Over on the Family Scholars Blog, quoting from his own article in the Weekly Standard, Brad Wilcox writes:
But there are good reasons to worry about this latest manifestation of fatherlessness. Listening directly to the voices of donor-conceived children should give us pause. Kyle Pruett, a psychiatrist working at the Yale Child Study Center, reports in a recent book that such children have an unmet “hunger for an abiding paternal presence.” He quotes one girl as saying, “Mommy, what did you do with my daddy? You know I need a daddy or I can’t be a child.” […]
But there is an even more basic reason to worry about the deliberate creation of fatherless children. The best evidence from the social sciences shows that fatherless children as a group fare less well than children reared in intact, married families…. Take crime. One study of 6,403 boys carried out by scholars at Princeton and the University of California at San Francisco found that boys raised in single-parent homes are twice as likely as others to end up in prison. Or teenage pregnancy. University of Arizona psychologist Bruce Ellis, who studied 762 girls in the United States and New Zealand, found that girls who saw their father leave the family before age six were more than six times as likely to have a teenage pregnancy as girls whose fathers stuck around through their entire childhood. Or suicide. A study of all Swedish children between 1991 and 1998 found that those in single-parent families were twice as likely to attempt suicide and 50 percent more likely to succeed in committing suicide than children in two-parent families. Note that these studies control for factors like race, education, and poverty that might otherwise distort the relationship between family structure and child well-being.
But those studies don’t control for the most important factor of all, for the argument Brad is making: whether or not a child is donor-conceived.
Although it’s certainly true that being raised by a single parent (not just single mothers) has been shown by legitimate research to worsen the odds for children, the research also shows that some children raised by single parents turn out fine. The question is, are studies about the experiences of children of single parents in general really representative of donor-conceived children of single mothers in particular? Or are those children perhaps especially likely to wind up in the “doing fine” population?
It certainly seems possible that donor-conceived children may do better than many children of single parents. Although they have only one parent, that parent – because her pregnancy had to be carefully planned – is likely to be older than the average single mother, with more resources and a better support network. And, perhaps, an on-average higher enthusiasm for being a parent.
Or perhaps not. There’s no way of knowing for sure. However, Brad’s article should have acknowledged this limitation in the data he cites.
Looking around, I found only one study focused on donor-conceived children of single mothers. Contrary to Brad’s expectations, that study found that “this route to parenthood does not necessarily seem to have an adverse effect on mothers’ parenting ability or the psychological adjustment of the child.” Of course, since that study is a long-term study that has just barely begun (the kids were only two years old at the time the most recent report was written), it’s hardly certain, either. (UPDATE: In comments, Dianne pointed out another study with similar findings, this time looking at seven year olds).
I also had a problem with Brad’s point about “listening directly to the voices of donor-conceived children.” The evidence Brad quotes appears anecdotal, and so cannot tell us how the typical donor-conceived child feels (I’ve read anecdotal accounts of donor-conceived children who said they had no problem with it). We’d need surveys of donor-conceived children before concluding that the quotes Brad provides are or are not representative.
Reproductive freedom is not a minor part of life. Before even considering a ban on donor conception, we should have solid evidence of harm. So far, that evidence is lacking.
Pingback: Life as Dad to Donor Insemination (DI) Kids
There seems to be little distingushment in anti-gay circles between donor doncived single mother households, and households in where there are two same sex parents, and the child is donor doncived.
Somehow I don’t think it would have improved the life of my fiance if his mother had stayed with his alcoholic father, instead of leaving to raise her two kids on her own…
But on the other hand, saying “some kids turn out fine” sounds suspiciously similar to the arguments that some women/black people reach high positions in business and politics, so they must not face any sort of disadvantages worth worrying about.
I agree that simply being raised by a single parent isn’t the whole story, and your arguments for why a child of a donor isn’t as likely to face many of the disadvantages that cause trouble for children of single parents make good sense to me. Like everything else, I suppose, it’s a complicated issue, and trying to boil it down to the presense or lack of a second parent is oversimplification at best.
Gosh, in a country where ostensibly-respected members of the religious community advocate (gently) beating children, where the overwhelming majority of women who become single mothers do it with Hobson’s choice or no choice at all (and get further dumped on by the rest of society), someone is taking the time to worry about the children of a particular subset of women who are intelligent, well-off and motivated enough to navigate the current set of hoops required to get pregnant by donor sperm. It couldn’t be because they’re uppity, could it?
I’d be interested in similar studies being done of kids who arrived in two-parent het households in nonstandard ways. (Assuming of course that their parents don’t simply deceive them.)
I do think that on a psychological level, children do tend to exhibit a curiosity about a missing parent, and the importance of that parent tends to become amplified in the child’s mind. However, at least donor-conceived children have the security of being attached to the biological mother who gestated them, bore them, and nurtured them. By contrast, adopted children have neither a biological mother nor a biological father, and there is persistent evidence of relatively poorer outcomes, in many cases, for these kids, even those placed in middle class families. Questions about identify, abandonment, being “unworthy,” not really belonging. And yet you don’t hear a similar right-wing fussing about adoption when adoption appears to elicit similar reactions. On the contrary, adoption is touted as the solution to unwanted pregnancies, a worthy replacement of abortion. Leads me to believe, then, that the anxiety is purely situated with a missing biological father. At Family Scholars, I find a persistent lack of respect and even contempt for mothers and their contributions, especially single mothers, and the obsession with donor-conceived children reflects this. I do feel that a lot of the reaction has to do with middle-class women acting on their own to become mothers. Many insecure men seem to be deeply threatened by this, although you don’t see these same men lining up to marry the professional, accomplished women who tend to pursue donor-conceived children, partly because they do see their “uppityness” as a threat. The fact is, also, that these kids are growing up in stable households, not subject to the stresses, strains, or even potential violence of a two-parent household or marriage. There is no upheaval where a parent is removed from the home in a divorce. So comparing these kids to the children of poor single teen moms or mothers who have been through wretched divorces where fighting, and perhaps alcoholism, drug addiction, domestic violence were present, is a little like comparing apples and oranges.
Amp. On my knees. “concEIved.”
(“I before E except after C [and numerous other exceptions]…)
-signed, the World’s Worst Speller
[Oops! Thanks for pointing that out. Corrected. –Amp]
Amen, Paul.
silverside wrote:
I wonder if they obsess about sperm donors to the same degree. It’s tough to imagine, given their romanticization of patriarchy in general. Scrutinizing men just doesn’t give that same frisson of self-righteousness that scrutinizing women does, despite the inescapable fact that without sperm donors, the woman’s morality –or lack of same– wouldn’t matter a fig;Because there would be no child.
Do these studies factor in for poverty and social expectations based on race?
Do they ever consider the harm that the nuclear family poses when it is considered normative and healthy? Do they ever wonder that if we stopped insisting on the nuclear family as the wellspring of a healthy society, we might have alternatives to “fatherlessness” for young children. duh.
Reproductive freedom is not a minor part of life. Before even considering a ban on donor conception, we should have solid evidence of harm.
