In a comment on Family Scholars Blog, Narelle (who, I gather, was never given the opportunity to know who her biological father is) writes:
I am not saying that DC [Donor Conception] should be banned, but if it is to exist it should so via a model similar to open adoption, whereby the person born, after all this thinking and contractual agreement, is able to have the OPPORTUNITY to know their biological mum or dad. This should be a decision only the person born as a result can make, especially since their parents had a lot of time to think about what they were doing and the position they were bringing them child into.
Donor conception refers to sperm donation and egg donation (and perhaps some other procedures as well?).
I agree with Narelle; open arrangements should be the norm, and probably the legally-mandated situation. If someone can’t live with the possibility of his biological children contacting him someday, then he shouldn’t donate (or sell) sperm. (And the same for egg donation, of course.)
Narelle also asked several question intended to make readers understand her point of view as a person whose parents used DC technology. “How would you feel if the name of your biological father was sitting in a filing cabinet over the other side of the city, and only other people had access to that information, but not you? How would you feel when people ask you what nationality you are?” I’m afraid those and similar questions fell flat with me, because – insofar as anyone can predict how they’d react to hypothetical situations – my honest answer is: I wouldn’t care.
It reminds me of an “understanding transsexuals” questionnaire that was passed around a lot in the 1980s: “How would you feel if you woke up tomorrow and your body was the other sex? Wouldn’t you feel horribly wrong and out of synch with yourself?” Well, truthfully, I don’t think I would; I’d be taken aback, of course, and it would be annoying to have to deal with sexism, but I don’t think being female would inherently bother me. Being male has never been a positive or important part of my self-identity. (I’ve often wished I could switch sex back and forth, actually, but without the huge sacrifices and effort that real transsexuals must deal with).
Narelle’s questions, like the transsexual flier, miss the point. It doesn’t matter that I wouldn’t care. The point is, obviously she cares; and obviously she has an important need to know where she comes from, biologically. My lack of caring doesn’t magically cancel out Narelle’s needs.
One thing I like about Narelle’s proposal is that it leaves choice with the donor conceived person herself; if if a D.C. child prefer not to know, or simply has no interest (a possibility that discussions at Family Scholars Blog tend to brush aside), Narelle’s proposal allows them that liberty, as well.
How about infertile couples (either infertile because of something wrong, or infertile because they’re same-sex, or any other reason) who use DC technology? Don’t they have a right to keep their child’s biological origins secret from their child? No. Children are in the temporary caretaking of their parents, but in the end they belong to themselves – and that includes information about where they came from. The child’s right to know herself should supercede the desire of her parents to keep her origins secret.
I do think that both children and parents are served by laws that make custodianship clear and immutable; parents who conceived a child via sperm donation shouldn’t have to worry that the bio-father will appear out-of-the-blue ten years down the line and claim custody. And children shouldn’t suddenly have their lifelong home made insecure by a lawsuit coming from a person who has never been their guardian.
On the other hand, I would like to see more flexible and varied laws about who can be a parent. There’s no good reason that a child being raised by two mothers and a father shouldn’t have her relationship to all three of her parents recognized legally.
This exchange was also noteworthy:
Dan: Not to appear unsympathetic, but I guess the ultimate question is whether the whole debate over artificial insemination should be defined by the perceived “victim” status of children who wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the technology.
Narelle: i do not feel that i have to condone donor conception because it is what bought me life. so saying things like “whether the whole debate over artificial insemination should be defined by the perceived “victim” status of children who wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the technology” is really just insulting. so many people say well you wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for it. i know this, however that does not mean i have to think it is right. do people born from rape have to condone rape? they would not be here without it! (blunt but true).
I was leery of this analogy when I first read it; the differences between rape and DC are huge and significant, after all.
While the analogy may disturb me and others, logically it makes sense for the narrow point Narelle was making: No one is obliged to approve of the means by which they were conceived. (Many “Alas” readers made the same point, in a different context, on this thread.)
Amp said:
“I’ve often wished I could switch sex back and forth, actually, but without the huge sacrifices and effort that real transsexuals must deal with.”
Hey, me too! I’ve also wanted a totally androgynous option. Think of the insights that could be gained and the myths that could be rubbed out with this ability. In fact I think it should be mandatory that we all spend at least 6 months of our early life as the other sex. That way a whole host of ugly misconceptions can be nipped in the bud…
…lacking sleep…
The “what if you could switch sexes easily” conversation has come up from time to time before, among my friends, and, interestingly, I usually find the men like the idea of it, whereas most of the women are unenthusiastic.
Oh, and I’m included among the men who think that easily switched sex would be neat.
By the way, I was wondering if you saw any problems with non-anonymous donations. I think, to some extent, they have their own problems associated with them (though not, of course, finding out bio-paternity/maternity). I’ve seen creepily eugenicist adds asking for eggs saying things like, “woman’s egg sought: minimum SAT score: 1400. Must be slim, brunette. Jewish preferred.” etc. Overall, I think it’s true that anonymous donation is to be less preferred than named donations.
I’d think that suddenly changing sex would be an immensely disorientating and probably pretty traumatic experience. By and large people probably underrate the extent to which a lot of how they think of themselves and relate to the world is actually bound up in their body- normally we don’t notice the importance of our bodies because they don’t change very fast and tend not to change really dramatically. The whole ‘what if you woke up one morning…’ scenario pretty much relies on this idea of the body as something peripheral to identity and not something that affects it much.
I’m having trouble thinking of an appropriate analogy but the closest I can come up with are the arguments in deaf communities about hearing technologies: having a fundamental aspect of your body alter wouldn’t simply leave you unchanged and although it wouldn’t be an absolute and complete reversal in who you were, it would be pretty unlikely if you ended up as Ampersand in a female body.
Ampersand said:
“I’d be taken aback, of course, and it would be annoying to have to deal with sexism, but I don’t think being female would inherently bother me. Being male has never been a positive or important part of my self-identity.”
I do think that the old dualism of man= rational\mind and woman = body is in play here. There’s much less cultural pressure to think of men as embodied and I think that to some extent that helps men downplay just how much the body is actually really important to identity. Julian’s comment about his female friends being much less enthusiastic about the body switch idea is interesting as if you’re already aware of how important your body is to society’s perception of you as a person and your self-perception and identity (which I think women are much more aware of than men) I think you’d be much less sanguine about how easy it would be to adapt to a fundamentally different body.
Except for the medical histories of Donors (or biological parents) that may concern health or health care choices, what other information should the children of IVF or adoption have a “right” to? Why should they have a “right” to get to *know* their biological parents? I see nothing wrong with non identifying information being given out: medical histories, race, hair/eye color, etc… But beyond that I don’t see the reasoning. I don’t know what reasons a person might have for donating eggs or sperm, but being anonymous, and staying that way may have been a big factor. Maybe they just wanted to help others who couldn’t have children? And people who give children up for adoption often have very good reasons for not wanting to be traced or not wanting anything to do with the child in future.
And if it is decided that bio-parents have no right to privacy, where does it stop? Will the children seeking to *know* their bio-parents be allowed to access any information prior to the time the eggs/sperm was donated or the child given up? Will bio-parents be required to check in via a parole system in case the child wants to get to *know* them in future?
By that reasoning, shouldn’t the people who donate sperm/eggs or give up children for adoption have the right to not have a child “appear out-of-the-blue” and claim a right to *know* them? Don’t they also have a right to not have “their lifelong home made insecure” by a child they have never been the guardian of disrupting the lives they have made for themselves?
The “what if you could switch sexes easily”? conversation has come up from time to time before, among my friends, and, interestingly, I usually find the men like the idea of it, whereas most of the women are unenthusiastic.
They’re probably just thinking about that Steve Martin joke about how if he were a woman, he’d stay home and play with himself (herself?) all day.
I’ve seen creepily eugenicist adds asking for eggs saying things like, “woman’s egg sought: minimum SAT score: 1400. Must be slim, brunette. Jewish preferred.”? etc.
People apply these sorts of criteria when selecting a mate for normal reproduction too.
By that reasoning, shouldn’t the people who donate sperm/eggs or give up children for adoption have the right to not have a child “appear out-of-the-blue”? and claim a right to *know* them? Don’t they also have a right to not have “their lifelong home made insecure”? by a child they have never been the guardian of disrupting the lives they have made for themselves?
I donated eggs twice about 10 years ago. I needed the money badly. I felt no connection to the tissue I donated, I certainly didn’t think of it as potential life, given that the eggs were unfertilized and the success rate back then was so small.
I had to sign away any right or claim I possibly could assert to any child that may have come from the donations; in fact, it was understood that I would not be told of the success or failure of any IVF procedure resulting from the donation. I understood that my identity would also be protected; if there was a question of some kind of genetic problem, the hospital had my medical records and would be able to address anything from that.
I really *don’t* want some person showing up on my doorstep wanting to get to know me as their biological mother. I donated a few cells (and with considerably more pain and less pleasure than a sperm donor derives from the experience). I did not have a baby. Someone else may have done that from the donated material, but not me.
This person may feel she has a right to know the identity of her biological parents, but that right must be balanced against the privacy of the donor. I sympathize with the quest for identity, but it sounds like she’s conflating the legitimate need for medical information with the desire to know the identity of the donor and therefore to know something about her own identity.
Well, yes, but I’ve always assumed that it was because these criteria were for “people they want to spend a lot of time with, become emotionally intimate with, have sex with, etc”, and not “people whose gametes would combine with theirs to produce the [genetic] child of their dreams,” except on the subconscious evo-psych level or whatever.
Oddly enough, while I’m uncomfortable with this kind of stuff that seems to claim that SAT scores are some allele in your chromosomes, I don’t mind eugenics in gamete donation in a far more literal sense: e.g., suppose Mary has recessive cystic fibrosis, and Sarah has recessive Tay-Sachs. Suppose we have two batches of sperm, one from a man with recessive cystic fibrosis and one from a man with recessive Tay-Sachs. I see nothing wrong, all else being equal, with giving the recessed Tay-Sachs batch to Mary and the recessed cystic fibrosis batch to Sarah, so as to avoid the possibility of a homozygous child who expresses either of these syndromes.
