SAN FRANCISCO - A man from the San Francisco Bay area has fathered 14 children in the last five years through free sperm donations to women he meets through his website - and is now in trouble with the federal government.
The case of Trent Arsenault of Fremont has drawn attention to the practice of informal sperm donation, which physicians and bioethicists call unsafe but some people say is a civil liberties issue.
Arsenault says he donates sperm out of a sense of service to help people who want to have children but can't afford conventional sperm banks. The 36-year-old minister's son has four more children on the way.
"I always had known through people praying at church that there's fertility issues," Arsenault said Monday. "I thought it would just be a neat way of service ...."
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration sent Arsenault a cease-and-desist letter late last year telling him he must stop because he does not follow the agency's requirements for getting tested for sexually transmitted diseases within seven days before giving sperm.
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At the time of the FDA letter, the Silicon Valley computer security specialist had made 328 sperm donations to 46 women. He can continue to donate sperm while the case is pending.