But where is the solid evidence that banning donor conception would cause harm to women? Lots of women who never have children are not traumatized by remaining childless. Just because some women claim that they need to have their own biological children in order to feel fulfilled, doesn’t mean we should allow them to create children without marrying the father of the child. These women are putting way too much importance on their own biological connection, they should be encouraged to adopt if they want a child so much but are not having any luck finding a suitable male to marry. There is no right for unmarried people to conceive children, Eisenstadt did not grant a right to do that. No case has granted that right, and as far as i know, no state has expressly legalized it, although none punish it anymore.
Most of the “donor conceived” children I know or know of have two parents, either two mothers or a mother and a father who is not biologically related. So the casual assumption that they’re all being raised by single mothers seems a bit off to me.
Paul says:
where the overwhelming majority of women who become single mothers do it with Hobson’s choice or no choice at all
You’re saying that the overwhelming majority of single mothers had little to no choice in becoming single mothers?
I have an acquaintance who was the donor-conceived child of a single mother. She is fine (an accomplished, professional person) despite the lack of two parents. In fact, her childhood experience was so positive that she has had her own child via the same method. She is intelligent, responsible, well-adjusted, with an extensive support network. She knew, inasmuch as anyone can before the fact, what she was getting into when she took on single parenthood. All seems to be going well so far.
This is of course just another anecdote, but as far as it goes, it does support the notion that women who choose this path to parenthood are in very different circumstances from those who “unintentionally” wind up as single parents. Intuitively, it seems like this must mean that donor-conceived children will have vastly different outcomes than other children raised by single parents.
When I read this, before the exposition below the quotes from the original article, I also thought that there are a lot of other factors to control for before using the data to come to any conclusion. Single mothers tend to be poorer than married ones, for various reasons. There’s also the issue of whether or not they planned the pregnancy and planned to live as a single parent, and what kind of family support they may have. This study is a start, but I wouldn’t conclude anything from it yet.
There are some folks who just can’t be pleased, I guess.
If you have an abortion, you’re a Bad Wicked Person. If you voluntarily (after going to a lot of trouble, by the way) have a baby, you’re a Bad Wicked Person.
Lilith’s point is also well taken. The usual situation is that these kids live in two parent families anyhow, and even it they didn’t, so what?
The totalitarian urge to control everyone else’s behavior is a true pain in the butt, in my opinion.
alsis39 said:
I wonder if they obsess about sperm donors to the same degree.
You know, I’ve wondered about this myself. What kind of man sells/donates samples of his sperm to be used to help create children that he’ll never have a hand in raising, or even knowing that they exist? I don’t get it. My concepts of personal responsibility are such that I think that if I’m the biological father of a child, then I am morally obligated to be his or her father in all aspects. To hand over samples of one’s sperm and then just walk away from it is a problem for me.
I can see where a couple where the husband is infertile would still wish to have a child and would look for this alternative, and I can see where they might want an anonymous donor. I’m undecided as to what I think of that. But otherwise I just don’t get it at all. What are these guys thinking?
Qgrrl says:
we might have alternatives to “fatherlessness” for young children.
Ha. How often have I seen mothers walk into our Troop meetings because they want a decent male role model for their sons? Only just about every year we’ve been operating.
BTW, when I first wrote the above sentence, it said “single mothers”, but upon reflection I deleted “single”.
Of course I’m not a guy, so how would I know, but it seems to me that being a sperm donor is a good deed, like being a blood donor. Someone very much needs something you can provide without unduly inconveniencing yourself.
When I give blood I don’t feel obligated to follow that little bottle through the channels of Red Cross to figure out what happens to it, and whether it is well used. It’s just sperm you’re donating, guys, not Little Tiny Persons. (I know that’s what Aristotle thought, but it’s been a LONG time since he thought that.)
This masculine urge to take responsibility would be better diverted to the babies men make while having intercourse with women. So far as I can tell, many such men feel no sense of responsibility whatever under those circumstances.
To be honest, Ron and Susan, I’ve always figured that there are many reasons why someone would donate sperm. For some, I’m guessing that it’s mostly for the money. For others, it’s the notion of feeling not ready for parenthood but still wanting one’s genes perpetuated, and so on. I was more curious as to the motives of the FS crowd for behaving, as they so often do, as if men were not a factor in the situation at all.
Ron, I think the women who’ve walked into those troop meetings may well be reacting to exactly what Qgrrl was talking about. That is, the values the FS folks and those like them espouse obsess about how every child everywhere needs some patriarchal manly man in his/her life. I’m not trying to impugn your motives as troop leader, or the women’s motives for bringing their boys in. However, the perception Qgrrl describes too often ends up being, “Well, obviously any man in a child’s life is better than no man at all.”
You –and the FS folk– clearly believe that no child can be healthy and happy without male input, and much of society clearly backs you up on that. Qgrrl is saying that the perception of the absence as a horrible void or potentially fatal blight is in itself a problem.
Susan,
“When I give blood I don’t feel obligated to follow that little bottle through the channels of Red Cross to figure out what happens to it, and whether it is well used. It’s just sperm you’re donating, guys, not Little Tiny Persons. (I know that’s what Aristotle thought, but it’s been a LONG time since he thought that.)”
So you do think blood and sperm are the same thing? It’s a weird comparison. Your blood will not be used to create new life. Sperm will. So it makes no sense comparing both. Both are substances donated, but that’s as far as the comparison goes.
“This masculine urge to take responsibility would be better diverted to the babies men make while having intercourse with women.”
Let me play a little devil’s advocate here. Why would it be better if they took responsibility for babies they make when they have intercourse? The intercourse is the key here? I don’t get it. Both means impregnate women. Why should men who have intercourse feel more responsible for their babies than men who donate sperm?
I’ve also always wanted to know why a woman would rather have insemination with sperm from someone she doesn’t know than just have a mere agreement with someone else (“I want to have a baby, but I don’t want you to be responsible for him/her. Is that OK with you?” “SURE!”, he’ll say).
I mean, maybe the mother doesn’t want the child to have an “absent father”, so it’s better “not” to have a father at all? “Mom, who’s my daddy?” “Oh, sweetie, you see, you haven’t got one”.
What are the advantages? I’ve always wondered that. (Not questioning, just would like to have that pointed out for me, since I just can’t think of anything).
Susan – as one bad speller to another, here’s the I before E rule I learned in school:
I before E except after C when it sounds like E, except for:
The sheiks’ weird friends avoid caffeine, codeine, and phthalein.
There are a bunch of chemicals that also fit into the exceptions, but they aren’t all that common, and I’ve found that this rule very handy.
This masculine urge to take responsibility would be better diverted to the babies men make while having intercourse with women. So far as I can tell, many such men feel no sense of responsibility whatever under those circumstances.
How is it different if the sperm donation is done through intercourse? Does that somehow imply that the woman doesn’t want to be pregnant? If she didn’t want to have a baby, she’d abort the pregnancy, wouldn’t she? Yes, the complete control to not have a baby removes all responsibility from men.
But you say, because she didn’t go through a lot of trouble and expense finding a sperm donor, the man is irresponsible? I don’t get it. Whether being a sex partner or being a sperm donor, a man is aware that he may father a child. In both cases, the woman controls whether a baby is born, but in the case when the man expects a baby to be created, and he intends to not take responsibility for it, he is considered more responsible than when he doesn’t expect a baby and yet remains responsible for one?