Julian states: I don’t mind eugenics in gamete donation in a far more literal sense: e.g., suppose Mary has recessive cystic fibrosis, and Sarah has recessive Tay-Sachs. Suppose we have two batches of sperm, one from a man with recessive cystic fibrosis and one from a man with recessive Tay-Sachs. I see nothing wrong, all else being equal, with giving the recessed Tay-Sachs batch to Mary and the recessed cystic fibrosis batch to Sarah, so as to avoid the possibility of a homozygous child who expresses either of these syndromes.
sounds reasonable, sure… except when one considers what have been labelled “diseases” & “syndromes” throughout history by the powers-that-be.
all depends on who gets to do the defining, don’t it?
————————————————
gratuitous (yet entirely relevant to this point) sci-fi recommendation: Gattaca
I would say that hard as it may be to find where to draw the line, some things really are genetic diseases. I don’t think that people dread cystic fibrosis due to prejudice–it really is a traumatizing illness that kills.
i’m not denying that real diseases exist. nor am i saying that people dread Cystic Fibrosis because of prejudice…
what i am saying is that given that prejudice & disease have been such common bedfellows throughout the ages, not to mention the rich histories across cultures of mis-used science for political ends, i believe there is ample reason to be concerned when people start talking about solving problems through genetic manipulation….
of course no one wants Cystic Fibrosis, or wants their kids to have it. it’s a question, again, of what other things get rounded up under the rubrics of disease or “syndrome” (e.g. homosexuality, which has historically been considered as such, by all manner of eminent doctor & scientist – or any number of so-called “mental illnesses”).
amp: People respond to incentives. Always have, always will. Clearly a lot of egg and sperm donors find value in anonymity. If you take away the opportunity to donate and never be contacted again, then you will inevitably reduce the number of people willing to donate, probably by a huge margin. The impact that this would have on infertile couples would be huge. Further, it would result in the non-birth of thousands of children. Its sad to think of donor-produced children never knowing their biological parents, but the alternative, in most cases, if for them to never be born in the first place.
stentor: If looking for a high SAT score is eugenicist then so if the process by which most college-educated people find mates. There are not, after all, a lot of ivy league grads looking for Mr. or Ms. Right at the local union hall or truck stop. And the Jewish thing is probably because Jewish law says that children of Jewish mothers are of the tribe. Children of non-Jewish mothers are only Jewish if they convert. Its not especially creepy for devout parents to want children to be of the same religion.
Yeah, but they aren’t looking for Mr. or Ms Right the Ivy League Grad because they specifically want their children to be brainiacs. Most people aren’t looking for someone’s genetic potential so much as they are looking for someone they feel that they can share a life with.
Remind me again why I should care if people combine gametes for silly reasons? They’re gametes, not living Jews. I don’t think they care how we pick and choose.
Note that the world of Gattaca would look rather different without drug prohibition and the ensuing loss of privacy.
Tarn:
It could be. I certainly can’t deny the possibility that I’m vastly underestimating how central my body, and my sex, is to my identity.
Then again, it’s also possible that you’re projecting your own feelings about your body onto the rest of us. There’s really no way to tell.
As for men being likely to think they wouldn’t care, I’m skeptical about that. Most men, it seems to me, care far too much about maintaining their maleness. And although I don’t have a reference, I think I read in a women’s studies class once about a survey finding that more high school girls than boys were agreeable to the idea of being the opposite sex (the conclusion the WS class came to is that this shows that boys have more reason to be concerned with holding on to their current status than girls).
Mouse Hounde wrote:
I don’t think anyone has a right to “get to know” their biological parents, if by that you mean have a personal relationship with them; everyone’s biological parents are free to slam the door in their bio-children’s faces.
But I think it’s reasonable for people to want to know where they came from; not just medical facts, but also cultural background, sociological background, etc.. And whether or not you feel it (I don’t), obviously some people (I suspect a minority, but who knows?) do feel incomplete all their lives without this information.
I guess I think the need of a person to know the truth about herself, should outweigh the need of the person’s parents to keep themselves secret from her.
I’m not proposing that anyone who has already donated anonymously have their identity made available; that would be breaking the terms under which they donated, which I think would be wrong. However, I am suggesting that future donors should be made to understand, as a condition of donating (or of selling), that their identity will not be withheld from their biological offspring, should the offspring ask.
I wasn’t discussing adoption. However, since you bring it up, what about the opposite case; people who love their child but don’t feel able to bring it up, and so give it up for adoption, but only agree to be anonymous and unknown to the child because they are pressured to make that choice or not told that any other options exist?
I don’t think that slippery slopes, in real life, are usually all that slippery.
I agree. I think the way to balance that should be to 1) keep already-existing agreements to keep donors anonymous, such as the agreement you signed, but 2) not accept current or future donors unless they sign an agreement that their identity may someday be disclosed to their biological children, if the child or children request it.
I think you’re assuming a lot. There’s only one way to know for sure.
But in any case, all that would happen in the scenario you describe is that the cost of sperm and egg donations would rise until supply matched demand. Taht would be unfortunate – it would make it harder for everyone to afford using those services (and it’s already quite hard!) – but it’s not at all clear that the benefits of self-knowlege for children born of D.C. wouldn’t outweigh the harm of higher prices.
Perhaps I should have phrased my comments better:
There’s a distinction between being someone else and changing bodies, the whole ‘what if I were different’ scenario apparently operates on the basis of ‘what if I had a different body,’ whereas in practice I think it’s probably operating on the basis of ‘what if I were someone else.’ The second thought experiment is fine, whereas the first has a bunch of pretty questionable assumptions behind it. What I particularly object to is the assumption that identity is something separate from the world, that it functions as an essence independent of its representation and experiences in the world.
Whilst it is possible that I’m projecting my own feelings onto others, I’d personally feel that my own perspective has significantly more evidence (albeit evidence that doesn’t relate directly to gender change) supporting it. People react with difficulty to major shifts in the function or appearance of their bodies- lose a limb or suffer a facial accident and you’re unlikely to approach it as a simple shift. Now, I don’t want to directly analogize between damage to the body and a shift between genders, but I think it’s reasonable to accept that major (traumatic in my examples, but could be something like full body vitiligo) alterations in bodily appearance or function carry with them difficulties in adjusting and require that the individual adapt their function and relation to the world.
Secondly, whilst it’s not conclusive, the existence of so many body related subcultures and identities that are essentially founded on the function and performance of the body (certain sports, bodybuilding, the body mod community, dieting culture) would certainly seem to imply that body and identity are pretty tightly linked.
Thirdly, although it’s a slightly different argument, it’s uncontestable that the state\function of your body influences how you live in the world (you acknowledge that by pointing out the issue of having to deal with sexism.) I trust that you’d accept that your daily experiences alter your identity and how you think of yourself, so surely the implication of that would be that your identity would alter as an eventual consequence of your body altering.
Fourthly, there’s a bunch of evidence that the manipulation of the body can be used to manipulate and alter the identity of the individual. I’m only familiar with the negative side of that work, particular stuff like Scarry’s ‘The Body in Pain,’ and various other sources that look at the effects and use of torture and sexualised violence on the identities of the victim and perpetrators. Similarly, there are many neurological studies showing that injuries to the brain can bring about personality changes (the most famous one I’m familiar with is the case of a guy called ‘Phineas Gage.’) Again, it doesn’t directly analogize to a gender shift, but it’s certainly evidence that the state, function and use of our bodies matters to our identities.
Finally, pretty much the only direct evidence about gender transition we have available certainly seems to indicate that actually gender and the gendered body is extremely important to individuals. Trans people, whether non-op or not, undertake a great deal of effort to reshape their bodies to conform to their sense of themselves and take on a great deal of prejudice in the process: whilst there’s obviously a problem of using the extreme examples to model the mass of the population, the only available examples of gender transition certainly seem to indicate that the body, and specifically the gendered body, really does matter to identity.
The divide between men and women over shifting bodies probably ends up coming down to how permanent it is; if it’s something you can do occasionally or for brief periods my (purely anecdotal) experience is the same as Julian’s- men are much keener on the possibility. Make it a permanent shift and I’d imagine that the balance would probably change.
Tarn writes: Fourthly, there’s a bunch of evidence that the manipulation of the body can be used to manipulate and alter the identity of the individual. I’m only familiar with the negative side of that work, particular stuff like Scarry’s ‘The Body in Pain,’ and various other sources that look at the effects and use of torture and sexualised violence on the identities of the victim and perpetrators. Similarly, there are many neurological studies…
not to mention the effects of psychedelic drugs. a mere 100 micrograms is enough to alter an adult’s perception & sense of self-consciousness in a profound way. to give an idea of scale here, we’re talking about 1/10th of the weight of a grain of sand…
now, i know most folks drop a tab or two, watch the funny lightshow & revel in the weirdness (“dude, did you ever, like, look, i mean really look at your hands??”). but, back before they were all
demonizedcriminalized there were significant studies being done both in the governmental & private sectors that demonstrated that psychedelics could have deep & lasting effects upon people’s self-image & sense of identity.what’s that thing ol’ William Blake said about a grain of sand again?
anyways, just another example of the way in altering one’s body (in this case, the chemistry) can have effects on one’s consciousness/self.
>People apply these sorts of criteria when selecting a mate for normal reproduction too.
And that’s fine, that’s one of the main things we think about when choosing a mate, isn’t it? They marry each other, and their children are a mix of both of them. That’s so totally different from selecting a different person to be the DNA donor of your child and selecting another person to be your spouse. Those should be the same people. Sheesh…
[Thread drift]
The divide between men and women over shifting bodies probably ends up coming down to how permanent it is; if it’s something you can do occasionally or for brief periods my (purely anecdotal) experience is the same as Julian’s- men are much keener on the possibility. Make it a permanent shift and I’d imagine that the balance would probably change.
This reminds me of an interview I heard on the radio last summer. The guest was blind, and the host asked him whether, if he had the chance to be cured, would he take it? He said only if he could go back if he didn’t like it.
I’d be very curious to see what being a woman was like, but obviously that’s hugely different to a permanent change.
[/thread drift]
That’s so totally different from selecting a different person to be the DNA donor of your child and selecting another person to be your spouse. Those should be the same people. Sheesh…
Well, for better or for worse, you don’t generally find out that one or the other of you can’t contribute to the DNA of any child until long after you’ve selected the spouse.
The way my experience worked was, I signed up, did all the testing, and then the clinic contacted me when they had a match — meaning, they were trying to match the donor’s characteristics to the donee’s.
