‘Spain becomes the destination of choice for fertility tourists from Britain’ | “Spain has become the destination of choice for childless, infertile British couples driven to seek help abroad by a dramatic fall in the number of people prepared to donate eggs or sperm at home. Fertility clinics in Spain have told the Guardian that numbers have increased by between 50% and 100% since Britain passed a law in April last year that gave children the right to know the identity of their biological parents.

Some British donors have even offered to travel to Spain, where anonymity is guaranteed, to give eggs that could later be used by infertile women.

Spanish clinics have begun to advertise among eastern European immigrant communities for potential egg donors to help meet the leap in demand from British fertility tourists.

One clinic has distributed ads in Russian and Polish as they seek tall, fair-skinned or fair-haired European donors who look similar to their clients. They show a young woman with a pierced belly-button and a tattoo peeking out from above the belt of her jeans. “You are young and you have thousands of them,” they say. “Become an egg donor.”

“The idea is to increase the number of donors who are fair Caucasians,” said Dr Raul Olivares of the Instituto Marques clinic in Barcelona. “The flow of British clients is increasing all the time. We are OK for the moment, but eventually we might run out.” Two other Spanish clinics, in Barcelona and Valencia, told the Guardian similar stories.”

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“”We already had some British patients, but a lot more have come since donors lost their anonymity,” said David Marina of the Cefer clinic in Barcelona. “Patients are stressed and anguished by the wait.”

Dr Marina said that Spanish law explicitly protects a donor’s anonymity. “Donors do not want to be parents, they want to be donors,” he said. “If you tell them that in 18 years a young person will turn up and treat them like a parent, it puts them off.” The law is backed by the country’s highest court, the constitutional tribunal. “In Spain, donors have no rights and no obligations,” he said. “Most couples here do not actually inform the child that there has been a donor involved.””