When I give blood I don’t feel obligated to follow that little bottle through the channels of Red Cross to figure out what happens to it, and whether it is well used. It’s just sperm you’re donating, guys, not Little Tiny Persons.
Giving blood helps preserve someone’s life. Giving sperm enables the creation of it, and supplies 50% of the genetic makeup of that person. Big difference.
This masculine urge to take responsibility would be better diverted to the babies men make while having intercourse with women.
I agree wholeheartedly that men who make babies with women should take responsibility for the child. I see no particular reason why a diversion of concern from one to the other is necessary; there’s plenty of room for concern for both.
So far as I can tell, many such men feel no sense of responsibility whatever under those circumstances.
Hear, hear. To their great shame.
Numerous studies of lesbian parents show that children of lesbian parents, whether conceived by sperm donation or by more traditional means, do as well as or better than children who are raised in traditional two parent families. (I’ll give references if anyone wants them.) It is harder for a single parent to raise a child, regardless of how that child was conceived, simply because there is not a second person there to help. I have a small child and sometimes feel outnumbered by her even with a partner, two grandmothers, and an aunt all helping out periodically. I can imagine that single parenting would be hard and have great respect for those who can do it well. Most single mothers, of course, conceive their children the old fashioned way, so banning artificial insemination isn’t going to stop single parenthood from occuring. A better method might be to provide more support for single parents so that they feel less overwhelmed and are more likely to be able to provide well, emotionally, financially, and so on, for their children.
Shouldn’t that be “the sheiks’ weird pals?” Otherwise, kids may start thinking that “friends” is one of the exceptions to i before e. :-P
Because it’s nearly impossible for a person to accidently time her ovulation, thaw a sample of frozen sperm, and inject the sperm into herself. On the other hand, it’s quite easy to make a mistake with birth control and end up with an accidental pregnancy. Of course, if a woman asks a man to impregnate her via intercourse and both agree that the man is going to have no role in the upbringing of any child that results then the man need take no responsibility for any resulting child.
Audrey wrote:
Two advantages I can think of. First of all, with a sperm bank, there’s no danger that the sperm donor will later change his mind and sue for custody. Second of all, not everyone knows a suitable male friend who’d be willing to donate sperm.
I’m not claiming it harms women; I’m claiming it reduces freedom.
Consider a law that would require all women to eat nothing but healthy vegitarian food, ever. I couldn’t prove that would harm women – in fact, it seems plausible that many women would lead longer, healthier lives if such a law were passed and effectively enforced. But regardless of whether it does harm, it definitely reduces freedom, and may be objected to on that basis.
Ok, a couple of studies I found before I stop blocking the bandwidth:
A study of single versus married women and outcomes of children conceived by sperm donation. The children involved are two years old, so it’s hardly a long term study, but the results are interesting: they suggest that the children of single women are actually doing somewhat better:
Solo mothers and their donor insemination infants: follow-up at age 2 years.
“RESULTS: The solo DI mothers showed greater pleasure in their child and lower levels of anger accompanied by a perception of their child as less ‘clingy’. Fewer emotional and behavioural difficulties were shown by children of solo than married DI mothers.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15734751&query_hl=17
Another study with longer follow up. The children in this study were an average of 7 years old, so it’s still not following to adulthood yet, but again, no particular problems were seen among children conceived by sperm donation to single parents:
Psychosocial adjustment among children conceived via donor insemination by lesbian and heterosexual mothers.
“Results showed that children were developing in normal fashion, and that their adjustment was unrelated to structural variables such as parental sexual orientation or the number of parents in the household. These results held true for teacher reports as well as for parent reports.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=9586218&query_hl=17
So perhaps the main problem with single parenting is that it often happens by accident, before the parent is ready for the responsibility of raising a child and may be without sufficient physical or emotional resources to raise a child. When the conception was intentional, single mothers and their children seem to do quite well.
I’m not sure this counts as “solid evidence”, but I can see several obvious ways in which banning donor conception would probably harm women–and men, and children.
First, there are strong biological and social pressures to reproduce. So what does a woman who wants to reproduce but has no partner do in the absence of donor conception? She could sleep with a stranger or friend, but that leaves her vunerable to domestic violence, loss of custody of the child if the “donor” decides he wants to raise it or (more likely) wants to hurt the mother by taking away her child, STDs, etc. Alternately, she could marry someone just to get a partner for childrearing. That leaves her open to domestic violence, STDs, and a high probability of divorce, since she married someone she doesn’t really want to live with. Nor is domestic violence or even just domestic unhappiness good for the child. He or she would likely be better off being raised by a happy single mother than a miserable couple.
Second, it’s well known that restricting freedom is damaging to people’s psyches. There’s no solid evidence that I know of that banning free speech harms people, but it’s a reasonable assumption that it does.
There’s really no evidence that donor conceptions harm either the parent or the child. On the other hand, there is a signficant body of evidence, both anecdotal and systematic, that suggests that adoption may harm both the relinquishing mother and the child. For example, a case in the media recently about a child who was beaten into a persistent vegitative state by her adoptive mother and stepfather. That seems to me to be a worse problem than not being able to get a straight answer about who your father is. Anyone want to ban adoption? And if you want to ban donor conception but not adoption, why the double standard?
Not quite. The mitochondria all come from the oocyte, so the sperm provides not quite 50% of the genetic makeup. Just a quibble. Of course, if you don’t want to donate sperm you shouldn’t. I don’t donate oocytes for more or less the same reasons that you gave for not wanting to donate sperm. However, I don’t see any problem with a person who feels differently donating their gametes.
I apologize, Ampsand – I think I wasn’t so clear. I do know that these in themselves are nice reasons for having sperm banks.
Actually I want to know why would a woman opt for a sperm bank PROVIDED she has someone she knows who can donate sperm. Let’s say a woman does know someone who would be willing to have sex with her or donate sperm but would not want to be responsible for the child (and, if what Susan claims about men not wanting to be responsible for their children when a woman gets pregnant, they are actually very easy to come by).
What are the advantages for the child in not knowing who her father, opposed to knowing who her father is? I’ve always wondered what psychological implications this might imply. I think a child who has an absent father but knows who her father is (which is my case) probably has a different concept (I dunno, but I think she does) of herself and parent-child relationships in general from a child who does not know anything about her father. Just wondering. The test you refer to could have tried to answer that question, but it failed miserably, it seems.
Audrey, there’s also the advantage that sperm banks provide STD testing, and the specimens are frozen for I think six months, which takes away another measure of uncertainty. With a guy you know personally, this might be a dodgy subject to broach, and even if you adore him and he’s your bestest friend in the world, you reasonably might not have confidence that he will be completely abstinent or monogamous for 6 months between getting tested and providing you with sperm–or that might not seem a reasonable thing to request of him.
And who’s to say that your best friend Bob might not have a complete change of personality and freak out at you someday and demand custody? It’s happened.