Then, Fun With Needles began!
I must admit I’m confused at this talk of self-knowledge. This is a difference scenario than adoption, wherein there actually are specific, unanswered questions bound up in that identity, namely the cliche “why didn’t my birth parents want me.”
egg or sperm donors gave up clusters of cells, not people, and more than likely, were doing so for money.
since DC is automatically sending the resulting zygotes to particular, loving families, I can’t imagine the same lack of self identity could possibly be generated than someone who bounced between foster homes.
as after-school-specialish as it sounds, the people who raise a child are that child’s “real parents.”
if the DC produced child is the first generation that worked their way up and managed to graduate from college, is it any less of a joyous occation, does it have any less significance, if the donor of the sperm or egg as a college graduate? do they cease to be “the first in their family to go to college?”
how could it possibly have any real bearing on a child if someone who donated tissue liked Nascar, sushi, and owns the entire collected works of Kraftwerk?
It seems unreasonable to me for a donor to be allowed to insist on being a part of the DC child’s life. and just as unreasonable for a child to insist on being a part of the donor’s life.
>Well, for better or for worse, you don’t generally find out that one or the other of you can’t contribute to the DNA of any child until long after you’ve selected the spouse.
You aren’t guaranteed children! You select the spouse, and then try. Maybe you have children, maybe you don’t. Maybe it’s more heartbreaking than I would understand, not really caring for kids myself (though I’m sure I’d love them if I had them), but I think then that there’s a problem with how much importance we put on having children, or on not being heartbroken or dissapointed. I think the world should accept more heartbreak and dissapointment, rather than accepting everyone’s need for self-actualization and fulfillment, which are just marketing implanted needs anyhow.
I agree with Mr. Moral! I also think that people should accept that they have no right to dictate what others do in bed, and live with the disappointment the lack of control over others’ sex lives.
Being male has never been a positive or important part of my self-identity.
I’m not sure if you addressed this, Amp, but that’s you. Gender is a very positive and important part of many people’s self-identity.
Mythago, I don’t deny that. Hopefully, it was fairly clear that I was speaking only of myself.
That’s so totally different from selecting a different person to be the DNA donor of your child and selecting another person to be your spouse. Those should be the same people. Sheesh…
Why?
This is my polite comment (see the Changing Sex Survey thread for my less polite comment) and I really want this comment to be read as very tentative as I’m conscious that I don’t want to end up telling people who they are.
Amp said:
“Being male has never been a positive or important part of my self-identity.”
But surely your gender is important to a lot of aspects of your identity that, at least from my blog-skewed perception of your interests, seem pretty important to you. For example, in the civility threads there was a lot of discussion over whether your advocacy and approach to feminism is inevitably altered by your gender- would you say your feminist identity is catalysed and transformed in important ways by the fact of your body and gender? Second (and this is something I think you’ve mentioned in other posts- the Air America ones if I remember correctly,) the fact of your maleness alters how others perceive and interact with you and what opportunities you’re offered.
Tarn –
I think you’re not distinguishing between becoming a different person and being the same person whose identity is being transformed through experience.
You suggested considering the example of people going through traumatic change – for example, losing a limb. Certainly, such events alter people’s self-understandings and self-identity; however, I don’t think that’s the same thing as ceasing to be the same person. (Who you are after a traumatic event is determined, to a great extent, by who you were before the traumatic event. I know that studies of happiness and well-being have shown that the surest predictor of happiness and well-being after a mobility-reducing accident is happiness and well-being before the accident.)
No matter what we do, our experiences affect who we are. If I change sex tomorrow, that will alter who I am 10 years from now, because my experiences over the next ten years will be that of a male-to-female transsexual. But if I don’t change sex tomorrow, that too will alter who I am 10 years from now, because my experiences over the next ten years will be that of a non-trans male. Every choice I make, including the choice of avoiding change, will inevitably bring me a different set of experiences than other choices would have.
Yet no matter which choice I make, I continue to experience a continuity of self. In that sense – no matter how changed I am by experience – I can continue to correctly think of myself as the same person. To use an extremely cliched image, changing the course of a river doesn’t make it a different river, just the same river with a changed course.
I don’t think your other examples prove much. Yes, there are some subcultures in America which identify themselves very strongly with their bodies; yet these don’t represent all people, just some subcultures. And of course taking LSD (or whatever) alters how we think and act, but that doesn’t mean that we cease to experience a meaningful continuity of identity. (Well, maybe while peaking on LSD, but that’s only temporary, and not everyone experiences it that way. And after the peak is past, meaningful continuity of identity returns.)
Yes, I agree. The experiences I’ve had as a white man have helped create who I am today. But if I changed sex tomorrow, I wouldn’t cease being who I am; I would just begin having different experiences, which would help create who I am in the future. But I’d still be “me,” in some sense. Even if I was female tomorrow, I’d still recall having been a guest on Air America, and that memory would not be a delusion, but an accurate reflection of continued identity.
Finally, I should make it clear that I’m not arguing that there’s a complete separation of body and identity. I have a hard time imagining an identity without a body of some sort; at the very least, we’d require a brain being kept alive in a jar. (Religious people would say differently, but I’m not religious). However, wihtin those bounds there’s room for a lot of physical change while maintaining a continuing identity.
I wrote, regarding people selecting a spouse for their genes: “That’s so totally different from selecting a different person to be the DNA donor of your child and selecting another person to be your spouse. Those should be the same people. Sheesh…”
Myca asked: “Why?”
Because eugenics is bad. People shouldn’t be under pressure to accept some genetically better DNA in place of their own. People should feel right about having children with the person they love and not feel that they shouldn’t have had their own child, they should have bought some better sperm.
And as to how we select a mate, let me clarify that I don’t think that a person should put a big priority on how likely they are to give you healthy children or not. The priority should be on how much you love them. But what that poster was pointing out, I think, was the fact that people do, indirectly, find healthy, smart people attractive, and I was saying that is not the same thing. Perhaps some people even reject people they think would have unhealthy children, and that is sad. But they shouldn’t feel that “hey, I can marry that person and just use someone else to be the bio parent” because it’s eugenics, it’s putting too much weight on being genetically perfect, it’s really arrogant and insulting and starts us down a very slippery slope. We should all be created equal, as the real children of the people who love each other and married.
I’m with zuzu on this one.
Also, despite the grace you show by noting that just because YOU don’t care about this stuff doesn’t mean that some people ought not care about it, there’s a logical jump made from that point that I disagree with–and that’s the assumption that because somebody wants something (in this case, to gain info about her biological parents) that they ought to have it. I want to fly unassisted. But that doesn’t mean that I ought to be able to.
For me, the burden of proof is on those who think that a child has a right to that information.
Also, I think there’s reason to be concerned for tying so much of the ‘truth’ of oneself to one’s biology, especially to one’s biological HISTORY. It’s one thing to want to know what your body is capable of and such, but it’s another to tie your identity directly to people who may have nothing more in common with you than some DNA.
Johnny Moral –
You seem to have trouble grasping that “different” is not the same as “better” if you are unable to procreate, for any reason, accepting SOME DNA and raising it as your own isn’t Eugenics.
DC isn’t eugenics any more than adoption is.
“This is the person I choose to be married to, because I find them beautiful, charming, and pleasant. sadly, they are infertile due to damage incurred in a car crash. but I know this person would make an awesome parent, and give the kind of nuturing enviroment needed to raise a great child. So we cannot produce our own genetic child, but that doesn’t mean we can’t raise A child”
your position clearly requires that people who want children MUST consider the ability to produce children as a prerequisite of relationships.
karpad, did I say adoption should be illegal? No. Did I say opening your home to foster kids ought to be illegal? No. So you can marry a car crash victim and still parent. But you won’t be able to have your own biological children. But if you knew that going into the marriage, that was the choice you made, and it isn’t grounds for divorce.
And when people choose the anonymous donor sperm they want to use, they select based on the best genes, they select eye color, etc. And the sperm bank won’t even accept people without “good” genes, free of known heriditary problems. That is eugenics.
actually, as I understand it, typically they try to select based on proximity to their actual spouse.
and even if they didn’t, it still isn’t eugenics. breeding for physical traits is, well, breeding.
eugenics is pseudoscientific, and includes factors that aren’t genetic as being “bad.”
rapists and murderers are legally entitled to donate. it isn’t weeding to create a master race, or even “better people”
in case you haven’t noticed, I take less issue with your ideas (although I obviously think you’re wrong) than the fact that you keep saying “It’s eugenics! it’ eugenics!”
“The Bell Curve” advocates eugenics. Nazis advocate eugenics.
wanting to have kids, even if you’re physically incapible, isn’t eugenics.
if a couple is infertile because of one partner, the other can go out and fuck some stranger on the street to donate genetic material. that isn’t eugenics, and really, that’s all DC is, fucking a stranger on the street.
it just more likely to actually produce a pregnancy, and less likely to result in an STD.
just thought i would say hello. i am the narelle from family scholars :) it’s funny what googling ones own name can find! i am glad to see people talking about these issues, whether positive or negative it’s much needed. so thank you!
I’m glad you posted, Narelle, because I’d missed this one the first time around, and it was an interesting thread!
On the question of parental privacy rights vs. the child’s right to knowledge in regard to egg and sperm donation…this topic comes up frequently in adoption discussions as well, and I always find it odd that it is so often presented as an “either/or.” I see no reason to dictate that all adoptions/donations must be either open or closed. Why not permit both policies as options, and let those who use these services decide which they prefer according to their own preferences?
I realize, of course, that if one believes in a fundamental “right” to know ones biological parent, then privacy policies do indeed denying the rights of the children (or, in the case of egg and sperm donation, the potential and hypothetical not-yet-conceived children). However, I don’t believe that such a “right” exists. It is the nature of life for children to be stuck with the consequences of their parents choices. Children don’t get to decide their parents’ career path, or their religion, or where they live, or any of a host of other things. Similarly, their preferences regarding privacy vs. knowledge don’t get to trump their parents’ preferences. Sucks to be a kid.
Besides, I’m never quite sure why these discussions always seem to assume that the child will grow up to value knowledge over privacy. I was adopted as an infant via closed adoption. Does it sort of suck not knowing my medical history? Yeah, I guess. Do I consider this ignorance a fair trade for freedom from worry that some complete and utter stranger is going to show up on my doorstep one day and claim to be my mother? Oh, you bet!
