Life frozen in time

When the deposit is in cold storage but the fees are not paid

The world of sperm donations and in vitro fertilization is a legal and ethical minefield that can test the finest minds, and many issues that on the face of it seem simple can be tricky to deal with.

One of these is what is to be done when a man who seems to be intent on procreating some time in the future dutifully hands over his semen to a bank but then fails to pay the fees for storage when the time arrives.

Of course, no sperm bank will offer its services unless a client has signed an agreement making it clear that failure to pay the appropriate fees on time will give the bank the right to dispose of the sperm.

In the case of the sperm bank in Beijing, clients have 90 days to pay their fees or face the consequences, in this case two employees authorizing the destruction of the sperm with the permission of the center's director.

But making money, let alone trying to get recalcitrant clients to pay their fees, seems to be the last thing on the minds of many sperm bank directors.

Liang Xiaowei, director of the sperm bank in Beijing, says her major business focus will continue to be sperm donation, and she prefers to serve cancer patients with the limited resources she has.

"Money is not my main concern. I wouldn't be interested in a fertility preservation service even if it brought me 50,000 yuan (more than $7,000) per healthy client, unless the storage facilities are upgraded and the regulations are improved."

Jiang Xianglong, head of the Jiangxi sperm bank, says that half of his long-term clients do not pay.

"There is really not much I can do. Though a client never shows up to pay the fee, I still dare not destroy the sperm in accordance with our agreement. The only thing I can do is ask the client to pay everything back if he ever comes back to use his sperm."

Jiang speaks of one client who made a deep impression on him. The man, a mid-level manager at a local company, deposited his sperm in 2011 and paid for six months' storage, but Jiang has never received another cent even though Jiang and his colleagues call the man every couple of months asking for the money. The client always politely says he will pay, but never does, Jiang says.

Jiang says that what he finds particularly intriguing - and irksome - is that a year does not go by without the man sending him new year's wishes.

Jiang says that what he signs with clients are agreements rather than contracts. Most sperm banks in China are public institutions that are part of the government, and they cannot act as independent legal entities, he says.

"If we destroyed a client's sperm we would feel really bad about it. And we can't afford a customer coming to us and making a scene about it. What if my boss blamed me for the problems?"

However, Zhu Wenbing, director of the Hunan sperm bank, says his team would not hesitate to take a client's sperm out of the liquid nitrogen if he did not honor a deal.

Zhu has a much bigger team than most of his peers, in part because the sperm bank he chairs is not a government-subsidized institution, but a private company that is part of a hospital. Unlike most other banks that contact clients once a year seeking the fee, his team calls clients every month, charging 150 yuan for 30 days.

"It's been a long time since we had someone who failed to pay," Zhu says. "We've reached the point where I would say that even if someone occasionally forgets, we would continue the service."