Also, again, in many cases the child that is conceived will *have* two parents. Two mothers or a mother and a father. In that case, there’s no clear advantage to adding the sperm donor in as another parent and in fact it might even make things tense or turbulent. It is quite often a couple making this decision together, not a single woman. To most couples the advantage about never having to worry about custody issues or STDs or similarly awkward and painful situations outweighs any potential benefit of knowing the donor personally.
To be honest, Ron and Susan, I’ve always figured that there are many reasons why someone would donate sperm. For some, I’m guessing that it’s mostly for the money. For others, it’s the notion of feeling not ready for parenthood but still wanting one’s genes perpetuated, and so on.
I have no problem in working for money, but doing this purely for money certainly seems wrong to me. And wanting your genes perpetuated while not wanting to get involved in parenthood seems quite selfish. I’m not criticizing you for bringing this up, but I do criticize the actions of anyone acting out of such motives.
I was more curious as to the motives of the FS crowd for behaving, as they so often do, as if men were not a factor in the situation at all.
That’s a very good question.
Ron, I think the women who’ve walked into those troop meetings may well be reacting to exactly what Qgrrl was talking about. That is, the values the FS folks and those like them espouse obsess about how every child everywhere needs some patriarchal manly man in his/her life. I’m not trying to impugn your motives as troop leader, or the women’s motives for bringing their boys in. However, the perception Qgrrl describes too often ends up being, “Well, obviously any man in a child’s life is better than no man at all.”
If a woman gets divorced from her husband and then shows up at our Troop meeting, it seems to me she’s being quite specific about the kind of man she wants involved in her son’s life, and has already decided that just any man won’t do. I would agree that “any man is better than none” is deficient reasoning.
My motives? I enjoy working with the kids. Many of them show little appreciation. But some do. I have seen Scouting help some kids tremendously. The success stories keep me going. Plus, it’s forced me to stay in much better shape that I would otherwise be in, else I just couldn’t keep up. I’ve picked up some skills that I wouldn’t have otherwise. I’ve gotten to do some things I’d never have done, like fire a black powder rifle and tour Japan for two weeks. And I just love being in the outdoors; a bad day in the woods is better than a good day at work. I’ve seen some glorious sunrises and sunsets. I’ve seen my shadow cast by the full moon at night on a rock while looking out over a 1000 acre lake that only a few of us were camping on, after a dinner of lake trout and rice that the boys had caught for us a couple of hours beforehand.
You ““and the FS folk”“ clearly believe that no child can be healthy and happy without male input,
I won’t speak for the FS folks, but I didn’t say that. I would say that a child is healthier and happier with a good father in their lives than not, but I won’t say it’s impossible to bring up a happy and healthy child without one.
and much of society clearly backs you up on that.
Perhaps due to experience.
Qgrrl is saying that the perception of the absence as a horrible void or potentially fatal blight is in itself a problem.
I’ll stay away from words like “horrible” or “fatal”. I’d say that the absence of two parents in a child’s life can be a problem for that child, and large numbers of such children (I won’t try to define “large”) can be a societial problem as it puts more of a load on society as a whole. Perceptions aren’t necessarily reality, but reality necessarily create perceptions.
If people make single parent status a problem for a given child through stigmatizing that child, then they are doing something that is very seriously wrong. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t recognize that a significant incidence of involuntarily single parents isn’t a social problem.
I learned it as “I before E except after C, or when sounded like A as in neighbor and weigh.”
And I’m going to pick on something that I personally find annoying, that has happened to me a few times on this blog. If you are the first person in a thread to use an acronym or initials, such as FS for “family scholars” or DV for “domestic violence”, please define it the first time you use it. I’ve had to ask more than once. Now, for all I know these acronyms are well known to the folks on this blog. If so, I apologize for being picky. But they’re not well known to me.
I’m involved in a lot of Scouting mailing lists, and the newbies on those lists yell at us all the time about how we throw around YPT, LNT, WB, DC, OA, and a zillion other acronyms that make typing out all this stuff much easier for the initiated and damn confusing for everyone else.
RonF
Well, that’s a start. :/ As for the assertion that “experience” alone can tell us all whether daddy, or a reasonable facsimile, is required in the same way that oxygen is required– I’m skeptical. I’m often struck by how often the “experience” of someone like La Lubu is dismissed by those obsessed with upholding the status quo. It’s not enough to just seek “experience,” aparently. It’s got to be the “experience” of someone from one’s own specific camp. To simply call it “experience” in some generic, or universal, sense misses the point.
I loved my father dearly, and he’s not around anymore. He wasn’t perfect, by any means, but still…
I have no idea what about my personality would have been better or worse if, say, my mother had divorced, been widowed, etc. However, I know too many healthy, functioning adults my own age who come from divorced or single parent households who seem, in some ways, to be MORE together, more accomplished, more confident, than Yours Truly. It makes me wary of simply swallowing whole the notion pushed by some old-school patriarchs that they matured under some kind of moral blight.
I think it was Brian Regan who learned it as :”I before E except after C, or when sounded like A as in neighbor and weigh, on on weekends and holidays, and all throughout May, and you’ll always be wrong, no matter what you say.”
I actually figure that one factor that would tend to make two-parent kids happier would be that the parents would be happier. I can only imagine what kind of a load it would have been on either my wife or I if the other had not been around to help raise the kids. Being a single parent has got to be a lot more stressful, especially if being a single parent was not that parent’s plan. There’s someone to share the load. There’s more financial security, especially if both have jobs. There’s someone around to help you work out parenting problems and find solutions.
And yes, you can bury me in anecdotes of both men and women who have ended up married or partnering with someone who for one reason or another has created more problems than they’ve solved. But I don’t think that’s the general case.
I wouldn’t dismiss any individual’s experience, although it would be subject to discussion and analysis. But one person’s experience only means that “x” can succeed, not that it does in society as a whole, or that society as a whole does not have a problem wherein the majority of people attempting “x” fail at it.
I was discussing single parenthood with a friend of mine who was a single parent. She was married, and got a divorce. I thought (and told her that I thought) that she had done the right thing, as her ex had started to do things like blow the mortgage money on drugs and blow off her objections. That is not the kind of person I’d trust around my kids or anyone else’s. I definitely don’t buy “Any man is better than no man.”
Unless the father is an ass or otherwise horrid, I don’t see any advantages to the child. I’d actually favor banning non-anonymous sperm donation; so there would still be sperm banks, but after the child is a certain age, she would be able to go to the sperm bank and find out who her donor was.
There’s more discussion of the anonymous sperm donor issue in this thread, in case you’re interested.
as her ex had started to do things like blow the mortgage money on drugs and blow off her objections.
Now, by the time the mortgage money is being blown on drugs, a helluva lot of damage has already been done. Imagine how much better off she and her children would have been if she hadn’t been pressured by the societal expectations to “stand by your man” until things had gotten to a truly absymal point? What if the statndard advice instead were “there are such things as deal-breakers. Things for which you should always make leaving your first and only reaction.”