Mind you, I really don’t like it that women are often pressured to accede to “closed” adoption systems against their will. That’s nasty and evil. But I don’t think that the solution to the problem is to remove closed systems as an option for those who would prefer to retain their anonymity.
However, I don’t believe that such a “right”? exists
Then you’re not really balancing the debate you set out in your first paragraph; you’re simply deciding it in favor of one side and then declaring anybody who doesn’t like it can opt out.
You are not ‘free from worry’ that a stranger may show up and claim to be your mom, as I’m sure you know; it is not illegal, and it is no guarantee, closed records or no.
Just to clarify my previous post, which was rather hurried and ill-considered…
To “legally mandate” open donations as the norm, as Ampersand suggested, would be to criminalize something that is currently legal in the US.
As a general principle, whenever anyone suggests that the government ought step in to criminalize a currently-legal practice or institution, I want to feel convinced that there is a Very Good Reason (TM) for permitting the State to exercise such control. Just call me a Closet Libertarian, I guess — or maybe just a Closet Paranoid — but I don’t take criminalization lightly; seemingly off-hand suggestions that the State should step in to make this or that or the other thing illegal tend to make me feel very, very nervous.
In this case, there seem to be two Very Good Reasons (TM) on offer.
The first argument seems to rely on the notion that knowing the identity of ones biological parents is in some sense a “human right.” This argument fails for me because I don’t accept the premise: while I do think it’s nice for people to know who their biological parents are, I don’t believe that it is a right to which all human beings must be considered entitled, and which therefore must trump all other considerations — such as, for example, prospective bio parents’ desires for privacy and anonymity.
The second Very Good Reason offered seems to be the mental anguish suffered by the subset of people conceived through egg or ovum donation who will later feel harmed by not knowing who both of their biological parents were. I do feel for these people, and I don’t mean to trivialize their feelings. But put bluntly, that’s just not enough to convince me that the State would be justified in criminalizing closed donation services. We do not illegalize everything which can cause mental anguish, particularly when to do so would be to infringe on others’ choices and freedoms, thus possibly causing them mental anguish.
In short, this is just one of those cases where even I find myself thinking that governmental non-interference is the far more fair and prudent way to procede. Let donation services establish whatever policies they prefer, let them be open and honest about those policies, and then…well, how about letting the market take care of the rest?
(I cross-posted with you, Mythago)
Well, Mythago, if we wanted to play duelling “rights,” then I suppose the actual conflict would be the right to know who ones biological parents are vs. the right to buy, sell or exchange genetic material under the cloak of anonymity.
I don’t really consider either one of of those to be a “right,” honestly.
If you don’t, then you probably shouldn’t have presented them as a right vs. a right (in your second, not first paragraph, my bad) but simply said they aren’t rights at all–we just have competing interests.
To “legally mandate”? open donations as the norm, as Ampersand suggested, would be to criminalize something that is currently legal in the US.
Nope. It would simply make promises to keep adoptions ‘closed’ have no legal force. Certain exemptions would dissolve, i.e. information that is normally public, but is made private due to its being in a ‘closed adoption,’ is no longer exempted from disclosure.
Yep, you’re right. I was very sloppy. Mea culpa. But yes, “competing interests” is indeed pretty much how I parse the situation, with the caveat that these two interests are not intrinsically at odds, nor do they fall along predictable lines. In other words, not all prospective parents or donors prefer closed systems to open ones, and not all of the children who emerge from such systems favor open systems over closed ones. All too often these discussions get framed as “parents vs. children” (or, when applied to adoption law, “bio parents vs. adoptive parents”), and I guess that’s just become a bit of a pet peeve of mine. False Us vs. Them dichotomies always leave me feeling cranky. Individuals differ widely in how they prioritize these values, just as (to refer briefly to the thread drift) they differ widely in to what extent they consider their physical body or sex to be an intrinsic part of their identity.
Ah! I see. Sorry, I was really not being deliberately obtuse, you know. Just being normally obtuse. So in other words, the sperm banks could “promise” all they wanted, but their promises would be pretty meaningless (if not downright dishonest), as all they would really be saying is: “hey, we promise that we won’t be spreading any of your personal information around to our clients. But we won’t be able to stop other people from accessing the information about you that we have on file, if they really want to get at it.”
Eh. Well, that’s pretty much the status of so-called “closed adoptions” these days, isn’t it? (You’re almost certainly better acquainted with those laws than I am.) I don’t suppose those changes have caused society to collapse. I do think that they have significantly reduced the effective choices open to women who find themselves pregnant but who do not want a child, and that does concern me — but it’s also a factor relevant only to the adoption issue, not to the question of sperm or egg donation, and so pretty far off the topic. No one, after all, winds up a sperm or egg donor by accident.
The refusal to consider the possibility of multiple options when it comes to these policies does disturb me, though. Mandating closed systems was wrong-headed and problematic. Is there any reason to believe that mandating open systems is any more equitable, or likely to work out any better in the long run?
“Why not permit both policies as options, and let those who use these services decide which they prefer according to their own preferences?
I realize, of course, that if one believes in a fundamental “right”? to know ones biological parent, then privacy policies do indeed denying the rights of the children (or, in the case of egg and sperm donation, the potential and hypothetical not-yet-conceived children). However, I don’t believe that such a “right”? exists. It is the nature of life for children to be stuck with the consequences of their parents choices. ”
Where i live there is only the option of using known donors, which i completely support and think should be enacted in the rest of the world. Their should be no preference because this is a thought out and intentional creation of a child, who should have the opportunity to know of their true origins. It is in fact a right, if you have a look at the UN convention of the rights of the child (CROC) article 8 states that all children have the right to an identity, without interference from government. As it stands today legislation is keeping information about my biological father and my identity in a filing cabnet. I see this as a direct breach of CROC and believe it is every person’s right to be able to access such information about themselves. Parents should not be able to decide whether their child will grow up with a severed kinship network or not. Donor conception is different from adoption in that it is a well thought out process, no mistake that the person they are creating will have missing links.
I think that if donor conception is to continue then it ought to with the child’s best interests *really* at heart. At this point in time the infertile, or needy couple/person’s rights are still overriding the child’s. To me it is cruel to intentionally create another human being in such a way that denies them a full identity. Sure not all donor conceived people may feel like myself, or want to know their biological parent/s, however the opportunity for us to make up our own minds about who and what is important to us should be present. Of the many many donor conceived people i have spoken to and met, we all agree on one thing; the information we have been given is not enough, we all believe we deserve more, we all have more questions, than answers, which may never be fulfulled.
I understand what you mean about children being stuck with their parents choices and no one can turn back time, however my own mum for example feels as though she has placed me in an unfair situation, now that she can see the full extent of her decisions. She wishes that she had the choice to use known or anonymous sperm, she tells me if she did she would most certainly would have used known. That is not to say that herself or i wishes i hadn’t been born, as many like to put to us!
People need to be more educated on this matter, they need to listen to the donor conceived people who aren’t happy with a few pieces of non-identifying information and work towards a practice that doesn’t compromise a child’s right to an identity or family, for the desires of adults. Only a system where known donors are availble can achieve this.
Well, that’s pretty much the status of so-called “closed adoptions”? these days, isn’t it?
I was thinking more about state laws sealing records relating to adoptions, which are a different kettle of fish than sperm banks.
You know what Narelle, I am very sorry to say this so bluntly, but if the rules you would like to enact were in place, you would most likely never have been born. Our “hereness” is a mystery regardless of how we got here, and whether we know the “full story” or not — and most of us do not really understand our heritage in any meaningful way. Your quest elevates biological connection beyond all consideration of what it could possibly signify. I am most likely biologicially connected to hundreds of people in an Eastern European country and with whom I can’t imagine that I could ever feel “kinship.” The present and the future break the past into tiny pieces like a jigsaw puzzle that can never be fully assembled.
but if the rules you would like to enact were in place, you would most likely never have been born
I have heard advocates of a ban on all abortion make this argument.
Barbara, as i stated in my response to you above:
“She [my mum] wishes that she had the choice to use known or anonymous sperm, she tells me if she did she would most certainly would have used known. **That is not to say that herself or i wishes i hadn’t been born, as many like to put to us!**”
Many people like to make me aware of the fact that i wouldn’t be here without this fantastic scientific experiment, i would like to simply state as i do always, i do not have to condone donor conception because this is how i was conceived. I do not think it is too much to ask to know whom my biological father is or information pertaining directly to who i am. Considering it is being kept from me by people who ought to have thought through such ethical dilemmas, i see the practice as it stand as nothing more than a badly thought out plan. I am not asking to know all of my relatives throughout time, i am asking for some basic human rights to be recognised Barbara, and until people realise this, we have a long way to go as a human race.
“The present and the future break the past into tiny pieces like a jigsaw puzzle that can never be fully assembled.”
You are right, so do you think it is ok that clinics and governments help in the seperation of people from their family by deliberately falsifying birth certificates and keeping such information in filing cabnets, never to be seen by those to whom the information belongs? To me, it’s too much like the x files, myself and other donor conceived people are the end raw product who have just to deal with the ignorant systems that have helped to create us.
Just reading your comments about Narell,e the donor conceived person who was trying to convey how it is to be severed from a biological parent and half her family. It is a bit hard getting people to understand the prediciment of a donor conceived person. It struck me however, that perhaps if laws were changed to read that no one born on this planetwas, by law, allowed to know the identity of one biological parent and half their biological famil people might just ‘get it’.
No, I do get it. A bio parent who gives up a child, and that includes fathers who abandon their children before or after birth, or chooses never to know the child, isn’t part of your family — the web of interconnected human beings who shape your identity, temperament, world view, and ethical outlook. That is your first leap, that a biological connection with an individual automatically makes them your family. When I was a kid I felt so disconnected from my bio parents that I invented new parents for myself. The sense of disconnection and anomie that you are feeling is claiming a home in the fact that you don’t know enough about the person who contributed 1/2 of your gene pool, but I doubt that’s the real reason or that knowing more would help. I am sorry for your distress. I wish it weren’t such a conundrum and I hope you find a way out of it.
‘When I was a kid I felt so disconnected from my bio parents that I invented new parents for myself.‘
Barbara, then you will admit that you have had an experience that is not just different but totally opposite to the one Narelle is talking about, so your conclusions that she too must consider the biological connection ultimately irrelevant is even more biased in that sense.
