Fertility clinic in Canada refuses to match white patients with non-white donors
A Canadian woman says she was shocked to find out that a policy at Calgary’s only fertility treatment center restricts patients from using sperm, eggs or embryos from donors who do not match their ethnic background.
Catherine, who asked to be identified by just her first name, said she sought invitro fertilization at the Regional Fertility Centre last March.
During routine consultations with her doctor she was told she could only use sperm from donors who were white, like her. “That’s when everything went downhill,” she told the Herald. “I was absolutely floored.”
Dr. Calvin Greene, the clinic’s administrative director, confirmed the private facility will not treat couples or singles who insist on using donors of a different ethnicity. The policy has been in place since the clinic opened in the 1980s.
“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.”
According to a statement on the clinic’s website, “it is the practice of the Regional Fertility Program not to permit the use of a sperm donor that would result in a future child appearing racially different than the recipient or the recipient’s partner.”
Greene told the Herald that doctors at the clinic feel “a child of an ethnic background should have the ability to be able to identify with their ethnic roots.”
Interracial couples treated at the facility have the option of using donors that are ethnically similar to either one of the partners.
Catherine chose a donor whose ethnicity was different than hers because he had a good health history and a compatible blood type.
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