At the Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council (EPSCO) in Luxembourg on Friday 20 June, several health ministers raised the issue of an international limit on the number of offspring conceived from a single donor.
Acko Ankarberg Johansson, the Swedish minister, said that the four national ethics councils in the Nordic countries recommend setting an international limit on the number of children that can be conceived from a single egg or sperm donor. “The cross-border use of gametes must be agreed at European level”, argued Sweden (https://aeur.eu/f/hf5 ), as it raises a number of ethical and regulatory issues.
Belgium, France, the Czech Republic and Hungary supported Sweden’s requests.
The number of donations must be limited, said the Czech Republic. Hungary has recommended extending the national limit (four children per donor) to the European level.
Since 1994, France has regulated the number of children born from the same gamete donor, and since 2021 has been planning to introduce tighter control by means of a national register. “Recent reports have highlighted the limits of this surveillance because of intra-European mobility”, admitted Yannick Neuder, the French minister. He advocated harmonising European rules within the EU.
The need to limit the number of offspring from third-party sperm donations “is a sensitive and recurring concern for EU Member States and patients alike”, the Commission noted. The EU’s mandate in this area is limited to safety and quality. According to the Commission, the issue needs to be managed carefully, mainly at national level. “The EU can, however, help to raise awareness among assisted reproduction professionals of national limits on the number of offspring per gamete donor”, according to the institution.
The regulation on substances of human origin requires sperm banks to comply with the limits set by each country in which they distribute gametes.
In response to the request from Sweden and Belgium, the Commission will organise a discussion on this subject with the national competent authorities for substances of human origin and with the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology, Europe’s leading professional society in this field. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)