None of us who aren’t in that situation can really fully ‘get’ it. But we can try and at least avoid pretending that everyone must feel the same about it. For us, her situation is only an hypothetical ‘what would I have felt if I were in her shoes’. But it’s a luxury, to be able to ask that question, knowing that we never were and never will be in that same situation.
By the way, I also don’t think a biological link is enough to establish a family. I think it’s something else that makes a parent a real parent. Anyone can be a great parent to anyone, even if they’re not biologically related.
However, the problem of donor anonymity is another question, it doesn’t deny that parenting is *not* limited to biology, and it certainly doesn’t require us to state that biology is enough to make someone a parent; the problem is about the rights of the children of donors to know about their biological origins, for both personal and ethical reasons, and medical reasons.
There are several situations where children never get to know their real biological parents, or even just who they are. But when a child is conceived deliberately with an anonymous donor, then it’s only fair the law should consider that problem carefully.
It sounds very dismissive to respond to a person, who has actually gone through that situation, by telling them they shouldn’t really think in those terms.
but I doubt that’s the real reason or that knowing more would help
Wow, that’s dismissive–it wouldn’t help you, so it wouldn’t help anybody else.
Naral:
That’s a really good point, Naral, and not one that I’d considered! (I’ve mainly seen article 8 invoked in relation to other issues, specifically trafficking.) The definition for this article that I’d always seen quoted describes the right to an identity as constituting the “existential interest of each person in not seeing the external or social projection of his or her personality upset, denaturalized, or denied,” and I’d never even thought to connect that with genetics!
However, when I actually went out looking for the source of that always-quoted passage, I found that later on it elaborates:
And furthermore, it looks like it does often get applied to adoption and assisted fertilization issues. I guess that does make sense: genetic heritage can play a role in the make-up of ones “cultural patrimony.”
So okay. If we accept, then, that the right to identity includes the right to know the identity of both of ones biological parents, how does that affect other issues? What would the ramifications be, for example, for single mothers who conceive naturally, but who then refuse to reveal the identity of the child’s father? It is already the case (here in the US, anyway) that the state can deny them benefits if they do so. Would their children be able to force them to reveal that information under penalty of law?
Well, no. Only a system where known donors are compulsory would achieve that.
If the right to identity constitutes a right to know the identity of both of ones genetic parents, then a system of assured anonymous donation is a violation of human rights, and it would therefore have to be done away with, yeah?
So the question isn’t really one of a choice between anonymous donation or known donation. It’s a proposal to do away with the possibility of institutionalized and assured anonymous donation altogether.
This discussion has convinced me that there may indeed be justification for such a change (which is very cool, and is a large part of why I’m on this thread at all — discussions on subjects about which I already know what I think bore me senseless), but let’s not try to make it a matter of expanding choices, shall we? What is being proposed here would in fact narrow the options, not expand them.
Not that narrowing options is always a bad thing, mind you. But it is what is being proposed here.
[RE: The “then you wouldn’t be here!” argument]
Yeah, so have I (on this very blog, in fact), and it never makes a lick of sense to me in that context either. I thought that Naral’s rape analogy (quoted by Amp at the end of the OP) was a brutally effective illustration of the absurdity of that line of argument.
Lia Vandersant:
How it is for her. And for others who share her response.
I thought that Naral was quite eloquent on the subject, and I do understand her feelings. I don’t share them, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t understand that she has them and accept them as perfectly legitimate, albeit somewhat alien to my own feelings on the matter.
Sorry, though, not everyone who has been severed from biological parents feels the same way about it. And for those of us who don’t happen to share your emotional response, the universality claim is also getting really, really annoying, ‘kay? Nobody likes having their personal experience dismissed. You don’t like it; Naral doesn’t like it; none of the women who participated on those interminable “rape culture” threads liked it; and guess what? I don’t like it either.
It’s also detrimental to your agenda. It is not necessary to claim a universality of mental anguish in order to argue that the ability to know ones genetic parents ought be recognized by law as a fundamental human right, and when you do so, you really make it a lot harder for people like me–who know perfectly well that no such universality exists- to keep anything approaching an open mind when listening to the rest of your arguments.
Noodles:
Yes, thank you, Noodles. Tell you the truth, I don’t ‘get it,’ if by “getting it” one means really understanding it on any gut or visceral level. But you know what? That’s okay. I don’t need to. I can find it personally weird and alien and hard to understand while still accepting it as a real and valid and legitimate emotional reaction that I just don’t happen to share. I don’t know why people so often seem to feel the need to claim that everyone in any given situation must have the same response to it.
Narelle.
I’m sorry for consistently spelling your name wrong, Narelle.
It’s a proposal to do away with the possibility of institutionalized and assured anonymous donation altogether.
Exactly. And I don’t see the downside–yes, it’s possible people will have unwanted contact from their birth families, but that can happen anyway. There’s no law that says if your birth mother finds you despite a sealed birth certificate, that she is forbidden from contacting you as an adult.
I agree that knowing about one’s birth family is not a universal desire. I have two half-siblings I’ve never met, didn’t know about until I was an adult, and frankly have no particular desire to meet. But there’s nothing forbidding me from knowing about them.
There would seem to be a contradiction between the rights of a woman who bears a child as a result of rape and any putative right to know one’s ancestry. Ought a child who is the product of rape be empowered to drag his or her mother back into the trauma of their past experience in this fashion?
I would imagine that for the many women who choose to bear a child after rape, and the many more women who have no option but to bear the child, the last thing they want to do is to associate that man with their family in any way. I would think they would want to put the experience firmly in the past; having their kid demanding his or her right to know who daddy was would just be a monstrous imposition.
Admittedly this is a significantly smaller group than the children of donor conception in the West, but in most of the world I bet there are more children of rape than there are “test tube” kids.
having their kid demanding his or her right to know who daddy was would just be a monstrous imposition
If Daddy’s name was in public records, the child would never have to bring the mother into it.
You do realize that your “mother’s peace of mind trumps all” argument applies to more situations than rape?
I am not making that argument, Mythago. You are racking up quite a history of misrepresenting my statements.
I think that a mother’s peace of mind ought to trump a child’s right to know their father’s identity, in cases where that is known to the mother but not elsewhere. I am more opposed to the idea that the kid has a right to know (and that the UN has anything to say about it) than anything else. Yes, if the father’s name is in the public record, then the kid doesn’t need mom. What’s your point? If the father’s name is in the public record, then nothing in this thread applies, “public” meaning what it does.
Finally, to reference the father of a rape victim’s child as “Daddy” is sickening.
Me:
Mythago:
Oh, I see the downside. The downside is that a woman who wants to give birth to a child without having a relationship with the biological father (because she’s a lesbian, because she already has a partner who is infertile, or for whatever other reason), and who is unable or unwilling to go the risky “have unsafe sex with strangers and don’t leave them any legitimate contact address” route, will now have no way to get a child conceived without all of the emotional messiness of having to deal with the sperm donor.
It’s not my ox gettin’ gored, but I guess it’s probably someone’s.
Mainly, though, I think that it’s the spectre of ugly custody disputes that really spooks people the most about open systems. I suspect that if the records were sure to be kept sealed until the child had reached the age of majority, that would alleviate a lot of people’s concerns. Grown adults may not like the idea of strange personages showing up on their doorstep and claiming kin, but they’re grown-ups; it will not kill them.
Then there’s also slippery-slope anxiety, which is probably irrational. I don’t know if I believe that this particular slope is really all that slippery. Like Robert, though, I am a little bit skittish about anything which seems to erode even further the idea that the paternity of a woman’s child is her own damned business.
Which brings us to the child of rape question…
Mythago:
Yeah, but I think Robert’s point may have been that the name still had to get in the public records somehow. And that means that somewhere along the line, the mother had to name a name. Whether she wanted to or not.
The state already demands such disclosure as a prerequisite to the distribution of benefits — a fact which I find perfectly sickening. I think that’s where the nervousness comes in here, really: if adherence to human rights demands that paternity be registered, then what does that portend for the freedom of mothers?
Like I said, though: this slope is probably really not all that slippery. Looked at rationally, it does seem quite absurd to worry that changing the rules regarding sperm and egg donation might somehow lead us straight into some misogynist distopian abyss where Evil Gubmint Officials get to yank out the fingernails of unfortunate pregnant women one by one until they finally gasp out the fathers’ names.
Some slopes just aren’t that slick.
Robert said:
Yes, it is. So I wondered why you used it. I respect that you pointed out your mistake.
You’re quite right. Completely missed it. (The beam in your own eye…)
My bad.
You have an interesting definition of ‘misrepresent’, Robert.
If the father’s name is in the public record, then nothing in this thread applies, “public”? meaning what it does.
Why, yes, that’s the point, isn’t it? A closed adoption or a sealed record is what we’re talking about here, i.e. the situation where information that would otherwise be available–a biological parent’s name–is kept officially secret. Nobody is arguing that a biological or adoptive parent should personally be forced to disclose that information to the child. The issue is to what degree the government protects such disclosure, e.g. a child in an ‘open adoption’ can look up the records of the adoption; a child in a ‘closed adoption’ can’t.
If a mother’s peace of mind trumps all, then let’s allow mothers to seal records when a father abandons her, when he turns out to be a jerk, when he committed suicide and left the family penniless, etc. etc. If “mother’s peace of mind” is the only criteria, I suspect the father’s-rights type would have another issue about which to complain.
And thanks for admitting your mistake. I used the term “Daddy” purely because that’s the term you yourself used in your post.
You have an interesting definition of ‘misrepresent’, Robert.
No, it’s pretty much the standard one. When I say “A” and you come back with a counterargument that begins “According to Robert, ABCDEFG”, that’s a straight-up misrepresentation.
Your history of pretending not to get that continues, as well.
Nobody is arguing that a biological or adoptive parent should personally be forced to disclose that information to the child.
If a child of rape has the “right” to know his or her parentage, and the mother is the only person who knows that – which is the case in a distressingly large percentage of such tragic situations – then yes, that is exactly what is being argued.
Perhaps nobody has acknowledged that, or perhaps people who argue for an absolute right on the part of the child haven’t thought the implications through. Which was the point of my comment – to note that such a right would create a requirement for women to reveal information that they might not wish to. Elkins accurately characterized the scenario I had in mind.
