By Khalida Sarwari
For the past five years, Trent Arsenault has been giving his sperm to couples for free out of his Fremont home, but now the 36-year-old faces a $100,000 fine and up to a year in prison on a U.S. Food and Drug Administration sanction.
Arsenault is in the process of fighting the FDA’s “order to cease manufacturing” issued in November 2010, which claims that he “recovers and distributes semen and therefore is a manufacturer of human cells, tissues, and cellular and tissue-based products.”
The FDA, which regulates sperm banks, states that Arsenault has violated FDA regulations due to a “failure to provide adequate protections against the risks of communicable disease transmission.”
Arsenault was asked to stop giving away his sperm within five days or face a $100,000 fine and up to a year in prison. He could opt also to request a hearing before the FDA commissioner to overturn the order.
“Obviously I did the one that makes the most sense to me and that’s request a hearing,” Arsenault said today. “Since then it’s been a legal battle.”
His attorneys, based in Washington, D.C., are now in the process of doing just that. While Arsenault waits for a hearing date to be set, with the permission of the FDA he continues to donate his sperm to any couple that may need it.
Since the first donation in 2006, he has fathered 14 children of all races. The oldest turned 4 years old in September and the youngest is a month old, Arsenault said. There are at least four more on the way. All have been born healthy, he said.
The incentive for him, Arsenault said, is the simple pleasure in helping people.
“They’re always extremely thankful to me after they’ve had the child,” Arsenault said of his clients. “It’s nice being able to hear back from them and the comments they give on the child – ‘precious,’ ‘the joy of my life’ — that’s just a great thing, I think, to hear.”
Arsenault, who is single and has never been married, said he intends to stop making donations once he is in a relationship or gets married.
But, for now he plans to continue helping couples who can’t have children, those can’t afford sperm banks and fertility treatments, and those who just want to expand their families.
Arsenault said he typically receives requests on a weekly basis, but since Thanksgiving he has been receiving sperm requests almost daily. Clients find him through his website, trentdonor.org, or through referrals from other couples or physicians.
He has had people drive down from Sacramento, the Central Valley, and even as far as Oregon, to his Fremont home to pick up the sperm.
Prior to the transaction, Arsenault and the clients sign a contract that covers agreements between both sides. Some of the stipulations include that the couple having the baby will not hold Arsenault responsible for child support or expenses related to the child being born, and that in the future Arsenault cannot demand custody or visitation rights.
Most of his clients stay in touch, Arsenault said. Some as soon as two or three weeks after picking up the sperm, notifying him whether the insemination was a success.
About 80 percent of his clients keep him updated on how the child is doing by sending pictures when the child has a birthday, Arsenault said.
“It’s a little bit emotional to see that, but I’m just really happy for them and glad that the child is doing so well,” he said. “Maybe someday the children will contact me and will want to have some kind of meaningful relationship.”
Arsenault, who is of German, French and Irish descent, hails from Missouri where he was raised as the son of an evangelical preacher. He said he has wanted to be a donor since he was a teenager, but didn’t want to start until after settling down in a steady job. After a nearly two-year stint enrolled in the Naval Academy, he decided to leave early and begin working in the tech industry as a computer specialist.
In 2006, he stumbled upon an ad posted by a schoolteacher looking for a donor who could supply fresh as opposed to frozen sperm from a sperm bank. He responded to her request and she and her husband eventually had a baby boy. Encouraged, Arsenault responded to more ads and garnered more requests.
Being a regular sperm donor has meant a change of lifestyle for Arsenault. He gave up processed foods and dropped more than 40 pounds from his 6-foot-1 frame. He exercises six days a week and his diet now consists of organic food, smoothies twice a day, and salad with salmon for lunch.
“I hope the FDA will allow me to continue,” he said. “I know there’s a demand so I want to continue helping couples.”
