Sperm donation is the name of the provision (or 'donation') by a man, known as a sperm donor, of his semen with the intention that it be used to achieve a pregnancy and produce a baby in a woman who is not the man's sexual partner and with whom the man does not have sexual intercourse. Attempts are made to impregnate a woman with the donor's sperm using third party reproduction techniques notably artificial insemination. A sperm donor may donate his sperm directly to recipient women, at a clinic known as a sperm bank or through a third party which brokers arrangements between sperm donors and recipient women, known as a 'sperm agency'.

Sperm provided in this way is known as donor sperm. Sperm donation commonly assists heterosexual couples unable to produce children because of 'male factor' fertility problems, but it is increasingly used as a means to enable single women (termed choice mothers) and single and coupled lesbians to have children. The sperm donor is the genetic or biological father of each child produced with the use of his sperm.

When a donor's sperm is successfully used repeatedly for impregnation in the same, or different, women, numbers of siblings and half-siblings will be produced.

Similar to 0 things you like: