Artificial Insemination vs Donor Insemination

If you're doing research into assisted reproduction methods, you will run across the terms artificial insemination and donor insemination, and you may be a little confused. We're going to try and help clarify the terms for you:

Artificial Insemination is the most well-known term to describe insemination via non-natural methods and was used most heavily in the 60s, 70s and 80s. In the 90s it was replaced by the term "therapeutic insemination," though in the 2000s it is still widely known as artificial insemination, or AI.

AI is normally used to describe any type of assisted reproduction, but it can be misleading. For example, intrauterine insemination (IUI) and intracervical insemination (ICI) are usually assisted by a third party, but they are still natural forms of conception, e.g., the sperm swims to the egg. A method like invitro fertilization, or IVF, on the other hand, might be considered "artificial."

Thus the term artificial isemination is better used to describe non-natural techniques for insemination and can be done with a husband, partner or donor's sperm.

Donor insemination simply refers to insemination using a sperm donor, not the techniques used to perform the insemination.