Ethics and society: Artificial insemination by donor: an alternative for single women

Artificial insemination using donor spermatozoa (AID) has beenknown as a treatment for heterosexual couples where the husbandhas been found to be infertile. The first woman without a malepartner wanting a child by AID was admitted to the fertilitycentre in 1981. In the literature, two categories of alternativerequests, i.e. those from lesbian couples and those from singlewomen, are treated as equivalent family structures since bothlack a father figure. However, single women shoulder the responsibilityfor the child's upbringing alone, whereas in lesbian couplespartners share this responsibility. Some of the objections raisedto alternative types of parenthood therefore refer more to womennot having a partner at all. Since 1981, 94 single women haveasked the Fertility Centre of the Free University of Brusselsto be considered for AID treatment. Data from this group ofalternative requests have been collected. The aim is to drawup a profile of the single women who request AID, and to makea distinction between applicants who were accepted and thosewho were refused.