I’m still waiting for the studies that control specifically for dysfunction. Because see, most of those single parent families who produce the dire statistics are doing so because of the effects of previous or current familial dysfunction. Dysfunction that is exacerbated because of the societal pressure to “stay together”, keep the family “intact”, “for the sake of the kids”. To “give second (third, etc.) chances”, because your spouse (or SO) “didn’t really mean it” or “didn’t know how seriously you felt about it”. Bullshit. BULLSHIT.
Dysfunction is not synonymous with “single”. But dysfunction can be a reason why someone chose to be single. Capisce? The kids produced from donor insemination will be fine…..provided their single (or married), same-sex (or opposite sex) family is a healthy one. Unhealthy partnerships tend to break up, which skews the statistics. (Duh. Why break up if everything is cool and copasetic?)
Now, by the time the mortgage money is being blown on drugs, a helluva lot of damage has already been done.
A completly unwarranted assumption. How do you know?
Imagine how much better off she and her children would have been if she hadn’t been pressured by the societal expectations to “stand by your man” until things had gotten to a truly absymal point?
Another completely unwarranted assumption.
This woman and I were friends at the time this occurred, and she confided in me. I will not break that confidence, even at this point, but suffice it to say that the facts do not support your allegations.
I think Dianne did a good straightforward job of showing how having to marry (or just sleep with) a man can cause harm to women, but she assumes that the drive to reproduce is so strong that a person cannot choose to not having children at all, or maybe would be harmed by such a choice psychologically. I don’t think that is true, I think women that never have children often come out fine. I think the “drive to reproduce” has been replaced over the centuries with a much more civilized “drive to marry”, and that is a good thing. But I’ll accept that since it is other people that generally cause harm, remaining single would significantly reduce harm caused by other people, and concede that argument on fruitlessness grounds. I’ll just say, in the same spirit, that children that are never born suffer a lot less harm than children that are born.
So, I will pursue this argument now with a good old Nazi insinuation: sperm donation is a form of Eugenics, which is repugnant to a society that values the dignity of all people equally. But allowing people to select donors based on desired traits makes society accept eugenic means and eugenic ends and could threaten our belief in the equal dignity and worth of all people. And, it contributes to air polution and the greenhouse effect. :-) (No, it seriously does, it takes lots of energy to do all the research and build the buildings and freeze the sperm and all that)
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Jon Howard, by your argument, choosing a spouse to procreate with is also a form of eugenics. When people choose to procreate, they choose who it is with, and often it is because they feel their partner would be a good parent, both in terms of caring for the offspring and providing good genetic material. Citing eugenics is a ridiculous argument against sperm donation.
Why are you so keen to limit women’s reproductive choices, even if they do “come out fine” without having children?
I’m rather puzzled by the way this is being framed around “reproductive freedom” and “reproductive choices”. The idea – of course – is that a women has more autonomy if her child does not have a (legal) father. I can see why some feminists would see this as desirable and support this. It’s an simple extension of feminist thought to view the possible influence of a child’s father as a form of oppression linked to Patriarchy.
Where I have a problem is that donor conception is in fundamentally a legal way to cut the child off from a parent – so that the other parents doesn’t have to deal with them. But why should the “freedom” of a woman to have a child more important than the rights of a child or the rights of the father?
It seems to me that the whole exercise exploits men and disregards the rights of children. A variety of mechanisms – payment, anonymity, and so on – are being used to in order to influence men into becoming fathers who wouldn’t otherwise want to. And then they’re prevented from knowing who their children are and from playing any part in their lives. It seems to me that this places far more importance on the rights of women than the rights of anyone else.
Linnea, having to marry the person you want to be the other supplier of genetic material for your child has the effect of minimizing the eugenic aspect of choosing who to conceive with and maximizing the aspect of love between the two people. Heterosexuals are going to be having children simply because they are in love, and it isn’t fair that homosexuals and single people will substitute eugenic screening for the affections of the heart and create their children on purpose with screened dna rather than as an accident or afterthought. You may think it is a good thing – hey the baby’s are on purpose and the dna is screened and the baby will be smart and healthy, but it is repugnant, it is eugenics, and lots of people are into eugenics these days.
RonF, I don’t expect you to betray a confidence. I will merely say that folks don’t tend to wake up in the morning and decide to drain the bank account, buy a bunch of drugs, and start using them. Substance abuse is a progressive disease, and the behavior of substance abusers toward other people tends to be pretty bad. The progressive nature of the disease means that ill treatment of others gets worse too. This is well-documented throughout literature on substance abuse; it’s hardly “unsubstantiated”.
So, by the time one can’t make a mortgage payment because dear SO has taken the money to get high with, it’s safe to say that there has probably been some:
1. previous draining of savings, investments, or selling of any personal property of value (either that of the drug user or that of other family members),
2. arguments about substance abuse,
3. absenteeism from work on the part of the substance abuser, which results in lower family income (less ability to pay bills) and can result in demotion or firing,
4. deceitful behavior and lying on the part of the substance abuser, in an attempt to deny and cover up the substance abuse….
and the list goes on from there. You get the drift. And this is before the “real fun” starts! Yes, I believe it is very harmful to children to grow up in such an atmosphere—I know, because I did. And I will not harm my daughter by raising her in such an atmosphere.
Also, RonF, you should know that in the eyes of law enforcement and child-protective services, parents who allow the other parent to stay in the household and continue to use are just as guilty. The non-drug using enabler will be arrested right along with the drug user, and the children will be placed in foster care. It’s a long road to re-establish legal, parental guardianship after that.
Look, I’m just tired of all the “advice” that tells women that if we haven’t been hit (or if we have, but we didn’t suffer any “real” damage), that we have an obligation to stay and “work things out”. There is completely different advice handed out for “friend” relationships, or “dating” relationships, than for “romantic” relationships. If a “friend” or a “date” lies, cheats, steals, hits, kicks, spits on you, calls you names, takes drugs, has a violent out-of-control temper, etc.—-what do we say? “LOSE ‘EM!” The general advice given out is to dump that person and not have anything more to do with them. It is recognized that only harm will come from such a relationship.
Yet, if it’s a “romantic” relationship, opposite advice is given. We are encouraged to stay the course for a variety of reasons—we have “too much time invested” in the relationship to “throw it all away”, we have an obligation to “help” that other person because they’re not “like that all the time”, we have an obligation to stick around “for the sake of the kids” (ohhh shit, don’t get me started on that one!). And if we don’t follow that round of advice—if we act instead the way we would be expected to if that person were a mere “friend” or “date”, then we better be prepared to be regarded as heartless, cold, a “quitter”, and if we are female, as “unfeminine”. Why? Why should we tolerate despicable behavior from those who supposedly “love” us, that we wouldn’t entertain for a minute coming from a stranger?
Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled thread. Donor-conceived children of single mothers are probably less likely to be raised in that sort of atmosphere. Mothers who visit the sperm bank are pretty clear about wanting a child to begin with, and aren’t afraid to cross certain societal boundaries to do so. They tend to have a little more money than the average woman, so that’s one less barrier to leaving an abusive relationship in the event she finds herself in one. And I’m not convinced that children who never knew a father “miss” one—I just see too many parallels to the “only” child who supposedly “misses” having nonexistant brothers and sisters. It’s a different dynamic than divorce.
