In Fremont, the Food and Drug Administration has decided that one local man, a sperm donor who has fathered 14 children, should be legally classified as "a manufacturer of human cells" for his frequent gifts of genetic material to childless couples.

Rather than work through clinics or donor services, Trent Arsenault (the donor in question) runs the website TrentDonor.org where couples seeking help with their babymaking can check his medical records and request his services. But according to the FDA, those services are the sort of things that require bureaucratic oversight and government inspections. A letter from the federal agency stated that his "firm [chuckle] or establishment located in Fremont recovers and distributes semen and therefore is a manufacturer of human cells…”

Meanwhile, the 36-year-old Arsenault is baffled by the government's need to step in to his operation. As he explained to CBS5, Arsenault enters into "mutually desired partnerships with childless couples" and shouldn't be required to submit to the same standards as for-profit sperm banks. He has been donating sperm since 2004 when he read an article about a local tacher who wanted to have a baby.

His website, by the way, is incredibly entertaining. In it he details everything from his childhood immunizations to his background checks and STD tests and even photos of the most recent newborn he's sired. All in all, Arsenault says he has received over 20,000 email requests for fruits of his loins and he'll continuing donating while he waits for the FDA's official ruling on the case. At least two other women are currently pregnant with Arsenault offspring.

On the nightly news slant, here's CBS5's Dana King and Ken Bastida introducing the story:

[CBS5]
[TrentDonor.org]