Rainbow Center
Every child is a little miracle! And we think that everyone should have the right to experience this miracle for themselves. Furthermore we are convinced that the wish for a child should be detached from sexuality and the gender of the parents. As a consequence, we founded Austria's first Rainbow Center in 2015 to support LGBTQIA+ couples on their fertility journey.
We are very proud to contribute to the LGBTQIA+ community with our Rainbow Center.
Since diversity and inclusion are very important to us, we are open to any couple in any constellation. Of course, there are legal framework conditions in Austria within which we are allowed to operate. These are regulated by the Austrian Reproductive Medicine Act (FMedG). This is what the treatment options for the individual patient groups currently look like:
- L... Lesbian couples have full access to the entire treatment spectrum since the 2015 amendment.
- G... Homosexual couples unfortunately have no possibility to have a child together in Austria, as surrogacy is prohibited. So currently only treatment abroad or adoption is possible.
- B... Bisexual people have full access to treatment in both heterosexual and lesbian partnerships.
- T... If the person carrying the child is with a trans woman or man, the couple has full access to treatment.
- Q, I, A, + ... Counselling sessions are available for all couples and individuals at any time - if legally permitted, we are happy to accompany you on your fertility journey!
Several times a year we organise "Rainbow Webinars", which are especially for rainbow couples and are only accessible with registration. During these evenings we will introduce you to our center, go into detail about the medical treatments and also talk about topics such as sperm donation, legal matters or psychological aspects of the fertility journey. We are very much looking forward to welcoming you at one of our appointments!
Important: The presentations are in German, but of course at the Q&A round at the end you are welcome to ask your questions in English as well!
Austria's first rainbow parade took place in 1996. Since then, it has attracted more and more visitors every year, now more than 300,000. Vienna Pride has existed since 2007 and since 2010 a Pride Village lasting several days has also been organized, usually on Rathausplatz. Under the direction of Katharina Kacerovsky-Strobl, the primary goal of Vienna Pride is to promote the visibility of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer people.
MORE INFORMATION ON VIENNA PRIDE
We are proud to have been a strong partner of Vienna Pride for 7 years - because we want to be a competent and sensitive companion for LGBTQIA+ people and groups on their fertility journey. At our annual lectures at the "Vienna Pride Medical Days" we are always happy to receive great interest from the rainbow community. You can see a lecture from 2021 (in German) here:
Sperm donors from our institute's own sperm bank
We are one of the few centers in Austria to have our own sperm donor bank. This means that we personally recruit all of our sperm donors, test them medically and also get to you know them and their character. Only when all the screening steps have been successful and the donors have convinced our IVF laboratory staff in an initial personal interview are they accepted into our sperm donation programme.
You select your sperm donor with the help of a special requirements profile in which you can list all the external (eye/hair/skin colour) and character traits that are important to you. On the basis of this profile, we select the sperm donor who is suitable for you. Due to Austrian law, the donor is anonymous until the child is 14 years old, so unfortunately we cannot provide you with any photos or personal data.
Your personal sperm donor of choice
Of course, it is also possible to bring a donor of your choice from your circle of acquaintances or relatives. This donor will be used exclusively for your treatment, which is why you also bear all the costs for the clarification of this donor. When choosing a desired sperm donor, it is important to bear in mind that from the age of 35, the amount of DNA damage in the sperm cells increases. This can lead to reduced fertility and an increased miscarriage rate. For this reason, we recommend an age limit of no more than 35 years for sperm donors.
Donors from the European Sperm Bank
If no sperm donor from the above-mentioned options is suitable for you, the Kinderwunschzentrum an der Wien also cooperates with the European Sperm Bank. In this case, the donor clarification is carried out by the ESB, the selection of the donor and the transport of the sperm samples to our center is organized by you.
The ROPA method (we call it partner donation) is a form of in-vitro fertilization that enables lesbian couples to become mothers. In this method, the genetic mother is the partner from whom the egg cell comes and the biological mother is the partner who carries the pregnancy and gives birth to the child.
In partner donation, the egg cell of the partner is fertilized with the sperm of a donor in the IVF laboratory. The resulting embryo is then transferred to the other partner. We have been performing this treatment routinely for lesbian couples since 2015, at that time still in compliance with the legal requirements (age limit, existing indication). Since 2021, we are pleased to now be able to offer the treatment without restriction to all lesbian couples, thus giving them the opportunity to experience the fertility journey together as two mamas from the very beginning.