A study revealed that sperm donation significantly lacks samples from a certain demographic. Black women wanting to conceive Black children are struggling to do so, given the lack of Black male donors.
According to The Fertility and Sterility Journal, Black men make up under 3% of sperm bank donors. This disparity leads to slim chances for those seeking a Black sperm donor for in-vitro fertilization, despite Black men accounting for 13% of the males in the U.S. However, white men hold the majority of sperm donations, with 61% of sperm donors belonging to this demographic.
Despite this disparity, attempts to reach out to potential Black male donors are underway. One of these plans includes the establishment of a Black-owned cryobank. The Washington, D.C.-based Reproductive Village Cryobank seeks to remedy this problem, with its owner, Angela Stepancic, working on securing the funding to open the facility. Thus far, she has raised 35% of the $500k she needs to bring the business to life.
According to Stepancic, a key in getting more Black donors is to establish trust and accessibility. Her location in the nation’s capital, where Census data confirmed a 43.5% Black population, hopes to accomplish both.
“I decided to reframe my thinking from ‘How do we help you get more donors?’ to ‘How do we do this for ourselves?’” stated Stepancic, who used a Latino sperm donor, despite efforts to find a Black one. “I know where Black people are. Just like we created HBCUs for us, we can create this for us.”
According to the study, experts believe that this gap stems from the lack of trust from the Black community in the medical
system. From systemic racism to untreated pain and experimentation, such as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, these historic issues have heightened since the COVID-19 pandemic, which also disproportionately impacted Black communities.“It’s, like, ‘Well, where is my sperm going?’” explained Dr. Denise Asafu-Adjei, Loyola Medicine’s director of male reproductive medicine. “‘Who is going to take this?’ I think those fears are definitely higher in my minority patients, and I think a large part of that is due to the history of some of these nefarious actions with genetic information.”
This ingrained distrust, alongside not wanting to fuel stereotypes of “deadbeat” Black fathers, has created a significant gap in Black sperm donors.
“I think there is a fear of being labeled as not being in a child’s life, specifically for Black people, because that has been a label put on a lot of Black men,” explained Dr. Cassie Hobbs, who co-authored the study. “In order to actively avoid that, they steer away from donating because they don’t want to have children that they don’t know out there.”
Moreover, the requirements to be a sperm donor may be inaccessible to many. Beyond height, education, and sexuality regulations, donors must provide generations of medical history. However, that information, for many Black people, is not always readily available. Furthermore, public facilities, such as the Midwest Sperm Bank, only offer $70 per donation.
Hobbs added, “Many sperm banks require you to have three generations of medical history. When we’re thinking about Black people, a lot of our grandparents didn’t even have access to care. That definitely puts us at a further disadvantage.”
On the other hand, alternative methods for acquiring diverse sperm
donations are in operation. They also require less of potential donors while paying out more. Specifically, the Seed Scout in Arlington, Virginia offers $5,000 to donors. However, their identity is not withheld from the client.Despite the lack of anonymity, the Seed Scout seeks to provide a more positive medical experience for Black men. That mission, however, extends to all organizations, as the effort to get more Black sperm donors grows.
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