There are men offering semen on social media to women who want to get pregnant. The SIC Investigation reveals real cases and the health risks of this home insemination, carried out without any medical supervision.
Hundreds of men are offering semen to women who want to get pregnant, with contacts established through groups on social media. Home insemination is on the rise, driven by long waiting lists and costs associated with medically assisted procreation.
An investigation by SIC reveals health risks and legal implications of a practice carried out without medical supervision.
The practice, which is now gaining greater expression in Portugalis already used in other countries. In Brazil, for example, some couples use social media to show how they perform the procedure.
In the United States and the United Kingdom, insemination kits are sold for home use.
The difficulty in finding solutions opened space for an underworld of possibilities. This is the case of Cryos, a sperm bank based in Denmark, which provides a donor catalog with detailed descriptions and even a family tree. The price varies between 100 and almost 700 euros per sample. In this case, exams are required from those who volunteer.
There are also apps similar to dating apps, a kind of “Tinder” for donors and women who want to get pregnantwhere it is possible to access, or not, medical exams. The type of contact is chosen by the parties: it may involve sexual relations or the so-called “cup method”.
Around the world, shocking cases have been repeated. One of the most publicized involved a donor from the Netherlands, banned by a court in 2017 from continuing to make donations, but who was only banned in 2023, at the age of 43. Authorities discovered that had more than a thousand children in several countries. The story was told in a documentary.
More recently, another case highlighted some risks. Danish sperm donor 7069 unknowingly carried a rare genetic mutation that can cause cancer. He became the father of almost 200 children across Europe. A sperm bank sold samples for more than fifteen years and it was only in 2023 that health authorities discovered the situation and blocked the use of these collections.
Problems that can worsen in the absence of greater control or monitoringas happens in home insemination.
In Portugal, for now, there are no consequences, as no complaints were filed.
- : tell us what deserves to be reported via email investigacao@sic.pt.
Technical Sheet:
- Journalist: Joana Rita de Almeida
- Image: Vítor Caldas, Caetano Jorge and João Venda
- Editing: Tiago Martins
- Graphics: Pedro Morais
- Production: Ana Marisa Silva and Mariana Óca
- Coordination: Luís Garriapa
- Directed by: Bernardo Ferrão and Marta Brito dos Reis