If a mother’s peace of mind trumps all…
Haven’t said that. Didn’t imply it. Specifically disavowed it.
And yet your argumentation from that misrepresented statement continues.
And thanks for admitting your mistake.
You’re welcome. Reciprocation?
No argument here, but this probably happens all too often. In cases where husband has raped wife, and wife gets pregnant. Is it illegal in all of United States? I checked my law, and was quite shocked to find out that the law criminalizing the rape of wife was set up in Finland… at 1994! *hangs head in shame* Um, like ten years ago it was legal! (And legal or illegal, I think studies show that it’s still too common everywhere)
Now, what choice does a woman have in situations like this, if for some reason it is very difficult to leave? Seems to me that in those cases the child knows the father and even calls his/her father “daddy”.
Curiously, I agree with Robert’s point of view on this issue.
I think that a mother’s peace of mind ought to trump a child’s right to know their father’s identity, in cases where that is known to the mother but not elsewhere.
How is that not “mother’s peace of mind trumps all”?
The question in the post title above says “should anonymous egg and sperm donation be legal”. So the context is already specific.
That question has nothing to do with rape, either.
Plus, the UN convention of the rights of the child that Narelle cited is not a requirement to specify paternity even in cases of rape. Don’t laws in the US allow for paternity unknown? Where I live, it’s up to the father to acknowledge paternity as declared by the mother, if he refuses, the mother has recourse to the law and a judge can enforce DNA testing (I thought that was the same over there?); in the opposite cases, where the mother refuses to acknowledge paternity, she’s perfectly free to do so, and in the case where a rape occurred and was reported, no judge has ever been known to enforce paternity acknowledgement. No known rapist has been known to demand paternity acknowledgement, either.
That is a pretty extreme case in which it’s obvious the anonymity of biological paternity is very much in the interests of the child, not just the mother’s. No child born out of a crime needs to know that. That is indeed one case where it makes ethical and legal sense to trump the ‘right to know’, because that right is not a mere technical requirement. It is a right, and in a situation where it is in conflict with an evidently bigger right – to wellbeing, in this case – and it’s a right for the very same person – the child – then it has precedence. Anonymity in that situation is obviously a benefit.
But again, this has nothing whatsoever to do with the question of anonymous sperm donors (or adoption).
To answer the title question: Yes. I think it should be legal. Children do have right to know, as long as knowing doesn’t force the mother to tell things she might want to keep for herself.
If there is a right to know – except in case of rape – kind of law then the child will at least know that father was a rapist if he/she asks about him (if the paternity can be kept secret by the mother in only that specific case). Therefore specific cases, or one special case, would be very unfair to the mother.
Also, I think the need to know one’s biological parents is brought on by culture, as in friends etc. asking about “REAL parents”. I hate the dichotomy biological parenthood=real parenthood, adopted parenthood=some bums who happen to provide a home when growing up. (Ok, that is slightly exaggerated).
Doh. I meant that it should be anonymous, period, not just when mother doesn’t want to tell (as in anomymous sperm donation).
Yes, I brought up my personal experience not to DISMISS Narelle’s (which I did not mean to do and if I seemed to I apologize), but to suggest that it is unlikely that one’s personal pain is universal, and in that context, therefore untenable to use that pain, however authentic and justified by circumstances as a basis for (a) claiming the universality of one’s experience and, even worse (b) seriously limiting the rights and life choices of others, many of whom really and sincerely do not share Narelle’s feelings of loss as a result of not knowing a second bio parent.
It is one thing to adopt a rule prospectively so that those who agree to donate understand that they will not necessarily remain anonymous. However, it is another to revoke the anonymity of those who were assured that their identity would not be disclosed. This is a fairness issue, and I realize that Narelle did not choose to have an anonymous sperm donor as her second biological parent, just as adopted children did not choose to be conceived or adopted, but none of us chose our life circumstance. The choices, bad and good, that our parents made on our behalf that we strongly object to later don’t necessarily serve as an a priori justification for trammelling the expectations of all parties involved in the original transaction. Calling it a right will not make the fallout less painful or upsetting.
In addition, the government is not impeding identity (as it did when it required the sealing of adoption records). Nearly every case of anonymous donation is carried out through a series of contractual commitments by the donor, the recipient, and the entity that arranged the donation (usually a clinic).
Requiring the unveiling of identity of sperm and egg donors, either past or future, would have definite policy implications, particularly for gays seeking to give birth (as a class), and it would basically obliterate the possibility of sperm and egg donation as a fertility treatment for nearly everyone, gay or straight. I can envision circumstances in which such a rule could be as unintrusive as possible — such as requiring a certain level of genetic information along with a biography, without necessarily providing a name. Most egg donors provide this already as a required part of the egg donation process.
I can also envision a process by which donors and donees could contribute to a donation database, such that if they did not object to being identified and located, meetings (and the circumstances under which they could take place) would be facilitated. Donors may change their minds over time, and may not object to meeting an adult in the same way that they would object to meeting a child who might be making claims for emotional or material sustenance. But I think that everyone needs to ask themselves: what could an individual child claim in the way of knowledge and information from such a donor? What continued level of involvement could be claimed, in addition to knowledge? I don’t ask this as a way of making a slippery slope argument, but as a way of framing policy choices — a parent with no rights also has no obligations. At some level, the voluntariness of the exchange serves important goals as well, and should not be excluded as a policy choice. A parent who doesn’t want to meet you doesn’t have to tell you anything — reqiring a meeting and an exchange of information would have serious liberty implications. We don’t require that now even of known biological parents.
I can’t tell you how many times over the years I have listened to converted female pro-life advocates who earnestly told me that unless I had had an abortion I couldn’t possibly understand why abortion is so evil and should be made illegal. I know that their trauma is not universal and it annoys me to no end when they need to assuage their pain by advocating solutions that will hurt third parties whose contrary views are just as sincere. In my view, it seems that Narelle is making the same kind of argument, letting her genuine feelings of pain serve as an exemption from addressing the complexities of the policy that she is advocating, and the choices that she is cutting off for other people.
However, it is another to revoke the anonymity of those who were assured that their identity would not be disclosed.
If this assurance was wrongly given, should it still be preserved.
Robert, when you say X, and I point out that X logically implies Y and Z, that’s not “misrepresentation.” If you reply that in fact you don’t support Y and Z, I believe you, but it’s hardly misrepresentation to note that your assertion X may apply to situations you’d rather it didn’t.
Haven’t said that. Didn’t imply it. Specifically disavowed it.
Whether or not you said, implied or avowed that–and I’m willing to believe your intent was to do none of those things–as noodles already explained, the statement I think that a mother’s peace of mind ought to trump a child’s right to know their father’s identity, in cases where that is known to the mother but not elsewhere certainly means that the mother’s peace of mind is the paramount concern in cases that have nothing to do with rape.
mythago, the assurance wasn’t wrongly given at the time. In retrospect you may view it as being wrong, but that isn’t the same thing.
By “wrongly given” I mean “an irreversible guarantee.”
Requiring the unveiling of identity of sperm and egg donors, either past or future, would have definite policy implications, particularly for gays seeking to give birth (as a class), and it would basically obliterate the possibility of sperm and egg donation as a fertility treatment for nearly everyone, gay or straight.
Well, refusing the unveiling also has policy implications. That’s kind of a non-argument. I don’t see how it would ‘obliterate’ sperm and egg donations, any more than open adoption ‘obliterated’ adoption as some predicted it might.
[I]By “wrongly given”? I mean “an irreversible guarantee.”?[/I]
Is the following “an irreversible guarantee”?? If so, is it “wrongly given”?
“No […] ex post facto Law shall be passed. “
mythago, adoption is a different process. Once you are pregnant you have to do something with the baby and circumstances are whatever they are, which obviously makes adoption the best alternative for some people. No one has to “do something” with sperm or egg that would not otherwise become independent human beings who must be tended to one way or another. So the possibility that the birth mother might be contacted one day by the child probably does not figure as strongly into her determination of what to do, given other more pressing considerations, such as the expense of daycare, completing college, and so on.
And I do think it would be interesting to study the effect of open adoption on a parent’s willingness to give children up for adoption. In all likelihood, so many other changes have occurred over the last 30 years (legality of abortion, acceptability of single parenthood) that it would be difficult to do. Arguably, open adoption increases the likelihood that a woman would agree to give a baby up for adoption, because it doesn’t feel so irrevocable and gives her a greater degree of control, even if she doesn’t “use” it.
Donors of sperm and egg are less likely to feel the same emotional investment in the project than a biological mother who actually gives birth. Donors are probably, overall, somewhat altruistic, though typically they are paid. This is all just to say that there are some meaningful differences between donation and adoption so the two shouldn’t be viewed as identical.
And, at least as far as the recipient is concerned, so far as I know, many assume that some day the anonymity of the process may be thwarted. Egg donors, at least, are explicitly asked if they are willing to be contacted in the event of medical need. Many say yes.
And I do think it would be interesting to study the effect of open adoption on a parent’s willingness to give children up for adoption.
Yes. And it would be interesting to study the effect of choices of ‘open donor’ policies on people’s willingness to use donor eggs and sperm. But it’s no more sensible to predict doom for donor disclosure policies than it is to say (as some have) that open adoption will lead to record numbers of abortions.
Of course they are not identical, but neither are they totally dissimilar. If egg donors willing to be contacted doesn’t destroy egg donation, how can we assume that openness will destroy the ability of same-sex couples to have biological children?
In England and certain other European countries, only known donors are permitted and nearly everyone therefore goes to Spain and the Ukraine, also South Africa, or even the U.S. (many more $$) for treatment, where anonymous donors are available. Known donation will reduce the incidence of donation. You don’t have to wait and see what will happen.
But if donors are willing to be contacted in the future, I certainly have no issue — right now, there are egg recipients who will only deal with donors that they can meet, and who are theoretically willing to be contacted, and vice versa, but there are many who feel the opposite, and others who are theoretically willing, maybe, someday, but not at this time. Some women are willing to meet prospective parents but don’t want further contact.
I don’t necessarily agree that an individual has an ironclad “right” to know — well, I don’t even exactly know what — this has all been so abstract — about the source of the egg or sperm. Medical information seems important, but you don’t need a name for that, what else should someone have a right to know? To a current address and phone number? Is it just a name? Because the donor’s name will never occur on a birth document, it’s not like adoption, where there is an original birth certificate with the original parental information.
