List of Sperm Banks
The following banks have been found welcoming to many lesbians (although not necessarily to gay men who wish to donate sperm.)
BioGenetics Corp.
187 Mill Lane
Mountainside, NJ 07092
Phone: 908/654-8836
Fax: 908/232-211
No restrictions; open to single women and lesbian couples.
California Cryobank Inc.
11915 La Grange Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90025
Phone: 866/927-9622
Fax: 866/625-7336
No restrictions; open to single women and lesbian couples.
Cryobiology Inc.
4830D Knightsbridge Blvd.
Columbus, OH 43214
Phone: 614/451-4375
Fax: 614/451-5284
No restrictions; open to single women and lesbian couples.
Cryogenic Laboratories Inc.
1944 Lexington Ave., North
Roseville, MN 55113
Phone: 651/489-8000
Fax: 651/489-8989
No restrictions; open to single women and lesbian couples.
Cryos New York
90 Maiden Lane, Suite 302
New York, NY 10038
Phone: 866/366-6777 or 212/430-5950
Fax:917/591-4227
European Sperm Bank USA
4915 25th Avenue NE, Suite 204
Seattle, WA 98105
Phone: 800/709-1223
Fax: 206/588-1485
No restrictions; open to single women and lesbian couples.
Fairfax Cryobank, USA
3015 Williams Dr, Ste. 110
Fairfax, VA 22031
Phone: 800/338-8407 or 703/698-3976
Fax: 703/698-3933
Idant Laboratories
350 Fifth Ave., Ste. 7120
New York, NY 10118
Phone: 212/244-0555
Fax: 212/244-0806
No restrictions; open to single women and lesbian couples.
Pacific Reproductive Services
444 DeHaro St., Ste. 222
San Francisco, CA 94107
Phone: 888/469-5800 or 415/487-2288
Fax: 415/863-4358
Rainbow Flag Health Services and Sperm Bank
Address withheld
Alameda, CA
Phone: 510/521-7737
Sperm Bank of California
2115 Milvia St.
Berkeley, CA 94704
Phone: 510/841-1858
Fax: 510/841-0332
Xytex Corp.
1100 Emmett St.
Augusta, GA 30904
Phone: 800/277-3210 or 706/733-0130
Fax: 706/736-9720
Note: Only a relative handful of banks are accredited by the American Association of Tissue Banks. Not being AATB accredited does not mean that a bank is bad. When considering a sperm bank, ask the screening questions recommended by Resolve, the national infertility association.
Banks That Will Help Your Child Meet the Donor
When the first known donor insemination procedure was performed in the United States in 1884, the young woman involved was not even informed that it had been done, let alone told who the donor was. She and her husband, a Quaker merchant, had gone to the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia because they were unable to conceive, as Carol Frost Vercollone recounts in Helping the Stork. Deciding among themselves, the doctors studying the case selected the best-looking man among them and used his sperm to inseminate the woman while she was under anesthesia. They only told the husband after his wife gave birth, then continued to withhold the information from her at his request. Perhaps not surprisingly, many heterosexual-headed families maintained a tradition of secrecy over the years, withholding the information from their children that the man they knew as their father was not their biological father.
But this changed when lesbians began taking advantage of anonymous donor services. "Lesbian couples," writes Vercollone, "were among the first to question DI (donor insemination) practices offering little or no donor information and to request that banks set up identity-release options for donors willing to someday be contacted by adult children." The thinking is generally that children's access to information about, and potentially their contact with, their donor dad may be as important as it is in the case of children who were adopted. This thinking is certainly not universal. Many banks still do not provide such services at all. But some do.
If you want to make this option available for your child, ask how these different banks handle it:
