Is the promise of anonymity forever best for sperm donors? What about the children of sperm donors?
Most of the exotic reproductive technologies are unregulated and private fertility clinics like it that way. Anonymity allows them to escape accountability. After all, who wants to deal with health problems, like diabetes, that may not show up until decades later? Even more troubling is the possibility of inadvertent incest.
Like children anywhere, sperm donor children want to know where they come from. They want a more complete sense of their identity and not just on Father's Day. And there are 40,000 of them born each year
At least one child has tracked down his sperm donor father on the internet.
Britain now requires fertility clinics to register donors in a database the children can access later. But that has resulted in a steep decline in donors. I can understand why after the Swedish Supreme Court ruled that the biological sperm donor father of three children in a lesbian relationship was ordered to pay child support for all three.
The New York Times explores the issue in Are You My Sperm Donor? Few Clinics Say.
With ever more exotic reproductive technologies looming, like cloning and the engineering of traits like eye color and intelligence, some advocates for more regulation say there is a growing urgency to protect these children from what they call "genetic bewilderment." Guaranteeing children access to their genetic heritage, they say, could be the cornerstone of an industry ethics code.
"We need to get it right for donor conception," said Rebecca Hamilton, a law student at Harvard who created a documentary about searching for her donor father in New Zealand, "and use it as the basis for the million weird and wacky decisions coming our way."
Giving sperm donor children a right to access their genetic heritage is one cause I can fully support.
Posted by Jill Fallon at January 21, 2006 1:38 PM | Permalink