Uses

The purpose of sperm donation is to provide pregnancies for women whose male partner is infertile or, more commonly, for women who do not have a male partner. The development of fertility medicine such as ICSI has enabled more and more heterosexual couples to produce their own children without the use of third-party gametes, but the use of sperm donation as a method of reproduction among heterosexual single women and LGBT single women and same-sex couples as social attitudes and the social/legal framework has changed has seen a rise in its use. Direct sexual contact between the parties is avoided since the donor's sperm is placed in the woman's body by artificial means (but see Natural Insemination).

Sperm donation preserves the sexual integrity of a recipient, but a woman who becomes pregnant by a sperm donor benefits from his reproductive capacity.

Donor sperm is prepared for use in artificial insemination in intrauterine insemination (IUI) or intra-cervical insemination (ICI). Less commonly, donor sperm is prepared for use in other assisted reproductive techniques such as IVF and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). Donor sperm may also be used in surrogacy arrangements either by artificially inseminating the surrogate (known as traditional surrogacy) or by implanting in a surrogate embryos which have been created by using donor sperm together with eggs from a donor or from the 'commissioning female' (known as gestational surrogacy). Spare embryos from this process may be donated to other women or surrogates. Donor sperm may also be used for producing embryos with donor eggs which are then donated to a female who is not genetically related to the child she produces.

Procedures of any kind, e.g., artificial insemination or IVF, using donor sperm to impregnate a female who is not the partner of, nor related to the male who provided the sperm, may be referred to as donor treatments.

A Swedish study concluded that 94% of potential donors would be willing to donate to single women and 85% would be willing to donate to lesbian single women or lesbian couples. A review of two studies found that 50 to 68% of actual donors would donate for lesbian couples, and 40 to 64% would donate to single women.