Many young adults and students dream of having a family. A predictable and sufficiently stable income, early education services and versatile forms of childcare, and flexible opportunities for completing their studies are a few examples of how students with families can and should be supported.
However, not everybody can fulfill their dream of having a family. Childlessness, for whatever reason, is a delicate and painful issue that can affect your life in many ways. For example, many rainbow families are in a vulnerable position in this respect.
However, fertility treatments can help many people. To enable such treatments, outside help may be needed in situations in which, for example, owing to irregular or missing gametes, gamete donors are needed – and this is where you may be able to help!
A fifth of fertility treatments in Finland are carried out with donated gametes, but there is still a major shortage of donors. Sperm cells, in particular, are in short supply. To make the situation even worse, fertility treatments in public clinics were temporarily interrupted this spring due to COVID. Treatments have returned to normal for the time being.
Public health care has previously refused to serve female couples and single women, which discriminates against rainbow and single women. Such people were previously forced to pay for fertility treatment in private clinics until, in 2019, the administrative courts upheld a preliminary ruling that this was discriminatory. In addition, Sateenkaariperheet, for example, is an organization that campaigns actively to enable men and male couples to form families.
But who can donate egg cells and sperm? You can do so if you are in good basic health, do not smoke, are aged between 22 and 35 (for the donation of egg cells) and between 20 and 45 (for the donation of sperm) and if your close relatives do not have any serious hereditary illnesses. And where can you donate gametes? In the sperm and egg banks of hospital districts. See the websites of hospital districts for further details.
Many of us are eligible for gamete donation, which is a highly tangible way of helping many people in a vulnerable position to fulfill their dream of having a family.
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More information about sperm and egg banks, of which three have so far been opened:
