Cryos New York: Cryos New York Sperm Bank

Scandinavian Cryobank sells sperm in 40 different countries, charging the U.S. equivalent of $275 for one injection of potent sperm delivered in a sealed plastic straw. On average, across all age groups, it can take up to 13 straws to conceive a child. In Denmark, there are 250 donors. Some begin donating in their 20s. The cutoff age is 40. The average donor continues in the program for five years, and can provide sperm several times a week. They get about $80 a straw.

If their sperm doesn't sell, they are removed from the donor pool, Rodgaard said. He added that each donor on average is responsible for conceiving 20 to 30 babies throughout the world.

Marketing to Americans

While Denmark has its range of ethnic groups, the company has selected only 50 sperm donors for the United States, based partly on ethnicity but also on stringent New York laws written to protect the health of the embryo. Last week, U.S. federal guidelines on donor sperm procurement went into effect with similar rules on how to conduct medical exams to protect against transmission of diseases.

The classic Danish look - tall, slender and athletic with soft facial features, light skin, small nose, blue eyes, fair hair - is the draw, Rodgaard said. Many donors have blond hair, but an equal number have light brown hair. “Redheads aren't big sellers,” he added.

While the company charges one price for all its donors, a number of U.S. companies charge more for sperm from a donor with a post-doctoral, medical or legal degree.

“Companies are putting a price on what someone does for a living,” said Dr. Daniel Kenigsberg, director of Long Island IVF. “That's absurd.”

“What is needed is a healthy donor,” said Dr. Jamie Grifo, director of reproductive endocrinology at New York University Medical Center. “There's no evidence that because some guy made it through college that his offspring will.”

Health remains a key issue. Scandinavian Cryobank keeps track of genetic malformations and in 2004 reported seven potential problems internationally. Most of the donors were disqualified. One case was a donor who carried a gene for a rare degenerative brain disorder called Canavan disease, which is potentially fatal. He was allowed to contribute his sperm to a couple who already had one healthy child from his sperm donation.

The company also tracks the donor history to ensure one man's genes aren't being spread too often in a particular region of the world.

That sperm banks are now expanding the information on their donors to include everything from physical traits to personality and temperament raises a number of issues that infertility specialists and ethicists say must be addressed.

“It's one thing to choose Danish sperm because that is what the men in your family are like,” said Kenigsberg. “That would be an appropriate sperm donor. But what if the family characteristics are entirely different? There is something creepy about this when people are attempting to have children who are so different from what they are like.”

“And what if the child doesn't grow into the Viking he or she is intended to be?” added Dr. Robert Klitzman, co-director of Columbia University's Center for Bioethics and author of “Moral Secrets: Truth and Lies in the Age of AIDS.”

“The child may be seen as a commodity. It's disturbing. It could be psychologically difficult for the child. And where does it end?”

Both Klitzman and Kenigsberg believe that people have the right to identify preferable genetic characteristics and choose from a gene pool close to their ideal. “But as all parents know, there are no guarantees. An athlete can have a child who is an artist,” Kenigsberg said. “A brilliant parent can have a child of average intelligence. We can all have children who are handicapped. There shouldn't be an implication that the use of a particular sperm donor will deliver offspring who are superior.”

In Denmark, the only information that can be doled out to clients is donor height and weight, Rodgaard said. But at the U.S. office of Scandinavian Cryobank, parents-to-be can receive an extensive three-page profile of any donor. They get to know resting heart rate, skin tone, hair texture, hande

At 5-foot-11, Arnt has straight blond hair and blue eyes. He swims, runs, skis on water and snow, and works out. A law student, the 28-year-old describes himself as easygoing, a creative perfectionist with a good wit, an extrovert.

He's not advertising for a girlfriend. His sperm is for sale. Arnt is one of 50 men from Denmark whose sperm sits in one of three metal vats in Manhattan - waiting for a couple or a single mother desperate for a baby. In this case, a Viking baby.

The company, Scandinavian Cryobank, has been in business in Denmark for almost two decades. It takes credit for 10,000 babies worldwide. Two years ago, the company opened a New York office and began marketing Scandinavian sperm to infertility doctors and their patients with a sleek albeit controversial slogan: “Congratulations, it's a Viking!” Another advertisement shows a blond, blue-eyed baby and talks about his ancestors who beat Columbus to North America. “You'd better build a strong crib,” the ad boasts.

Stereotypes for sale

While some think pursuing the fantasy of a near-perfect child smacks of eugenics, Americans are finding ways to attempt to give birth to designer babies - whether through sperm from blond-haired, blue-eyed athletic Danes or by taking ads out in Ivy League college newspapers looking for an egg donor with high SAT scores and varsity team record.

The freedom to choose the kind of child one wants, as opposed to a child who perhaps more closely resembles oneself, could create “consumer eugenics,” said Jonathan Moreno, an endowed professor of biomedical ethics at the University of Virginia. “We have cultural stereotypes. Blue eyes, light skin and height are valued. It would be a historic irony if we all ended up looking like that.”

It's not clear how many people are opting to create Viking babies. The company provides international statistics only. While it is selling a specific set of physical features, other sperm sellers have tried enticing with other traits.

In the 1980s, a retired optometrist opened the “Repository for Germinal Choice” in California. Its owner, Robert Klark Graham, touted Nobel Prize-winning sperm - stocked with intelligence genes - although on record there was only one Nobel Prize winner, William Bradford Shockley, who contributed sperm, said Alta Charo, an endowed professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin.

She met Graham in the 1980s when the federal government paid for her to tour sperm banks throughout the country. She said the one-man company is no longer in business and the Nobelist's sperm was never used. What Charo remembers most about the business was that “very few women used the donor sperm even though he gave it away for free.”

About 5 million people in the United States are infertile, and half seek treatment to have a baby. Donor eggs are used by about 10 percent of couples in treatment. By law, the use of donor eggs, which can't be frozen, is reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While there are strict guidelines for screening the health of donor sperm, there are no government mechanisms in place to track actual use of the sperm, which can be frozen and stored for decades.

Scandinavian Cryobank says it is the first international sperm seller in the United States. Claus Rodgaard is the manager and chief executive of the company's two-person Manhattan office. He smiles up at blond, blue-eyed babies in oversized photos on the walls who look, well, just like him.

“They are just so damn cute,” he said.

No matter for debate Rodgaard believes that a person's choice in a sperm donor is just as personal as his or her attraction to a life partner.

“I don't think it is an ethical debate at all,” he said. “It is not much different than falling in love. There are thousands of donors in the world and it is more like natural selection. People shop around and look through donor lists to find someone that appeals to them. It really is so much like real life. It reflects who we are as humans.”

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