A billionaire social media entrepreneur is offering to give away his sperm for free to women after having already fathered more than 100 biological children.
Pavel Durov, allegedly dubbed ‘the Mark Zuckerberg of Russia,’ is worth over £13.6 billion ($17 billion) and is currently under criminal investigation in France for child sexual abuse images, drug trafficking, and fraudulent transactions associated with his app Telegram.
Despite this, AltraVita IVF clinic in Moscow announced that women would be able to undergo IVF for free using sperm from Durov, “one of the most famous and successful entrepreneurs of our time.”
Durov has been living outside of Russia since 2014, but AltraVita IVF’s CEO Sergei Yakovenko said he has been a long-time sperm donor, selling his sperm to the business for 14 years. He is now offering to cover the costs for a “limited number” of women who choose to use his sperm. The offer is not open to women over the age of 37 or women whose health is not considered “satisfactory.”
“This is a generous contribution to society from a person who strives to help those who dream of becoming parents,” claimed AltraVita IVF. “Pavel Durov compensates our clinic for all expenses related to IVF programs where his sperm is used.”
READ: Adoption, IVF, and surrogacy: What pro-lifers need to know
To consider Durov’s offer of free sperm “a generous contribution to society” is reminiscent of the now-shut-down Repository for Germinal Choice, which was nicknamed the “Nobel Prize sperm bank” and aimed to create “super-kids.” It marketed itself as an exclusive sperm bank that used men who fit certain criteria and only allowed women who received the sperm to fit the same criteria.
Painting Durov as a fertility hero also ignores the serious negative effects that the use of assisted reproductive technology (ART) and donor sperm (or eggs) have on the individuals created. Laura Bridgens told the Independent that learning she was created using donor sperm caused a “strain” on her “mental health and wellbeing.”
Likewise, Eli Baden-Laser told the New York Times that he always knew he had been conceived via a sperm donor but that after learning he had at least 32 siblings, he felt had “a feeling of having been mass-produced.”
In addition, ‘donating’ as much sperm as Durov causes concerns of future incest cases in which siblings who do not know about each other enter the same social circles and form intimate relationships.
“We are seeing men who are donating hundreds and thousands of times. They’re doing it in small areas. They’re doing it within the same kind of years,” said Louise McLoughlin, who, at age 13, learned she was conceived using a sperm donor. “So you’re ending up with kids who are growing up knowing each other or meeting each other in later adulthood, which is just incredibly, incredibly dangerous.”
These are all examples of how unchecked the fertility industry is. “We regulate gasoline more comprehensively, driving more comprehensively. And yet, here we’re actually creating lives,” said Indiana Professor of Law Jody Madeira, who is working for increased charges and criminal sentences in cases of fertility fraud. “Our cultural orientation just prioritizes the market, and the industry, and the wishes of parents.”
“The wishes of parents” are what is driving the entire fertility industry, with little to no regard for the effects on the children children created. Durov, and his apparent desire to spread his DNA across Russia, is the latest example of the unethical nature of ART and donor technologies.
