Sperm Donors in the News

In April 1909, the first artificial insemination on record was reported in a scientific journal called The Medical World.

“The woman was chloroformed, and with a hard rubber syringe some fresh semen from the best-looking member of the class was deposited in the uterus, and the cervix slightly plugged with gauze,” the article said. “In due course of time the lady gave birth to a son.”

We’ve come a long way since then, but the basic principle remains the same—sperm donation has helped countless couples who can’t conceive on their own to achieve parenthood.

What follows is mom.me’s list of some of the more famous cases of sperm donation.

Vincent Gallo is an actor, director, musician and model best known for two independent films that he starred in and directed: Buffalo 66 and The Brown Bunny. On his website, he also offers anyone with $1 million the opportunity to buy a sample of his sperm.

According to his website, the fee “includes all costs related to one attempt at an in-vitro fertilization.”

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Singer Clay Aiken rose to fame in 2003 as a finalist on American Idol. He narrowly lost to Ruben Studdard, but his first album, Measure of a Man, debuted on the U.S. Billboard charts at No. 1 just the same.

For years, tabloids speculated that he was gay, and for years he dodged the allegation. Finally, he confirmed it to People magazine in 2008, along with the revelation that he was the father of a baby boy, via artificial insemination. The mother, Jaymes Foster, was executive producer on Aiken’s 2008 album, On My Way Here.

Photo via People magazine

Trent Arsenault is the father of 15 children through sperm donation. In The Huffington Post, he characterized what he does as “helping create families,” but the Food and Drug Administration didn’t see it that way.

In 2010 the FDA served him with an order to cease "manufacturing," on the grounds that he didn’t provide sufficient protections against the transmission of communicable disease. However, Arsenault claims to be a virgin, making the communication of sexually transmitted diseases impossible.

He insists that he does what he does for the right reasons, telling the San Jose Mercury News that couples looking for a donor “say the commercial sperm banks are impersonal or clinical or too expensive for them.”

Photos via Gawker

Musician Melissa Etheridge and film director Julie Cypher are each one half of what was one of the first high-profile lesbian power couples. Their union lasted a decade and produced two children, Bailey Jean and Beckett, via artificial insemination. For a while, they kept the identity of the donor a secret, but in 2000 they revealed that it was musician David Crosby.

The couple broke up not long after divulging the identity of the donor, and both women have since gone on to new relationships. However, in making their relationship and family public, they helped de-stigmatize artificial insemination as a method for other same-sex couples to have children.

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In May 2013, dancer and model Monica Cruz gave birth to a daughter conceived via artificial insemination from an anonymous donor. The younger sister of actress Penelope Cruz, she had undergone the procedure at age 35 out of fear that if she waited for the right guy to come along, it would become “too late for motherhood.”

Cruz went public about her treatments while she was still pregnant. “To become pregnant, I turned to artificial insemination,” she said in the U.K.’s Daily Mail. “I want to tell, also, so I can have the opportunity to show my thanks to all those anonymous men that help to give many women like me, the dream of their lives.”

Some who choose anonymous donors worry that without knowing who the father is, they won’t know what disorders his sperm could potentially carry. In September 2012, the U.K.’s Telegraph reported that sperm from a man known only as “donor 7042” carried a tumor-producing nerve disorder that made its way to clients 43 times.

He had used the Nordisk Cryobank in Copenhagen, and the clinic was notified in 2009 that one of the children born to the donor had been diagnosed with neurofibromatosis type I. A spokesman for the clinic was quoted in the Telegraph as saying that its staff had "looked at the case but didn't consider there to be reason enough to suspect it was the donor and therefore no reason to stop the use of his sperm."

In 2009, a Kansas man named William Marotta answered a Craigslist ad for a donor that had been placed by a lesbian couple. After meeting them and signing a form releasing him from any responsibility, financial or otherwise, he donated his sperm to the couple. But in 2013, the Associated Press reported that the state of Kansas was attempting to get him to pay child support.

The case rests on the fact that a doctor wasn’t used for the insemination per state law. This leaves Marotta on the hook for approximately $6,000 worth of public assistance that the biological mother received, along with future child support payments.

When a man donates sperm, it’s impossible to say with absolute certainty that it will result in a baby. Kirk Maxey of Northville, Mich., may not have created new life with every donation, but it hardly matters—according to his own calculations, he is the father of approximately 400 children.

According to Newsweek, Maxey donated sperm at the same Michigan clinic twice a week, from 1980 to 1994. He was paid $20 per donation, but said that he was never motivated by the money. "I loved having kids, and to have these women doomed to wandering around with no family didn't seem right," he told the publication.

Photo via NYPost.com

Actor Jason Patric was involved in an on-again-off-again relationship with girlfriend Danielle Schreiber, but he didn’t let their shaky status stop him from donating sperm when she wanted to have a baby. They agreed to keep his identity a secret, and he would receive no custody rights. The baby, a boy named Gus, was born in 2009.

According to TMZ, the couple reconciled in 2011. It didn’t work out, but it lasted long enough for the actor to form a bond with his son. He has since filed documents in family court asking for joint custody rights, according to Starpulse.

Nadya Suleman is the mother of 14 children, all of whom were conceived via artificial insemination. She made headlines in early 2009 after delivering eight children, earning her the nickname “The Octomom.”

Public opinion soured when it was revealed that she had six other children, also as a result of artificial insemination, and that she was receiving public assistance. Suleman appeared on Dateline NBC, where she told reporter Ann Curry, “Everything I do revolves around my children.”