A woman in Canada visited a fertility clinic and was told she could only use sperm donors with whom she shared the same race. The lab’s decision is part of a policy that has been in place for decades and has recently prompted backlash online.
The Regional Fertility Program says it does not permit patients to use sperm donors from any race other than their partner’s or their own. Dr. Calvin Greene, administrative director at the clinic, told The Calgary Herald that the policy has been around since the 1980s and was created with the belief that “a child of an ethnic background should have the ability to be able to identify with their ethnic roots.”
But who is this clinic to determine how an unborn child should be raised or what culture it should identify with?
The woman, who is white, told the Herald she was “floored” by the clinic’s policy, particularly because it limited the pool of people who met her criteria when she was searching for a donor back in March.
Green continued, “I’m not sure that we should be creating rainbow families just because some single woman decides that that’s what she wants,” he said. “That’s her prerogative, but that’s not her prerogative in our clinic.”
Do you think the fertility clinic is overstepping their boundaries?
