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The Vikings Are Coming

More single women are using Danish donor sperm to make babies. Award-winning film-maker Sue Bourne follows four women on the long, hard journey to create their own Viking babies.

You're in your 30s or 40s. Your body clock is ticking. You want a baby but you don't have a man. What do you do?

Growing numbers of British women are using donor sperm, with many of them turning to Denmark, the new sperm capital of the world. It has become a huge global business and is now one of Denmark's biggest exports. Each week, straws of frozen Danish sperm are shipped out to over 70 countries. Award-winning film-maker Sue Bourne's film follows four women as they try to make a baby using Danish sperm. For all of them it turns out to be an extraordinary and hugely difficult and moving journey in a world where women no longer need men to create a family.

One would-be mother describes it as being as easy as buying a CD online. Websites offer pages of Danish donors, with baby photos, family histories, handwritten letters and even voice recordings. Each straw of frozen sperm costs a few hundred pounds - it can either be shipped to a clinic in the UK or to directly to people's addresses for home insemination. Not only that, but every week women fly into Denmark to be inseminated at clinics there.

1 hour

Credits

Role Contributor
Director Sue Bourne
Producer Sue Bourne

Broadcast

The New Viking Invasion

Learn more about the astonishing rate at which sperm is being shipped out of Denmark.