This isn’t an abstract issue for me. My daughter may have been conceived the “old-fashioned” way, but political decisions about single mothers-by-donors have import for all single mothers.
I’m serious—let’s have some studies that control for typical family dysfunctions like domestic violence and substance abuse. Here’s my hypothesis: that children who grow up in emotionally healthy single-parent homes who have never known the other parent have much better outcomes than the children who grow up in single-parent homes where one parent spends a lengthy period of time trying to “fix” a major, systemic family dysfunction, thereby lengthening the agita and the break-up time. This, even though the children from the second group have a deep bond with both parents, and children from the first group have only have a bond with one parent, and don’t know the other parent. Because I’m seeing and hearing an almost magical belief in the Power of the Blood, yet I’m not seeing any evidence that a dysfunctional relationship is better than no relationship. You’re asking me to accept that as an article of faith. I don’t.
You may think it is a good thing – hey the baby’s are on purpose and the dna is screened and the baby will be smart and healthy, but it is repugnant, it is eugenics, and lots of people are into eugenics these days.
Huh? I’ve never heard of single mothers, gay or straight, heavily screening the DNA of donors. No, the folks most likely to practice eugenics with donor sperm or eggs are the infertile but well-heeled white couples….you know, the ones putting ads in college newspapers looking for the eggs of tall blondes with killer SATs. Never have heard of anything remotely resembling that behavior from women visiting the sperm bank.
I’m declaring the topic of the alleged connection between homosexuals and eugenics officially off-topic for this blog. People who want to hear John’s further thoughts on this topic can consult John’s website.
LaLubu, in reading though your post to me I’m not sure what’s going on. Are you of the opinion that I’m in the “stand by your man until he beats the crap out of you repeatedly” camp? Because I’m not.
As far as “I will merely say that folks don’t tend to wake up in the morning and decide to drain the bank account, buy a bunch of drugs, and start using them. Substance abuse is a progressive disease, and the behavior of substance abusers toward other people tends to be pretty bad.”, well, lets just say this guy seemed to set a record for going down fast. And as far as “the behavior of substance abusers towards other people tends to be pretty bad”, she took a little shit but not much.
I have a friend that has stayed with her nonabusive alcoholic husband as he battles with recovery. They’ve been married for 10 years. He’s never been unemployed nor received a dui, but he is a recovering alcoholic. I think the idea of “divorce” as soon as there is a ripple in marital harmony is as damaging as staying in an abusive and manipulative relationship.
This man loves his wife, but admits he has a problem and seeks help. He’s relapsed on occassion, but they’re getting farther apart now. I would like to think that I would support my husband through that struggle and not just abandon him because it got uncomfortable.
Note: I do not advocate a woman or man staying in a relationship where the SO is abusive in any manner. In the case of abuse the only sure recourse it to leave.
I will say upfront that I support providing more identifying information to children conceived via donor sperm, however, framing anonymous donation as cutting off children from their parents is off the mark. The donor never signed up to be a parent. In most cases, donor sperm is used by married couples with catastrophic male infertility, and the child has two parents, mother and father. The donor is not the father. People seem to accept this state of affairs where donor sperm is used by a married couple, and certainly where adoption is concerned (try telling an adoptive couple that they are not the child’s “real” parents). The fact that a single woman uses donor sperm doesn’t make the donor the child’s father. It is extremely curious, in fact, that there doesn’t seem to be any similar groundswell of research on single women who adopt, even though, socially, the child is in the same position. Adoption is just presumed to be a social good.
This is a tiny percentage of women, and a very tiny percentage of children, who are gaining a rather disproportionate share of societal attention, especially given the equivocal data on adverse consequences.
Mendy Writes: I have a friend that has stayed with her nonabusive alcoholic husband as he battles with recovery. They’ve been married for 10 years. He’s never been unemployed nor received a dui, but he is a recovering alcoholic. I think the idea of “divorce” as soon as there is a ripple in marital harmony is as damaging as staying in an abusive and manipulative relationship.
I think that the idea that women ought to be forced to stay in bad relationships is far more damaging, Mendy. In the situation you describe, both husband and wife know she chose to stay with him, when she could have divorced him. I think knowing that there is an out from a relationship that could potentially go very sour and very wrong is a good thing, not a bad thing.
This might be a more interesting question if there were any evidence that there was a conflict between any of the above in this situation. The men involved volunteer to donate their sperm. They donate, get paid, and walk away happily. And anecdotal quotes aside, the actual evidence as presented in peer reviewed journals suggests that the children do as well as or better than average. So what are we so worried about?
“But why should the “freedom” of a woman to have a child more important than the rights of a child or the rights of the father?”
Donor does not equal father and rarely, very rarely, wants anything remotely approaching parental rights.
Viewing the right of the woman to have a child as somehow being in opposition to the child’s right to know his genetic origin is bizarre. If the woman had no right to have the child the child wouldn’t be here and his or her biological heritage would be a complete non-issue.
RonF, I don’t want to derail the thread any further, so this will be my last post on this particular thread referencing divorce/abusive households/single parenting—‘kay?
I don’t know where you come from or what your background is, but my background is such that there is a lot of community support for enabling behavior, and little to no community support for those who don’t wish to run a gauntlet of the typical abusive behavior patterns—-in other words, not leaving until you have “proven yourself” to be a worthy human being by tolerating the intolerable for a number of years. No one really expect you to stay if you are getting the shit knocked out of you to the point where you have to go to the hospital, no. But they do expect you to take punches/kicks/slaps that don’t send you to the hospital. No broken bones? Then no problem. “You’re not going to throw a whole marriage away just because he hit you, are you?”
It’s ugly. And emotional abuse, like name-calling, or passive-aggressive conversations (like taking the children aside and saying–within or without earshot of you—“did I ever tell you what a worthless piece of shit your mother is?”) is expected to be put up with. Because after all, he didn’t hit you. Thing is, as a parent, you are constantly modeling behavior for your children, whether you are conscious of that or not. And I hold that it is very damaging to children to be in the midst of that situation. It certainly was for me. I am a single parent because I don’t want that for my daughter, and I don’t have to “prove” myself to anyone by sticking around for years to try and fix the unfixable. And by refusing to engage in enabling behavior, I am bucking the societal norms, and have gained a certain reputation as a “cold, heartless bitch”. So be it. My daughter is not having the upbringing I did, under any circumstances.
RonF, I’m also aware of the faster trajectory certain drugs have—that was the case for my daughter’s father, also. And yep—cut and run is the best, nay, only tactic for that. But see, this is not an abstract question for me, or other single mothers.
Why would children of donor-inseminated single mothers be “damaged” by fatherlessness, but children of widows not be? Where are the articles predicting doom and gloom for the children of widows? Why aren’t widows sternly being told of the bleak outlook for their children if they don’t hurry up and get remarried already? Do I need to mention again that single fathers miraculously escape these types of critique, and that they are universally lauded for being dedicated to their children if they aren’t coupled?
I’m calling bullshit. Not only are there no studies showing that donor-inseminated children are likely to “do worse”, there aren’t any of those studies despite the pervasive culture of lowered expectations for children of single-parent homes. These children are ok despite growing up having to battle the self-fulfilling prophecy that they won’t be.
