Editorial: Sperm Banking & Public Morality

THE NEWS BROKEN by JOY FM that Ghana now has a sperm bank is a good and heartening one. The bank is being operated by Pro Vita Hospital of Tema, which pioneered invitro-fertilisation procedures in the country.

Given the centrality of child-bearing in the success of marriages in our part of the world and the social ostracisation that goes with the inability to father or mother children, sperm-banking is a fertility tool whose time is long overdue here, if one can reconcile him or herself with some of the moral problems that it raises.

In an interview with the radio reporter, Dr. Joe Mainoo, who heads Pro Vita, said the banked sperms would be used ?mainly for couples whose husbands are not able to produce their own sperms? or whose husbands are in the US or UK but do not have permanent residence and therefore cannot visit home to impregnate their wives.

The implication here is that for such couples who cannot produce their own, the sperms of another man would be used to fertilise the egg of the woman and the child so conceived would be brought up as the son or daughter of the couple.

How would this couple feel? Would the woman be happy and content she is carrying another man?s child? How would the man relate to the child, knowing full well that he/she is not his own? Strictly no physical adultery would have been committed to achieve the conception, but would the effect not amount to the same? Can the couple in their old age be able to put up with the possible rascality of the child, if he exhibits character traits which are the very antithesis of those of his ?father?? Would the public acceptability of this couple as child bearers be enough compensation for such a lifetime trauma? Obviously, there are more questions here than answers!

However, there is a more immediate morality issue here. Dr Mainoo also said in the interview referred to above that in his desire to have the invitro process very close to the natural one as much as possible, he would prefer sperms harvested naturally through sexual intercourse and not masturbation.

?There is a hotel very close to this place, we prefer that people go there with their couples? They have to donate a sperm and the best way to collect the sperms is through sexual intercourse, it?s better than masturbation. Even though the IVF is a medical procedure and artificial procedure, I have always suggested that we must get as close as possible to the natural?, he reportedly said.

Besides, he said, donors would be paid: ?We will give them between ?200,000 and ?300,000.?

Already from comments gathered by this paper, some youth have identified the situation as a golden opportunity to make some cheap money. In fact there is a suggestion that one could make up to ?1.2 million daily. Though bad in itself, masturbation as the source of the donated sperm would have involved boys or men only doing their own thing in some corner and presenting it for the cash.

With the need to harvest it through man-woman or boy-girl sex, our womenfolk, especially students, would be roped in. We foresee a situation where groups of boys and girls would, instead of facing their books squarely, engage in sexual intercourse as often as the boy can withstand the strain to sell the sperm and share the proceeds.

This is indeed food for thought. For capable couples separated by distance, sperm banking is a perfect tool. But for those incapable of producing their own sperm, it is fraught with disturbing social possibilities. How do we address them?

Though GYE NYME CONCORD is not opposed to the idea of sperm-banking, it would call on Pro Vita to look at the matter again, especially this possibility of its worsening our already bad sexual immorality. The fact that we may be already headed for hell does not mean that we should unnecessarily triple our pace to get there.