Dollars for Sperm

. Sperm banks take unfair advantage of colelge men.

"Mark," a 212-year-old Harvard junior, needs some extra sending money. Recently, he saw an advertisement is this newspaper and he got an idea. Why not father some children, for a fee?

The whole process is simple enough and financially, it can be very rewarding, paying up to $105 a week for about an hour's worth of work--if you can call it that.

Last Monday, Mark not his real name walked down Mass. Ave a couple of blocks toward Central Square and entered a nondescript office in non-descript building. A smiling receptionist offered him a candy heart and some forms, labeled "Donor Application."

Most of the questions were simple: height, weight, age, and edness, eye and hair color. Some were more complicated: ethnicity, area of study, sexual orientation, number and gender of sexual partners dating back five years.

Mark returned the completed forms and received in exchange a small, sterile cup. The smiling woman directed him to a little room, sparsely decorated with a chair, sink, mirror, television and selection of recent Playboy and Penthouse magazines. Mark disappeared behind the door and switched the label above the Knob from "vacant" to "occupied."

Four minutes later, he emerged. he placed the no-longer sterile cup in a waiting receptacle, answered a few more quick questions on another form--this one labeled "Semen Analyses" and--with a quick goodbye to the receptionist, mark was off. The whole trip--the walk, the application and the session in the little room--took under an hour.

On the way back to Harvard, Mark told me that the experience was "king of fun," and he hoped to be accepted as a regular sperm donor.

Mark's story is not unusual. According to Karen D. Fox, lab manager of the California Cambridge Cryobank which Mark visited, dozens of college age men--including many from Harvard and MIT--have applied to become sperm donors in the six months the branch has been open. More than 90 percent are rejected, usually because their sperm count or motility is low, or their semen samples don't freeze well.

The Cryobank--with offices near Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley--recruits college age donors, who are paid $35 per sample. Each sample then produces several vials of semen, which are sold to infertile couples for $135-$165 each/ Vials can be ordered by catalog, using a toll-free number, and are shipped overnight. Indeed, ordering sperm from the Cryobank isn't all that different from ordering clothes from J. Crew.

Mark isn't troubled by the concept of earning money by fathering children. "After all," he says, "isn't life al about spreading your genes?" Yes, he concedes, in 30 years, when he has a family of his own, he may regret the decision But right now, he doesn't see it as morally questionable.

The Cryobank takes full advantage of this carefree attitude among cash-strapped college kids in search of an easy buck. And it sells infertile couples on the knowledge that their "high-quality" sperm comes from men educated at Harvard, Stanford, MIT and UC-Berkeley.

It seems like the perfect deal--mark is happy, the Cryobank is happy and the infertile couple is happy--perfect so long as, down the line, when he no longer needs the money, Mark doesn't regret having fathered children he will never know. There's just that one, little catch.

Stephen E. Frank's column appears on alternate Thursdays.