A Western Australian sperm donor who has fathered over 20 children and assisted up to 900 additional women in getting pregnant has landed in Queensland ahead of a “baby making tour.”
Adam Hooper, 37, made an appearance on The Sunday Project after arriving in Brisbane, where he will conduct a lecture and provide attendees with “free contribution samples” over the course of ten days.
The Network 10 hosts didn’t know how to react to Mr. Hooper’s candidness about the unconventional way of conception, including Hamish Macdonald who said he had considered donating sperm in a typical clinical environment.
‘I’ve stumbled upon this opportunity and have a chance to have a positive effect in people’s lives,’ Mr Hooper said.
‘I’m asking men to come forward and make donations. I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t donate myself,’ he said.
Mr Hooper runs the Sperm Donation Australia Facebook page which has 15,000 members as well as the Sperm Donation World podcast and associated website which sells do-it-yourself donation and artificial insemination kits for between $40 and $120.
‘I’ve created so many lives, not directly from my sperm, but from hundreds of donors all around Australia and we’ve had thousands of children born this way now.’
The hosts questioned whether Mr Hooper has any medical training.
‘We’ve got many doctors that join the group and give me that advice and I pass it on,’ he said.
‘At the end of the day I say go and see a doctor and get a medical opinion. A lot of doctors are referring people to us also, so we can’t be that bad.’
Along with the medical concerns, co-host and past Masterchef champion Julie Goodwin questioned whether anyone had backed out and changed their minds about giving and whether there would be legal repercussions associated with that.
Mr. Hooper claimed that he had not yet run into such problems.
Every year that it (the website and community) continues to exist reassures us that the system I’ve put in place is effective.
Private sperm donations are becoming more and more common because conventional contributions to hospitals can cost prospective moms $7,000 or more.
Although some jurisdictions do have rules limiting the number of households one person can donate to, the informal method of private donations is mostly unregulated.
Macdonald quizzed Hooper on whether he was concerned the children he had helped conceive, directly or indirectly, were being properly cared for and protected from abuse or violence.
‘The list of what could go wrong in just one case is daunting and you’re doing this for hundreds, isn’t that massive responsibility daunting,’ Macdonald said.
Mr. Hooper replied that he had started the group ‘in 2015 and its 2022 and we’re still yet to see any headlines about this going wrong.’
‘The family court system is full of people that have rushed into relationships and had children, so this way is a logical and safer choice for people to consider’
‘You don’t pick your husband and wife off a piece of paper you go and meet them’
‘I’ve being doing this for seven years. I screen people, I meet people, I go have coffee, I see what the family network is like and how they interact with people on social media.’
He added he has previously refused some people as both donors and recipients previously and could ‘personally have helped hundreds of women if he’s said yes to everybody’.
‘I can’t protect my children from people that aren’t related to them in the street. And in a clinic, I have no say about whether that is a good person and will raise them well.’
‘This way is real peace of mind.’
After being unable to conceive using a prior sperm donor, yoga instructor Greta French-Kennedy is hoping to become pregnant with Mr. Hooper’s contribution.
The 37-year-old said the idea of being part of a mother’s group whose children shared the same father sounded ‘amazing’.
‘I love the thought that the child can contact Adam if they want,’ she told The Courier Mail.
According to Mr. Hooper, timing issues would probably necessitate exchanging Ms. French-donation Kennedy’s at the airport.
Another woman expressed her desire for greater discussions regarding private donation in Queensland even if she would not personally benefit from the tour.
Due to a decreasing number of samples contributed during the Covid-19 outbreak, Sperm Donors Australia reported that donor sperm was “very short supply.”
While there were fewer donors, there were more single women and same-sex couples competing for samples, and clinics struggled to keep up with the demand.
The biggest IVF service in Australia, Virtus Health, started a campaign in May with the intention of promoting sperm and egg donation.
Since there is no financial incentive for donors, many people who donate sperm or eggs do so because they have experienced fertility problems firsthand.