2 out of 3 of oocyte donors chose identity-release at one clinic in 2025
The Shift Toward Openness: Meeting the Needs of Donors and Families in the Changing Landscape. (Alsup, 2026)
Alsup, S., Lagano, L., & Conant, J. (2026, March). The Shift Toward Openness: Meeting the Needs of Donors and Families in the Changing Landscape. Poster presented at the Pacific Coast Reproductive Society (PCRS) 2026 Annual Meeting, Rancho Mirage, CA. Abstract P76. Retrieved from https://pcrs.memberclicks.net/assets/annual-meeting/2026/Abstracts/P76_Alsup.pdf
Geographic Region: United States
Research Question: What is the trend in identity-release consent among oocyte donors at a single U.S. egg bank between 2022 and 2025, and what are the implications for recipient parent preparation and donor support?
Design: Retrospective archival study using internal records from an egg bank operated by Spring Fertility recruiting in Portland, OR, and San Francisco, CA. Data were extracted from the clinic’s own archives and covered oocyte donation cycles completed between 2022 and 2025, the period since the bank introduced identity release as a consent option. Variables extracted included donor demographics, time of consent, and the number of donation cycles completed.
Sample: 46 oocyte donors with a mean age of 26.5 years. The number of donation cycles completed per donor ranged from 1 to 6. No additional demographic information (e.g., race/ethnicity, educational background, or socioeconomic status) was reported in the abstract. Inclusion criteria required that donors had completed all steps necessary to donate gametes and had provided informed consent. No power calculation was provided.
Key Findings
Overall, 61% of the 46 donors opted for identity release between 2022 and 2026.
71% of donors who cycled in 2025 chose identity-release.
No data are reported on why individual donors chose identity-release or anonymous donation.
Editor’s Note: The abstract tells us that it’s likely more donors at this particular bank are choosing identity release over time, but not much else. We don't know whether certain donors (e.g., by age, socioeconimic status, race/ethnicity, number of cycles) were more likely to choose identity-release than others. We don't know how the clinic presented the two options to donors, or whether that changed over the study period. We don’t know what other options were available to donors in the area. We don’t know donors' attitudes and beliefs related to third-party reproduction. We don't know whether recipient parents were increasingly seeking out identity-release donors over the same time frame, which could itself have shaped the pool. We hope a more detailed picture is available in a peer-reviewed article in the future.
Limitations: The study used a retrospective design, meaning it was not pre-planned as a research study; data were collected for administrative purposes and analyzed after the fact. The sample reflects only donors who chose to donate at this specific clinic, and does not represent the full population of oocyte donors. The sample size is extremely small (N=46), making it impossible to draw statistically reliable conclusions or calculate meaningful confidence intervals around the 71% figure. This is a conference poster abstract, not a peer-reviewed journal article. The methodological detail available is limited, and the findings have not been subject to formal peer review.
Applications: A meaningful evidence base on donor attitude change would require multi-site, multi-year studies.
Funding Source: No external funding source is identified. However, all three authors are employed by Spring Fertility, the clinic whose data are being reported.
Lead Author: Shelby Alsup, PhD, is a reproductive health psychologist and clinical psychology postdoctoral fellow at Spring Fertility in Portland, Oregon, where she specializes in the psychological aspects of fertility treatment, third-party reproduction, and gamete donation. She completed her doctoral training at Pacific University in Oregon and her residency at Duke University School of Medicine. No personal connection to donor conception was identified.
Regulatory Context
The United States has no comprehensive federal legislation governing donor conception, with regulation primarily occurring at state level, creating a patchwork of laws across the country. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) provides minimal federal oversight, mainly focused on screening requirements for disease prevention.
There are no federally mandated limits on the number of children conceived from a single donor. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) recommends limiting donors to 25 live births per population area of 850,000, but this is voluntary and not enforced.
No centralized national registry exists to track donor-conceived births OR donors, making it difficult to enforce any limits in practice.
Commercial donation is permitted throughout most of the United States. Donors can be compensated for their gametes.
Access to donor conception is generally open to a wide range of individuals regardless of marital status, sexual orientation, or gender identity. Most major medical organizations support the position that fertility treatments should be available to any individual who is fit to parent.
The U.S. does not have national laws prohibiting anonymous donations, but this practice is gradually changing. Colorado’s 2022 “Donor-Conceived Persons Protection Act” (effective January 2025) bans anonymous donation and gives donor-conceived individuals the right to access their donor’s identity upon reaching age 18.
In January 2024, the Uniform Law Commission amended the Uniform Parentage Act to require disclosure of donor identifying information to adult donor-conceived persons upon request. States must adopt this amendment for it to become law in their jurisdictions.
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