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La majorité des couples procréant par don de sperme envisagent d’informer l’enfant de son mode de conception, mais la plupart souhaitent le maintien de l’anonymat du donneur

The majority of couples procreating with donor semen are considering to inform the child of the circumstances of its conception but most of them want to keep the donor anonymous

Résumé

L’anonymat du don de sperme est reconnu par la loi depuis 1994 en France, mais il a été supprimé par plusieurs pays. Nous présentons les résultats d’une étude qui a été réalisée dans 14 Cecos en 2006 auprès de 534 couples soit en phase d’attente ou en cours de réalisation de l’assistance médicale à la procréation, soit ayant déjà eu au moins un enfant par don de sperme. Les résultats sont très homogènes entre les hommes et les femmes et dans les différents groupes. Plus de 90 % des hommes et des femmes sont en accord avec l’anonymat du don de sperme, et moins de 10 % souhaitent que la loi change sur ce point. Environ un quart d’entre eux renoncerait à leur projet parental si la loi changeait. Plus de 50 % des couples envisagent d’informer l’enfant des modalités de sa conception. Près d’un tiers souhaiterait que des informations, concernant principalement la santé des donneurs, puissent leur être transmises ainsi qu’aux enfants. Les couples souhaitant devenir parents par don de sperme font une distinction claire entre l’anonymat du donneur et l’information de l’enfant sur les circonstances de sa conception.

Abstract

Semen donation is anonymous by law since 1994 in France but has been abolished in various countries. We present the results of a study that has been conducted in 14 Cecos in 2006, including 534 couples who were waiting for the assisted procreation, were under treatment, or had already at least one child with donor semen. The results were very similar between men and women and in the various groups. Over 90% of the men and the women are in agreement with donors’ anonymity and less than 10% would like the law to be changed on this point. Approximately 25% of them would give up their parental project if the law was going to change. Almost one-third would like information on the semen donor, mainly on his health, to be transmitted to themselves and to the children. The couples who plan to become parents through semen donation make a clear distinction between donor anonymity and child disclosure on its conception circumstances.

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Correspondence to P. Jouannet.

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Cecos ayant participés à l’étude: Besançon, Bordeaux (A. Papaxanthos), Clermont-Ferrand (L. Jany), Lyon (J.-F. Guérin), Marseille CHU (J.-M. Grillo), Montpellier (S. Hamamah), Paris Cochin, Paris Necker (F. Eustache), Paris Tenon (I. Berthaut), Reims (M.-C. Mélin), Rouen (N. Rives), Strasbourg (I. Koscinski), Toulouse (M. Daudin), Tours (C. Barthelemy)

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Open Access This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Jouannet, P., Kunstmann, JM., Juillard, JC. et al. La majorité des couples procréant par don de sperme envisagent d’informer l’enfant de son mode de conception, mais la plupart souhaitent le maintien de l’anonymat du donneur. Basic Clin. Androl. 20, 29–36 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12610-010-0067-2

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