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NO SPERM DONORS IN SCOTLAND

ONLY one man in Scotland is donating sperm to help infertile couples have children, it was claimed yesterday.

The revelation was made as a support group warned Britain is facing a "national shortage".

Campaigners blame the crisis on the Government's decision to allow children to find out who their donor fathers are.

Thousands of vials of sperm have been destroyed because donors did not want to be identified.

Across the UK as few as 10 new donors are found eachmonth - down from 30 a few years ago.

Campaigners said fertility clinics are being forced to close, leaving thousands of couples childless.

In Scotland, two of the four NHS fertility clinics have suspended insemination services.

Infertility Network UK said the Government should fund a national recruitment campaign. Spokeswoman Susan Seenan said: "We know from talking to patients and clinics that there is only one active sperm donor covering the whole of Scotland.

"We have known of clinics, such as one in Aberdeen, that had to turn people away due to a lack of donors."

Seenan said it was difficult to pin the blame entirely on the legal change. But she added: "As soon as the Government started to talk about stopping anonymous donation, donors stopped coming forward.

"They didn't know whether the law would be retrospective. As it is, it only affects new donations after the law came into force.

"We need a campaign to recruit more donors and to make them aware that they don't have any financial or moral obligation.

"No donor would have any obligation to a child born as a result of donation to a regulated clinic."

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, who regulate fertility clinics, believe the lack of donors was more likely to be down to a shift in the kind of people donating.

Spokeswoman Vishnee Sauntoo said: "It's no longer medical students in their early 20s that donate.

"It's now people who are in their late 30s and early 40s who have completed their families."

She insisted evidence of a single donor in Scotland was "anecdotal" and had not been proved.

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