Some attitudes to artificial insemination by donor.

A preliminary survey to assess and quantify attitudes to Artificial Insemination by Donor (AID) has been conducted with the aid of an article in a national magazine. The consensus of 375 individuals (mostly with a vested interest in infertility) concerning their attitudes to semen donation, hypothetical receipt of donor semen, legal aspects and the keeping of donor records, etc., have been analysed and their answers correlated to their age, sex, ethnic grouping, educational level, religion, and marital and fertility status as well as their place of residence. Within the limitations of this study, three major conclusions can be drawn. Firstly there are probably many potential semen donors in the general community and recruitment techniques need to be improved to capitalize on this source. Secondly, a centralized non-identifying National Register of donor information may be tolerated, and finally, the couples questioned felt an AID child should not be likened to one received through adoption. These and other findings would suggest that attitudes towards AID are changing and consequently some of the practices within AID programmes may need to be altered. Further statistically conducted surveys are warranted to determine these current attitudes.