ABSTRACT
How can one reflect on the subject of heterologous procreation? A difference has to be made between donor sperm and donor eggs. Donor sperm is conventional. Artificial insemination by a donor is the technique that marked the beginnings of medically assisted reproduction. This does not change the fact that it retains the dimension of unimaginable. What does this unknown—anonymous under current legislation in some countries—sperm donor represent? If the donation is anonymous, a distinction can be made between the secret that can be lifted and the anonymity that must be respected. Some consider sperm donation as a form of medically assisted adultery. It can, it is true, be performed easily, outside of any medically assisted reproduction, without recourse to sexuality. Sperm can even be ordered on the internet. One can also, as Jacques Testart says, proceed in a convivial way. This is a means that shows a success rate more or less equivalent to resorting to the medical technique (Testart, 2014). Some of those who were born resulting from this method demand the lifting of anonymity, the argument being that they disagree that institutional or ethical bodies should hold a secret that concerns them as individual to the highest degree (Théry, 2010). In the US organisations have even formed where 56children resulting from the same sperm lot have sought each other out to form associations between those of the same lineage.