I’m declaring the topic of the alleged connection between homosexuals and eugenics officially off-topic for this blog. People who want to hear John’s further thoughts on this topic can consult John’s website.
How about the connection between anonymous donor conception and eugenics? La Luba is right that heterosexual couples that go to sperm banks are also practicing eugenics. The problem is more and more heterosexual couples are doing it that way, often the woman will do it on her own, when she is single, and then look for a man to be a partner. She does this more to avoid the entanglements of a second parent than for eugenic reasons, but by going to a reputable sperm bank, she is letting the bank do the eugenics. Maybe we need a law that says sperm banks cannot discriminate based on genetics, they have to let any guy be a donor and just send if off without any screening or identification about the genetic characteristics of the donor.
And I think you shouldn’t have any topics officially off limits, and I think your readers ought to object to any topics being off limits, especially when it is a controversial contention, and one that you tend to be insulated from thinking about by the mass media. Censoring a topic is not the right approach. You guys are smart enough to handle this topic and any other, and either explain why this isn’t crypto-eugenics, or why it is OK, or why it has nothing to do with homosexuality or same-sex marriage. I just think you guys should not remain ignorant of the issue, you should know about it and deal with it…
ok johnhoward, I’m calling bullshit (and hoping Amp doesn’t ban me for responding). “Eugenics”, like the word “Nazi” has a distinct and brutal history, and I don’t want to see the concept watered down. What you are calling “eugenics” is nothing of the sort.
I googled “sperm bank”, and surfed through information on several sites. Donors come in all shapes, sizes, races, colors, hair textures, religions, family backgrounds, interests, personalities—-sperm donors pretty much resemble the population at large. What you won’t find from a sperm bank are sperm samples from those who have HIV, hepatitis B or C, or certain other incurable diseases that are passed by direct blood or semen contact—that’s because of laws governing all tissue banks. Go surf through donor profiles (they are quite detailed in medical history on both sides of the family). You’ll find donors with family histories of cancer, heart disease, alcoholism, mental illness, severe nearsightedness, you name it. That is NOT what eugenics was/is all about. You need to do some remedial reading on the subject.
To use the term “eugenics” is to describe merely having a donor description (y’know, kinda like the typical introductory “first-date” info) is beneath contempt.
La Luba is right that heterosexual couples that go to sperm banks are also practicing eugenics
Any heterosexual person who chooses a mate on the grounds that “s/he would make wonderful babies” is also practicing eugenics, by your definition. Do you favor random couplings?
Mythago:
I can’t be sure but I would assume the “eugenics” argument would be alleviated if the potential client could only be allowed to randomly receive their sperm. This practice might result in quite a few mixed race families, but it would also preserve many individual’s ideas of “random” genetics.
And no, I don’t particulary think the above statement is a good or fair practice. Just because Sperm Donor A is a lawyer doesn’t mean that a child conceived with that sperm will also be a lawyer or doctor. In fact, given normal health and a supportive environment a child that is born from the donation of a ditch digger could also be a lawyer or doctor. I am a firm believer that reproduction is in its simplest terms “a genetic crap-shoot”.
But Mendy, those general descriptions are no different than the general descriptions a person would get (or see) on a first date. That’s not “eugenics”. Do you also believe that all people should only be allowed to procreate by random samples from a sperm bank—that freely-chosen couples should be prohibited from procreating, because they would be practicing “eugenics” if they wanted their kids to have a better-than-random chance of sharing certain characteristics of their parents? That the only people who should procreate the “old-fashioned” way would be those who received a partner through a random lottery (knock-on-the-door, “Hi! I’m your new husband!”)?
Gimme a break. Those descriptions are there for the feel-good factor. If someone is a surfer, they might feel better about getting donor sperm from another surfer. Doesn’t mean their kid’ll be able to catch a wave. I think most people are well aware that their child is likely to share some parental characteristics, but not others—and that it’s ok.
This is an intimate process. It’s human nature to want to know a little something about the donor. I don’t know, but I’d hazard a guess that donors who post a profile get chosen more often than those who don’t. Hell, people who received an organ from someone else’s body often want to know something about that donor! It’s just human nature. You seem to have very little faith in the choices that people using donor sperm would make. Why? I’m not in the market for any, but if I were, nearsightedness or a family history of cancer or alcoholism wouldn’t scare me off—that description fits my profile, too! And that’s really the only “choices” folks who use the sperm bank are making—they’re looking for donors who resemble them. Just like they look for partners who resemble them (not necessarily physically, either). And that’s not “eugenics”.
La Lubu, please go back and read the first sentence of the second paragraph of my last post.
“And no, I don’t particulary think the above statement is a good or fair practice.”
In fact, I pretty much agree with you about sperm banks, children, and that using a sperm bank isn’t eugenics, unless there is actualy DNA screening done.
I went on in that second paragraph to state that conception of a child by whatever means a single parent or couple may choose, the whole thing is still a genetic crap-shoot. That “feel good” description they give you is useless when it comes to predicting actual physical or mental traits of the offspring. We haven’t gotten to Gattica level technology yet.
I can’t be sure but I would assume the “eugenics” argument would be alleviated if the potential client could only be allowed to randomly receive their sperm
Again: isn’t it then eugenics when any woman actually selects a man to be the father of her children? Wouldn’t it be better for her to go fuck guys she doesn’t know, randomly, and get pregnant that way, to avoid “eugenics”?
Mythago, the statement was my poor attempt as sarcasm. As I posted before please read the second paragraph. It is not eugenics to use a sperm bank, anymore than it is eugenics to have a child with my husband whom I find physically appealing. Eugenics is the attempt through selective breeding to change the entire species, and as such is abhorrent in most world views.
Here is the second paragraph in my post #
“And no, I don’t particulary think the above statement is a good or fair practice. Just because Sperm Donor A is a lawyer doesn’t mean that a child conceived with that sperm will also be a lawyer or doctor. In fact, given normal health and a supportive environment a child that is born from the donation of a ditch digger could also be a lawyer or doctor. I am a firm believer that reproduction is in its simplest terms “a genetic crap-shoot”. “
Are there any studies of donor conceived children that address their views as oppossed to a “harm”, whether actual or perceived? Are such conceived children glad or sad regarding not having their biological father to interact with? Does a non biological father mitigate any negative feelings a child may have over the manner in which s/he was conceived?
John Howard, I don’t think that you understand what eugenics is. Choosing who you want to reproduce with is not eugenics; everyone does that. It’s when one tries to control everyone’s reproduction on a mass scale that it becomes eugenics.
Amp – friend is an exception to the i before e rule because it doesn’t sound like e, it sound like eh. Maybe I should have written it as ee to make it more clear.
You’ll find donors with family histories of cancer, heart disease, alcoholism, mental illness, severe nearsightedness, you name it.
Yes, but is that just because it is so hard to find people without any problems? Surely, when they get donors without any of these things, that guy’s sperm flies off the shelf, and he might make ten or twenty babies. There was a guy in California who has like 80 children (now there’s a limit, i know) becuase his profile was probably very healthy.
