In September, Cryos International, the world's largest sperm bank based in Denmark with sites in 65 different countries including the United States, announced that they were beginning to turn away donations from redheads because of a lack of demand for their sperm. Ole Schou, the company's director, stated that, "There are too many redheads in relation to demand. I do not think you chose a redhead, unless the partner - for example, the sterile male - has red hair, or because the lone woman has a preference for redheads. And that's perhaps not so many, especially in the latter case."
I'm not going to lie--I laughed really, really hard when I read this. However, rejecting donations from redheads is still discrimination against a particular group of people; just as much as if the director were to replace "redheads" with "blacks" or "gays" or "asians." From a business perspective, do you think that it is alright to exclude a certain group of people if it means meeting the public's demand?
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I think that it's okay to exclude a certain group in this case being as it is rational choice and very logical. Why would a sperm bank continue to collect sperm that wasn't in demand? I mean sure we are all entitled to equal protection under the state and local governments-meaning that they cannot draw unreasonable distinctions between different groups, but in this case I don't think it's unreasonable. There is clearly legitimate reasoning behind this case, it'd be different if there was an equal demand for redheads and then excluded them. In addition, I don't think that this breaks any of their fundamental rights.
From a business perspective,I think this is perfectly acceptable. The fact of the matter is that redheads are not in demand for the business. If Cryos were to keep allowing redheads to donate, they would obviously be losing money due to the low demand. However, if redheads were high in demand, wouldn't it be safe to say that Cryos would welcome redheads? So this doesn't seem to be discrimination from the business, but rather discrimination from society. Cryos simply seems to be acting based on demand and the best interest of the company.
I find it interesting that Cryos is turning down donations by redheads, given the fact that redheads constitute about 4% of the population in Europe and around 2% globally (based of wikipedia). It would seem likely that the number of donors would be an insignificant amount and that there should be no need to turn down red headed individuals. However, it appears that the demand for sperm from red headed individuals is lower than the supply of donors for some odd reason. The gene for red hair is recessive, meaning that a red hair gene must be passed down from both parents in order to produce a child with red hair. So unless the mother has a red hair recessive gene, it would be nearly impossible to produce a child with red hair. For this reason, I find it slightly discriminatory to exclude red haired donors in light of this fact. However, unless there is a protest by a group of red headed individuals, I don't think Cryos' decision will pose any significant issues in the future.
As a redhead, I find this funny. I always hear of people wanting to die their hair red and people wanting to having that color hair. I do not think that it is wrong for a sperm donation agency to turn down certain color haired people but it is suprising to me. It is based on demand so this does think that controversal to me.
I agree with the above commenters on the point that as a business choice, this decision seems quite reasonable because it seems an unjustified burden for all parties involved if the sperm bank continued to take in sperm that was not in demand. However, I think it's interesting that the group excluded in this case is gingers - a demographic that has not exactly been hotly contended over in history. How would people react if the group were blacks or Asians, for example? Would that lead to widespread protest? I think the difference between excluding gingers and excluding certain ethnicities is that hair color is something with which people do not wholly identify as much as they do with their "cultural" identity - their race. Although both have genetic roots, hair color seems to be something that people take to be an insignificant point of identity - something that only brushes the appearance of humans and not their moral underlyings or cultural integrity.
In addition, I'd also like to point out that even though male redheads are being discouraged from donating their sperm, there is still a possibility that the offpsring will turn out to be redheads. Genetics is unpredictable, after all.
I don't think the discrimination in this scenario is coming so much from Cyros itself as it is from those seeking to conceive with donor sperm. As the article mentions, the *demand is low. I agree with Ari and Kimi--from a business perspective, this is acceptable. The company cannot help what the public wants. Just as any other business would sell more quantities of high-demand product, and less quantities of low-demand product in order to increase profits, Cyros International is doing the same. (Though, with a more ethically-controversial 'product'.)
From a business perspective, it would be wise to accept in favor of what is in high demand. From my perspective, this is completely hilarious. Like Meredith I could not help but laugh when I saw this. That being said I too think that it is more a result of what consumers want more than discrimination. Cryos has a duty (maybe more of an interest) as a business to supply what its buyers want so they can maximize their profit. Why fill up space with products that won't be sold when you could stock up on products that will be sold? I also don't believe that the consumers are discriminating any more than they normally would anyway. If you look at it a certain way, it is like looking for someone you like based on a certain set of criteria that you find alluring. It just happens to be that this process is being applied to sperm from a sperm bank.
So I found this funny at first, but then I realized that it's also a little sad. I mean, once you get passed the humor, this is kind of similar to the deal in China with people selectively aborting female fetuses because they'd rather have a son; the difference is just whether the egg has been fertilized before or after the people decide to discriminate.
People are such haters.
I think in business perspective, it is alright to turn down sperms from redheads. It is not necessary to store redhead sperms if they are not needed or in demand. Moreover, I think it is not the institution that discriminates against redheads. It is the customers or the patients. They are the one choosing and eliminating genes for their possible child. I understand that most parents want their children to have the best possible genes. However, deciding which gene is the best in terms of physical feature may cause discrimination.
Moreover, I think this process gives everyone an equal opportunity to have a child. Gay couples, heterosexual couples with fertility problems, or single women can create a family of their own. At the same time, I am also fearful about the ethical and legal dilemmas that may arise. The process of gathering the sperm, the anonymity of donors, and the regulation of the institution may pose issues regarding other human rights.
This isn't really excluding people, the sperm bank is simply not taking new donations from redheads. What they are saying is that they have huge reserves of saved redhead samples and do not need any more until demand picks up enough to exhaust their current supply. It is unfeasible for them to collect more of these donations than they need, otherwise they will just take up more and more space, and the bank is a business.
A sperm bank is not in it for altruism, but are in it for profit. Therefore they have a right to exclude certain phenotypes if it results in greater profits. For example, a horse racing owner will not hire a fat jockey to ride their horse when they know it will result in less wins and less profit overall. Hey, maybe next year there will be a shortage of ginger's sperm and too many blonde's sperm donated who knows.
I can’t help but have the same reaction that Meredith did to this article. Discriminating against redheads? At first, I was very surprised and I was wondering how others would react. To express a different view contradictory to the others posted most recently, I believe that this takes away the right for redheads to donate sperm and discriminates against this group of people. Although this may be a business decision, couldn’t they look at this as a promotional opportunity? They could market that there is a small amount of redhead sperm donors. This may make people more enticed to be a part of something not as mainstream as being brunette or blonde. And as Rebecca said, a lot of people dye their hair red because they like the color. I would have to agree, redheads have a wonderful hair color and it is very desirable. So in order to save parents the trouble and money of going to a hair salon and dying their kids hair whatever color they want (most likely red because it is so desirable and rare), they could just use sperm from a redhead donor. This could save them thousands! And just think, all that money could go to their college education. Oh if only redheads were considered a minority because they only make up 2% of the world, then they would be much more likely to be accepted and redhead sperm would be so much more valuable. Don’t discriminate because the redhead sperm isn’t in high demand. Use it to your advantage like most other companies. I mean come on, “Hershey’s Air”? Do you really think that it was created to enhance your chocolate experience? No! It was clearly a mistake in the recipe and now they are turning it into profit. Get with it Cryos.
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