husband
was infertile when we got married after two years. But I wanted to
experience motherhood. I decided to have artificial insemination. I have
never cheated on him. I just got sperm from a willing seller and got
two healthy babies. Is that not wonderful?” she asked. In the case of
Naomi, she got a young man from the University of Cape Coast, paid him
GH¢12,000 and took his sperm, which she used twice to get the babies.
“Sperm is one of the
scared commodities for many of us. There is a high demand for it and
many young men are going into this venture selling their sperm to help
others, who needs it for one reason or the other,” Naomi explained.
Investigations conducted
by ET revealed that due to the huge capital outlay of the process, women
have now devised a way of beating the system by getting donors (sperm
sellers) whom they take to the Fertility Centres for harvesting at a
cheaper cost and then having the sperm induced in their uteruses.
Outside Ghana
Sperm selling is booming
in many parts of the world as well. Recently, a San Francisco man has
been named by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for selling his
sperm over the internet after helping 14 women become pregnant. The
36-year-old man claims he’s simply providing a free service to women who
want to become mothers without going through typical sperm donation
process but authorities say he’s a public health hazard. According to
media report, Mr Trent Arsenault generously donates his sperm to women
he meets on his website, which features multiple pictures of the slender
man acting genetically valuable.
The FDA claims that
Arsenault is running a business that’s in violation of regulations that
require sperm banks to have their donors tested for STIs within seven
days of donating sperm. Some fertility experts warn that a man who
anonymously fathers 14 or more children could be putting those kids at
risk for genetic defects as well as one day meeting and having super
gross accidental sibling sex with each other.
In a related development,
two men from Reading in UK have been sentenced to nine months
imprisonment for illegally selling sperm over the internet. Ricky Gage,
49, and Nigel Woodforth, 43, pocketed £250,000 between October 2007 and
November 2008 through their unlicensed website, known as Fertility 1st.
Southwark Crown Court
jurors said the culprits were able to charge clients £380 for each
sample from anonymous donors. The pair, who ran their website from the
basement of Woodforth’s Reading home, promised to ‘fulfill the dreams’
of childless couples, charging them an initial £380 to provide contact
details from a list of men on their database. These included
descriptions of their ‘height, eye colour, ethnic origin, hobbies and
education.’
After selecting a
would-be father, the woman would then pay £150 for sperm to be collected
and delivered by an independent courier firm. From this payment, the
anonymous donor would receive £50. Hundreds of women seeking to conceive
used the service in a year-long period between late 2007 and 2008, with
police finding a list of 792 sperm deliveries.
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