Choosing who you want to reproduce with is not eugenics; everyone does that. It’s when one tries to control everyone’s reproduction on a mass scale that it becomes eugenics.
That’s true, that’s why a person choosing a mate because they would make good babies is not practicing eugenics. But, they are practicing crypto-eugenics, or having it practiced on them. Crypto-eugenics is when the eugenicists operate by trying to influence individual choices in a way that has a positive effect on a mass scale. Market forces control the gene pool on a mass scale. The individual decisions are not coerced as with forced sterilization, but by changing people’s options and perceptions, more and more people would make carefully planned and screened choices about the genes of their baby, including the decision not to use one’s own genes. Please google crypto-eugenics.
So yes, to choose someone as a spouse because they seem to have good genes is certainly crypto-eugenics. But they are at least raising the baby together, committing to each other, and certainly ought to be in love with each other. We would all agree it was repugnant if they were not in love with each other, just choosing each other for their stock and treating the children like resources to be socialized for the good of humanity. That is why we go to great lengths to get people to see inner beauty, to respect character, to marry in spite of adversity, for love.
I do have great sympathy for someone who is unable to find a loving spouse because all the prosepective spouses do not want to have a child with that person’s genes. It does seem like it would be a victory for character and love if we could remove the gene factor from the equation entirely, so that people didn’t think that they had to use each others genes if they wanted to have children. Then they could marry for love, and use donor gametes to have children, and everything would be great. But that is addressing the problem at the wrong end. They should be able to have their own children, no one should feel pressured to using someone else’s better genes instead of their own.
Do you see how radical that would be? How it could spread to lesser and lesser defects, where more and more people chose to forgoe having a biological connection and opted for screened genes?
i need some coffee…sorry if this rambled.
All I could find about crypto-eugenics was the same article posted in different places; frankly, it seemed to be a bunch of paranoid ramblings about birth control to me. If you have any other links (I admit I didn’t do an exhaustive search) I really would like to read them. We obviously have very different ideas about what parents owe to their children, so I won’t go into that. However, I consider banning reproduction in situations that you don’t consider the best, like a single mother or a lesbian couple using a sperm bank, to be disturbing. I’m really not trying to be inflammatory, but that seems more like eugenics to me than using a sperm bank or a surrogate mother.
I find it very interesting that everyone can give an option on something that they personally haven’t dealt with. I am happily married women of 9 years, unable to have children with husband due to low count and poor mobility. My spouse and I have tried adoption 2 times, both times have ended in the family changing there mind and keeping the child. We both want a child and I would like to carry a child in my womb.. why is so difficult for people to understand that it doesn’t matter where a child comes from, it matters how a child is wanted, loved and provided for by two people wanting children. I find it wonderful to have this chance to carry a child regardless of whom sperm it may be. It’s a fantastic option for families. My spouse and I have deceided that the child will be told at a young age that the father is an un-known donor who gave us a gift that could not be given by his/her “daddy” (my husband). Our family know, our friends and co-workers know. So, what is the big deal folks! I would like to have found an donor that was “known” – but it just wasn’t an issue for us. Please think of other people’s feelings before blasting off with issues that you yourself haven’t gone through! Sperm donation is a wonderful thing!
Sherry, I don’t think anyone denies the benefits of sperm donation to couples struggling with infertility. I believe the debate is concerned with the use of artificial insemination as a lifestyle choice, to deliberately raise a child without a father. It asks ‘Does the lack of a parent (and their financial support, physical presence and moral contribution) affect the child’s chances for success in life?’.
Wow – what ideas!!! I have a nine month old, gorgeous baby boy, conceived via donor insemination, but an anonymous donor. I had been married to a man I loved, but who did not feel confident to be a father, and having fertility issues, I made the conscious decision to end this marriage, and pursue my dream to be a mother. I could have if I had wanted, coupled with a man, but being the honest person I am, I knew I could not fall in love for a long time, as I still had strong feelings for my ex. So, knowing I have great support from my family, and having a good job, I chose a donor, and became the happiest woman in the world, last December. I have had contact my letters with my donor, and he and his wife are keen to meet myself and baby whenever I feel I am ready, so this is wonderful. It is sad, but in this day and age, there are many divorces, and many men out there who I just would not want to have father a child of mine in a family situation. I could not allow myself to use a man to get a baby, like many women do. I come from a mother and father who divorced when I was 5yrs old, but I and the rest of my siblings are wonderful people, with good jobs and good lives. I know many men who have come from what many people term ‘broken’ homes, but I feel they are often nicer, more sensitive men because they have had a more feminine influence in their upbringing. I don’t want to downplay the role of men or fathers, but I still think that the single greatest infuence in a childs life is their MOTHER. I have not doubts bringing another baby into this world, through the same donor, and I will meet him in the future, but not to have him play ‘daddy’ but to allow my children to meet their biological father, and know their history. I think that that donors that are anonymous is not a good thing, but if is easy for the child and donor to meet, then this is fabulous, and only a good thing, but the absence of a father, in the presence of an intelligent, loving, independent mother, with a supportive network, is not at all detrimental to the life of a loved child.
My husband and I are thinking of a sperm donor for our child. We are very concerned about the impact it would have on the child. After reading so many reactions from children who were born from donors. It appears that they have hard feeling toward their parents who have taken great lengths and love to have them. My husband and I have seriously thought of the affect it would have on the child. Will he/she resent us, will the child resent my husband because he is not the bio father. Will the child throw it up in his face. I could not allow that to happen to my husband. I would want our child to know that they we loved so much that we went to great lengths to have them. But when I read these reaction, maybe we will not. It greatly grieves my heart to read these stories and that these children do not understand as adults what their parents went through to have them. However, I greatly appreciat the insight to their feelings and views.
“I’ve also always wanted to know why a woman would rather have insemination with sperm from someone she doesn’t know than just have a mere agreement with someone else”
I can think of a few reasons:
1. She doesn’t have to worry that the guy will show up later on and say, oh, I want custody of my kid. Legally, he would have some right to be involved in his biological child’s life.
2. Just as he could decide he wanted custody later on, she could decide she wants child support later on. Thus, a smart guy might not agree to this arrangement.
and
3. She believes she can get better genetic material anonymously. The pool of guys who are willing to let you make a baby with them and then walk away is not large – and the ones who fit the bill may be jerks. With sperm donation she can go online and find the profile of a young good-looking healthy medical student and believe that she is getting good genes.
“Are there any studies of donor conceived children that address their views as oppossed to a “harm”, whether actual or perceived?”
Yes.
1. The results suggest that adults who were donor conceived feel a bond to their biological father. For some of them not knowing who he is is very painful, others seem content.
2. Most of them support the right to artificial insemination and a surprising number of them have become egg and sperm donors themselves.
3. A good percentage of them look at strangers and wonder if they are relatives.
4. A chunk of them worry about the possibility of accidental incest.
5. There are some who become activists on this issue. Some want to get rid of anonymous donations or payment for donations. A few oppose any form of assisted reproduction.
LaLuba, I think there is some eugenics stuff going on with the way people look at sperm donors. The sperm bank may have a variety of types of donors, but the question is how do the potential parents pick the sperm? What is popular?