And most of all, it bothers me that this whole subject seems to exacerbate the unfortunate tendency to see parenthood in terms of biology. When we argue every which way upside down and backwards in many other contexts that it’s not about biology. A lot of male and female donors donate because they don’t plan to have children themselves and figure that they shouldn’t waste their potential if someone else can use it but they don’t see themselves as becoming parents so much as lending someone else the tools to become parents. Actually, it’s kind of an interesting subject to study, the psychology of donors. They almost certainly don’t see parenthood the way Narelle sees it.
“No […] ex post facto Law shall be passed. “?
The definition of an ex post facto law
To back up, Robert, I have never intentionally misrepresented you. (If you’re not willing to give me credit for integrity, at least give me credit for not being dumb enough to use such a lame and easily-spotted rhetorical trick.) I am certainly willing to apologize for any occasion where I’ve unintentionally misrepresented you, but again, I think you are stretching the definition of ‘misrepresented’ here.
Is the link to the definition of an ex post facto law broken? or is it just my setup which is faulty?
Well, I certainly don’t think changing the rules would be an ex post facto law! No more than changing the zoning rules, etc. Ex post facto laws are quite rare and usually involve making conduct retrospectively wrongful. I’m not a specialist in the area, but I’m pretty sure lifting anonymity of donors wouldn’t be unconstitutional.
Medical information seems important, but you don’t need a name for that, what else should someone have a right to know? To a current address and phone number? Is it just a name?
Barbara, I can think of another kind of need to know aside from medical reasons. Biology is related to ethnic origins, too. The search for one’s roots is one of the reasons people may feel the need to embark on searching biological parents they never met, or even just go researching their ancestry. Maybe this is less of an issue in egg and sperm donation. I don’t know. But it’s a possibility.
In any case, none of us can say for sure which ‘need to know’ motive is more or less important to the person who feels that need. (Aside from medical reasons).
You made good points about the difference of emotional investment between giving a child up for adoption and simply donating your sperm or eggs to a clinic, and the fact that parenting cannot be reduced to biology. I agree on that.
However, you are only considering the point of view of the donors. What you criticise in Narelle’s comments, you’re doing it from the opposite position.
The ideal solution is to find a balance between their position and that of the children born out of donations. For instance, I don’t think revoking anonymity has to entail an absolute legal obligation to provide anything specific; cases will vary and it’s no use trying to find a rule to fit all. In any case, legally the donor would have no duty and the children no right to demand anything, because the donors are not the actual parents, from a legal point of view, as well. So there’s no need to imagine scenarios where children, once grown up, would demand or impose anything on the donors. Maybe most would not even want to even know anything at all about who their donors were. But it’s fair to consider if that possibility should be given to them. Adults can choose wether to donate their sperm or egg at all. Children don’t choose to be born via donors. So it can be argued that the laws that deny anonymity are correcting an imbalance.
In vitro fertilisation does create potential issues like this, and laws have to take these aspects into account, by taking all parties involved into account, not just one.
Actually, noodles, I am not dismissing out of hand the right or need to know certain types of information, and I am not looking at this purely from the perspective of the donor. I simply think that the amount of information that one ought to have a “right” to know is very limited, and it is possible in many different contexts to transmit that information without necessarily providing explicitly identifying information. I question the need to know identity. That’s not exactly the same as questioning the need to know information.
I do think that a voluntary exchange would be a good thing — people who want to know each other should be able to find each other more easily. In that framework, a child would have the right to obtain certain types of genetic and medical related information, possibly other background information, but the donor would not be truly outed unless he or she agrees. I can even imagine requiring clinics or other custodians of information to agree to make an effort to contact a donor with such a request, so it doesn’t go into a black hole. But a refusal would be respected absent a really compelling reason (like medical need). Although even then, I’m not sure I think the latter would be a good idea — after all, if the donor isn’t required to help (which he or she is not) even in pressing medical circumstances, a refusal would be unfortunate but not illegal. And truth be told, I am quite sympathetic to biological parents who don’t wish to meet the children they gave up for adoption. Your parents (real or whatever) can refuse to have anything to do with you once you are an adult. Surely we don’t intend to give donors and birth parents fewer rights, when they relinquished or never even agreed to assume any right or obligation with respect to the child? (Of course, children also have the right to reject parents, much to the consternation of many parents.)
No matter which side pervails, case by case determination would be a nightmare. Society really needs to decide up front. Also, the idea that you need to know in order to know your ethnicity, okay, if there’s anything that REALLY bugs me more than the biological construct of parenthood it’s the biological construct of race and ethnicity. That it would be interesting to know — okay, no argument there, but for heaven’s sake, that ought not to be the standard.
Weird. Try this, hun:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/lexicon/ex_post_facto.htm
Thanks.
“Ex post facto is most typically used to refer to a law that applies retroactively, thereby criminalizing conduct that was legal when originally performed. ”
The keyword for me is ‘retroactively’, as in “the State revoking a promise”. It might not be about criminalizing conduct in this case (although I can imagine situations where it could lead to effective ‘criminalization’), but the basic notion is the same: changing the rules of the game after some people already placed their bets.
Doing away with closed adoptions (or anonymous donations of reproductive tissue) is a question of policy; one can agree or disagree with such a policy (change). Doing away with closed adoptions (or anonymous donations of reproductive tissue) _retroactively_ is a travesty, IMO.
[For some strange reason my IE 6 doesn’t display the little help about embedded codes for italics/bold etc.; could someone put them in a post? please?]
Barbara, I get your point about the difference between needing to know information vs. identity. Fair enough, you’re right, one could argue all kinds of useful information like medical can be passed on without revealing the identity of the donor. But you are still considering this only from the perspective of the donors, when you say they “shouldn’t be outed” unless they agree. So basically they have all the power to decide something that another person will have to simply accept. It’s only up to them. Why assume the other person, the child that will be born, should simply have no option? That’s not taking into account all the parties involved.
You may think the potential motives to want that other option to know about the donor are futile, or wrong, or get on your nerves, but that’s a bit of stretch from saying the law should establish that for everyone.
I am quite sympathetic to biological parents who don’t wish to meet the children they gave up for adoption.
Yes, absolutely, but for one thing, as you said yourself, adoption is different, and anyway, for both adoption and donation, information about identity doesn’t necessarily have to mean being legally required to *meet* the children.
The law recently introduced in the UK to remove anonymity, for instance, does specifically exclude any legal or financial obligation (and it’s not even retroactive).
It simply works the same way as for adoption, people will be able to trace the identity of their biological parents but if the latter don’t even want to meet them, then they won’t have to.
Your parents (real or whatever) can refuse to have anything to do with you once you are an adult.
Yes, but for instance where I live legal parents, biological or not, are legally required to support their children financially until 18 or until the children are self-sufficient. It’s also illegal to disown a child. But that is only for parents legally recognised as such, so it doesn’t apply to biological parents in adoption or donation. Donors and birth parents do not have any legal status as parents.
But as for the right to refuse to have anything to do with children in terms of meeting them, that applies to birth parents too, even when you revoke anonymity.
So don’t confuse lack of anonymity with legal obligations – the two do not go together.
No matter which side pervails, case by case determination would be a nightmare. Society really needs to decide up front.
Exactly, but what I meant by “cases will vary” was simply that some children will want to know the identity, some others won’t. But again take the laws in UK, they do not allow for any case by case determination in *legal* terms. They simply give the option to the child to have the identity of donors disclosed, no more than that. There is no room for any other legal demand.
Also, the idea that you need to know in order to know your ethnicity, okay, if there’s anything that REALLY bugs me more than the biological construct of parenthood it’s the biological construct of race and ethnicity.
First, I didn’t speak of “race” but ethnic origins; secondly, while it’s obvious that parenthood is something you do, not just or necessarily something you are, so biology doesn’t have to do anything with it, ethnic origins do have an obvious element of inheritance, and if I was born in a white anglo family in a predominantly white anglo environment, because I’m not a white anglo, I may want to know about my ancestors a bit more. And I don’t care if you think that’s a futile wish, many people have it, many people on the other hand won’t; we cannot decide for everybody that “it ought not to be the standard” to be able to research that information. We should give that *option* to choose to the person directly affected, no more and no less than that.
(PS: note that saying “have an element of inheritance” does not strictly equal “biological construct of”, as there are obviously elements of ethnicity that are cultural and social too, but for the most part it is different from parenthood where the biological element can be absent altogether.)
noodles, the reason why it’s only up to them is because, well, it is up to them, unless you foresee permitting the breach of all kinds of perfectly normal privacy expectations that people may have regardless whether they choose to donate egg or sperm. For instance, I don’t have a right to see my parents’ or grandparents’ medical records, and if they are ashamed about some aspect of their medical information (like, I don’t know, having given birth to a child with an inherited disease who died young and who I don’t know about, or a family history of mental illness) I can’t force anyone tell me no matter how useful it is to me. Most of the records here are, in fact, medical records, not legal records (such as a birth certificate) that a third party would normally never have a right to access.
It’s up to them because in a civilized society, all relationships are, at their core, voluntarily accepted by parties to the relationship. The only exception here is parenthood, guardianship, or spousal relationships, in which the parties voluntarily assumed legal obligations. Even these can be relinquished. So when you say that anonymity and legal obligation are different things, you are both right and wrong. They may not be the same, but they are closely related. One wouldn’t even be discussing the policy of breaking anonymity if one did not accept that there is some “obligation,” however limited or inchoate, that the anonymous person assumed by choosing to donate that transcends his or her interest in maintaining anonymity. The issue is, what is that legal obligation, what kind of information would be subject to mandatory disclosure, and how and when would it be imparted? But don’t say that there is no legal obligation under discussion. Of course there is, that’s the whole point.
And, in fact, it is not only up to the donor. A donor who changes his or her mind and wants to find the biological child who doesn’t want to be found has no legal right to do so. Now, you can say, at least that donor made a choice at the outset, and that’s true, that’s a difference, however, the reason why I keep talking about the donor is because that was the issue under discussion. But if you ask me, then clearly, the child who doesn’t want to be found is also exercising a choice, and that choice should be equally respected, no matter how compelling the need for his or her information. For instance, more than one donor might be motivated to find a “lost” biological connection if the donor subsequently had a child who developed a disease requiring the donation of tissue from a close family member. Or the donor’s child might be motivated to find that sibling (a sibling who also didn’t make a choice). And so on.
