Source: Time
Infertility stalks up to 15% of Chinese couples
China is looking for quality sperm. Ever since the nation loosened its one-child family-planning policy earlier this year, its sperm banks have reported serious shortages as couples look for ways to expand their families. Infertility stalks up to 15% of Chinese couples, according to Jiang Hui, the director of andrology at Peking University Third Hospital in the Chinese capital, Beijing, which officially unveiled a new sperm bank in August.
“We still don’t have enough donors,” he says, noting that there are only 23 legal sperm banks nationwide, with another 20 under construction — all at public hospitals. “Most families who come to us [for sperm] have to wait at least a year.”
The semen-collection room at Peking University Third Hospital is geared toward utility. There’s a portrait of a minimally clothed Western woman, a well-thumbed pornography magazine, a sofa, a sink, a box of tissues and some liquid soap. An emergency button is affixed to the wall. Each day, around 20 donors file in but only 19% of volunteers qualify for the program. Donors must be junior-college-educated men between the ages of 20 and 45 who are free of hepatitis B, a common liver infection in China. Vision problems, as well as genetic and sexually transmitted diseases, are also grounds for disqualification. Men must be at least 165 cm tall. The hospital won’t tell prospective families the donor’s IQ or education level — 90% have graduate degrees — but will give them physical descriptions, such as the man’s height, face shape and blood type.
Categories: Asia, China, The Muslim Times