Several Swedish conscripts who donated sperm for scientific research in the 1960s and 1970s have involuntarily become fathers. The semen of at least nine conscripts was used for inseminations at Uppsala University Hospital. The facts came to light through the TV program ‘Uppdrag granskning’ by the Swedish public broadcaster SVT. “It’s insane, disgusting,” one of the conscripts responds.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a scientific study tested the possibility of freezing sperm in liquid nitrogen without losing its viability. Conscripts who performed their military service in Uppsala were asked if they wanted to donate sperm to science. At the time, they received compensation of 50 Swedish crowns for each donation, which was equivalent to ten days’ wages.
“It was a gold mine,” says former conscript Jan Lundblad, who regularly donated sperm.
Swedish journalists have been in contact with 256 men who were serving their military service at the time. Seventeen of them stated that they had donated sperm and all but one were convinced that it would only be used for the research. To date, there have been nine known cases in which men have involuntarily become biological fathers, with a total of eleven donor children.
If I had known it was for something else, I would never have participated
Professor Carl Gemzell – now deceased – was responsible for the semen research. He was also head doctor at the women’s clinic that performed the inseminations and had his big break ten years earlier when he developed a new treatment for infertility. He collected the hormone-producing gland, the pituitary gland, from the deceased and produced a unique hormone preparation that was injected into women who had difficulty conceiving.
After working at Uppsala University Hospital, Dr. Gemzell continued his career in fertility research in the United States. He died in 2007.
It now appears that this renowned fertility doctor is partly responsible for several children who were conceived without the biological fathers being aware that their sperm cells were being used for this purpose.
“We acted in good faith”
51-year-old Teresia Jack is a donor child and the result of the sperm experiment at Uppsala University Hospital. “I am angry. We acted in good faith,” said Teresia Jack’s biological father, a former military serviceman.
Teresia was nine years old when she discovered that her father was not her biological father and that she had been conceived through insemination at Uppsala University Hospital in 1971.
The real shock came in adulthood when a DNA test revealed who had donated the sperm. The hospital had stated that the donor was a medical student, but this was not the case. Teresia Jack’s biological father turned out to be a man who served in the military in Uppsala in the late 1960s.
“If I had known it was for something else, I would never have participated. I think others would have done the same,” says Teresia’s biological father, who prefers to remain anonymous.
The man’s sperm cells have been used in several women. This makes him also the biological father of two other women. He has chosen not to have contact with them, which Teresia understands and respects. She is curious about her two ‘new’ sisters. “I didn’t have a sister and now I have two. Even if you’re 50 years old, it’s still cool,” she responded to the Swedish public broadcaster.
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