By Matthew Eppinette, CBC New Media Manager

Yesterday I stumbled across a post on a bicycling blog highlighting a European sperm bank’s Sperm Bike. It seems they wanted an environmentally-friendly way to transport sperm samples to various fertility clinics around Copenhagen. And someone came up with the idea of a custom designed sperm bike.

CEO Peter Bower rides the bike himself around town and he is constantly stopped by curious passersby who want to take photos of it or ask questions about the unique design.

“We’re always looking for new donors so it’s a fine bonus that the Sperm Cell Bike gets peoples attention.”, says Peter Bower.

Sure, this makes good advertising for the company. But it also makes the whole idea of using donated sperm a bit more common and a little less threatening. It strikes me that there is a touch of irony in this coming just as interest is increasing in the effects of sperm and egg donation on the children who are born as a result.

The AnonymousUs Project, for example, provides a forum for discussing a wide range of reproductive technologies and their impact on all who participate in one way or another. The Project’s founder, Alana Stewart, told us in an interview that she finds Hollywood’s depiction of reproductive technologies “humiliating and degrading.” Why? Because it makes light of what is actually a serious situation. Of course making light of sperm donation isn’t the main intention of the Sperm Bike, but it is one of the effects.

People magazine regularly features the stories of celebrities who have children using IVF, sperm and egg donation, and surrogacy. But the children born from these technologies and the women who serve as surrogates have stories too, and they’re not being told. Certainly not on the cover of the magazines in the checkout line.

We’re already at work on our next documentary (thus the interview with Alana), and these are the kinds of stories we want to tell, these are the voices we want to be heard.

Stay tuned.

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