So I would respect a choice of anonymity by both donors and their offspring, if that wasn’t clear, and further, I would definitely respect mandating all donors to provide information on ethnicity, medical background, and so forth, at the time of donation. But I don’t accept that divulging identity is unrelated to the concept of legal obligation, however de minimis we choose to make it. If you press me, I think that there may be ways to make the practice much less objectionable (like waiting until the child is age 18, divulging no more than would be on a birth certificate, which is to say, name). But if I had my preference, I would stick with voluntary exchanges, and I would even strongly encourage such exchanges, and require affected parties to facilitate them when requested to do so. I think they would be more meaningful while still balancing the rights of parties.
As for the biological construct of race and ethnicity, well, the point is that ethnicity is a social and cultural construct. Like I said early on, I am related to hundreds of people in an Eastern European country with whom I have less in common than my colleagues at work who share nothing of my biological ancestry. From my perspective, the tyranny of ethnic determinism is already overbearing, so I rarely see that it’s a “good” thing to encourage the concept of ethnic identity. I certainly don’t see it as being essential.
i forgot to mention that last year i found out i have 7 half siblings (as well as my sister whom i grew up with, also a half sibling) as a result of my father’s donations as well. we are not allowed to know eachother… this is another barrel of worms and pain for myself. the implications of these practices go far beyond myself and carry over to my children and so on.
Barbara i am not on this crusade because of my own personal pain and loss, it was the initial spark, however i am active in this area because i feel that we owe it to future generations to think more carefully into how we bring them into the world. I do not and will not ever understand the justification on purposefuly creating another human being whom i know may have any of the feelings that i do. Amongst all the donor conceived people i have spoken to, met, read about, seen on tv, (i would say around 50+) we all want more information and i would say that the majority of us disagree with anonymous sperm donations. Policy in this area should reflect the best interests of the unborn child.. even though it supposedly does already. I disagree that it is a bad thing to limit people’s choices in this area. There should be no choice. And i believe that this current trend around the “right to reproduce” is not one at all. No one’s rights should take away another person’s rights out of wants and needs… what i mean is that the ‘right’ to reproduce and have children, should not interfere with a person’s birthrite to know of their own origins.
I am currently studying social work so that i can go on and help in the support people like myself do need. I feel very passionately that donor conception is a very bad experiment, whose consequences will appear times a million one day.. with any movement, it takes the voices of many, many whom tell of their anguish before anything is really addressed. (eugenics was thought to be a great idea back in the day, but it wasn’t a good idea, was it?) This i believe will be the sad story of those conceived via anonymous ‘anything’.
http://www.tinpot.org/rel
but the basic notion is the same: changing the rules of the game after some people already placed their bets.
The “basic notion” is not at all the same. Ex post facto laws are prohibited because they’re simply a way to punish people who obeyed the law at the time. Changing the rules even though people may have depended on them, reasonably or not, is not illegal (and when you think about it, shouldn’t be).
noodles, the reason why it’s only up to them is because, well, it is up to them, unless you foresee permitting the breach of all kinds of perfectly normal privacy expectations that people may have regardless whether they choose to donate egg or sperm.
Barbara, I don’t see that kind of slippery slope argument applying here at all.
If I donate egg or sperm, it’s my specific choice, and for instance laws in UK now specifically require me to renounce anonymity; I can either accept that condition and donate, or refuse it and not donate. No one forces me to do anything.
If on the other hand someone takes my name, address, phone number, medical history, job history, family members names, and all kinds of other private information about me and publishes it somewhere public without telling me and without getting my consent, that’s not a choice I’m making, that’s a breach of privacy.
Requiring donors to not be anonymous is not a breach of privacy, because donating is an action one knowingly takes, with full knowledge their name will be disclosed if required. Being unwillingly subjected to a breach of privacy is not the same thing as knowingly consenting to something where they tell you upfront that part of the deal is that your anonymity is not granted.
(Besides, anonymity and privacy are not exactly the same thing. Consenting to the requirement that your name may be disclosed is not the same as granting full access to your private life and facts about you, or even granting the demand to meet you in person. Even with the new UK law, as far as I know there is no legal requirement for donors to interact with the children at all.)
For instance, I don’t have a right to see my parents’ or grandparents’ medical records, and if they are ashamed about some aspect of their medical information (like, I don’t know, having given birth to a child with an inherited disease who died young and who I don’t know about, or a family history of mental illness) I can’t force anyone tell me no matter how useful it is to me.
True, but again, that’s a different situation from the one we’re talking about. First, I think that by medical information about donors what’s meant is, normally, what is already being asked before the donation process will suffice; in case there should be an extra specific need that arises later, I guess the clinic will have the possibility of tracing the donor and providing more information. I’m not sure how laws differ on this.
However, in any case, again it’s not something being forced on anybody, it’s something that will be established quite clearly *before* making the donation, and the consent will be required *beforehand*.
It’s completely different from the example you’re making.
It’s up to them because in a civilized society, all relationships are, at their core, voluntarily accepted by parties to the relationship.
Indeed, but what about the other party in question in this specific situation – the children? The donors voluntarily relinquish any legal rights on them, which is only fair; they also have a right to refuse any personal contact, which is again fair for the situation; but if you allow anonymity, then the children are being forced to relinquish even that minimal right to know about the identity of their biological ancestry – a right or wish that, again, you or I or anybody may consider entirely futile or illogical or biased, but one of the arguments that led to the UK change of laws is that we cannot impose that decision a priori on everybody. It has to be voluntarily decided by the individual children (some will want to satisfy that right, some won’t); and it is also voluntarily *consented* by on the part of the donors, who are being asked beforehand.
I’m not defending retro-active removal of anynymity, by the way. Just so it’s clear.
The issue is, what is that legal obligation, what kind of information would be subject to mandatory disclosure, and how and when would it be imparted? But don’t say that there is no legal obligation under discussion. Of course there is, that’s the whole point.
Well you can’t say “of course there are obligations”, if you’re still asking the question of which obligations precisely are being set…
In the UK, the only legal obligation, under specific prior consent, is to have your name disclosed when required later. I am not aware of *any* extra legal requirement apart from that. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but since donors are not legal parents, I don’t think it would even be legal to require anything more than the identity to be revealed. Here’s a link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4397249.stm
A donor who changes his or her mind and wants to find the biological child who doesn’t want to be found has no legal right to do so.
Agreed, and that’s what the UK laws also acknowledge, and I think it’s fair.
Now, you can say, at least that donor made a choice at the outset, and that’s true, that’s a difference, however, the reason why I keep talking about the donor is because that was the issue under discussion.
Well yes, but it’s impossible to separate talking about donors from talking about children conceived via donation.
The whole point of the discussion on anonymity is about both parties involved…
But if you ask me, then clearly, the child who doesn’t want to be found is also exercising a choice, and that choice should be equally respected, no matter how compelling the need for his or her information.
Absolutely, I agree. (I guess you thought I’d disagree on this, but I really do agree!)
But that difference you acknowledge, that a donor made the choice to donate while the child didn’t choose to be born from donation, is fundamental. The situation is not specular. The laws deny the donor the ability to trace a child because the donor already has made her or his choice when donating, they already consented to relinquising that ability. But obviously children never consented to relinquishing the opposite ability, of at least being able to trace the identity of the donors.
So you have a disparity. Which can happen even in other parent-children relations that have nothing to do with IVF. A father can disappear and never be traced again, if the children are adults, he has no obligation. A child can be told his father is someone who isn’t his actual biological father, and if he doesn’t find out, he’ll never know. This can be a big deal or not, depending on the specific situation. Laws don’t enter into this territory because it’s personal. No law forces a parent to reveal the identity of the other biological parent of her child. With IVF from donors it’s still personal, but it is different, because it is a situation where the biological parent is by necessity, deliberately and openly, another person from the actual legal parent right; it doesn’t just happen, it doesn’t only happen between two or three individuals; it happens between two or three individuals and a clinic and doctors and a whole process that is already being legiferated upon. So it’s fair for laws to take into account the situation of the children.
. If you press me, I think that there may be ways to make the practice much less objectionable (like waiting until the child is age 18, divulging no more than would be on a birth certificate, which is to say, name).
But that is *exactly* what I’m talking about, Barbara, no more than that. And it is exactly what laws in UK establish. Only a name, and only after children turn 18.
But if I had my preference, I would stick with voluntary exchanges, and I would even strongly encourage such exchanges, and require affected parties to facilitate them when requested to do so. I think they would be more meaningful while still balancing the rights of parties.
That’s a good point, and I agree if by “exchanges” you mean something involving an actual meeting, I do believe that has to be entirely voluntary.
As for disclosing only a name, however, even if on the outside it may seem pointless, well I think if the principle is to apply at all it has to apply for everybody. It would be unfair otherwise.
Besides, the whole process *is* still voluntary at the root, and if a donor’s objection to disclosing one’s identity is stronger than the desire to donate, then they will simply not donate.
There is an interesting quote on that link from the BBC site where they mention the effects in Sweden, which had already introduced a law similar to the UK, revoking anonymity for donors – they saw initially the rates dropped, then the profile of donors simply changed, from younger students to older men who already had children. It’s still early to tell about the effects in the UK.
God, that was long… Sorry!
Like I said early on, I am related to hundreds of people in an Eastern European country with whom I have less in common than my colleagues at work who share nothing of my biological ancestry.
Fair enough, I’m not saying it has to be *the same* for everybody. Obviously it varies from person to person. I agree culture is far more important than mere biology, no question. In fact, biology can have little or even nothing to do with ethnicity per se, as a cultural community. Then again I take this all for granted because for me biological, cultural, social origins have been one and the same.
But if I’d been conceived via IVF, born to a white anglo family in a Scottish village, well, just a look in the mirror would leave me a bit curious to say the least.
From my perspective, the tyranny of ethnic determinism is already overbearing, so I rarely see that it’s a “good”? thing to encourage the concept of ethnic identity. I certainly don’t see it as being essential.
Well, I don’t know what you mean exactly by “tyranny of ethnic identity”, to me it’s simply part of personal identity. I don’t pretend everybody to feel the same about that, but I also wouldn’t want someone to decide for everybody that it doesn’t matter *at all*.