Another Reason Having a Family Is More Expensive: The Cost of Donor DNA

livemint.com:

Choosing an anonymous sperm donor has never been easy. But it used to be a lot cheaper. New genetic screening and the reluctance of some would-be donors mean couples and single parents by choice have fewer options when they need help having children.

And that help can be twice as expensive as it was before 2019: often upward of $2,000 for what equates to a single attempt to become pregnant. “We don’t actually know where the end of the demand is, because we can’t keep up," says Mike Large, who helps oversee donation services at California Cryobank, one of the country’s largest sperm banks. Sperm banks and fertility experts, in light of broader acceptance of nonheterosexual parenting arrangements, say they are seeing more clients looking to use donor DNA.

LGBTQ couples make up 60% of California Cryobank’s clients, and single women make up 20%. Brown Fertility, based in Jacksonville, Fla., now works with around 4,000 patients seeking donor sperm a year, up from closer to 2,000 before the pandemic. As demand has surged, supply has plummeted.

Sperm-bank executives say they haven’t caught up after a pause in donations during Covid-19’s peak. In addition, facilities say they are rejecting more applicants with certain risk factors as genetic and psychological screening techniques have improved. Seattle Sperm Bank, another large center, now tests for 514 conditions, up from 175 a few years ago.

A discouraging factor is the prevalence of low-cost DNA tests, which have the potential to dissuade those who don’t like the idea of being found. California Cryobank and Seattle Sperm Bank require donors to leave contact info for children to access when they turn 18. The banks say some have decided against donating after learning of the