Posted on 08/29/2008 9:33:11 AM PDT by NYer
NEW YORK — Eighteen-year-old Ryan and 14-year-old Anna found each other on the Internet.
Both were conceived by artificial insemination technology. After they registered with the Donor Sibling Registry online, they discovered that they shared the same in vitro fertilization clinic and “donor number.” The same anonymous sperm donor was their genetic father. They are half brother and sister.
On a long weekend in May, Ryan and his mother flew from Colorado to New York to meet Anna and her mother and non-genetic father. Coincidentally, Ryan and Anna were celebrating the same birthday.
Perfect strangers, they bonded instantly, according to Ryan’s mother, Wendy Kramer, co-founder of the Colorado-based Donor Sibling Registry. “Ryan calls Anna his sister, and he thinks of her that way,” she said. “It’s a new kind of family. It’s hard to define.”
Hard to define — and often permanently painful to accept for children who have been conceived through artificial techniques.
As the test-tube children of baby boomers — the largest generation of children conceived by donor insemination technology — come of age, a whole new field of genealogy is emerging as these “genetic orphans” seek out their biological relations.
Cambridge University researchers told those attending a conference on human reproduction in Barcelona this past July that children conceived using sperm donors are emotionally more stable if they are told of the circumstances of their conception from an early age: 3 or 4 years old. But they also found that knowing their origins often sparks a quest for genetic “donor relations.”
The study from the Center for Family Research at the University of Cambridge is based on a survey of 165 mostly American donor-conceived children registered on the Donor Sibling Registry. It reported that two-thirds of those who found out the method of their conception after age 18 were “confused” and “shocked,” compared to only a third of those who found out before 18.
More than three times as many (38%) who discovered their origins later in life were angry.
“Finding out at age 23 was earth-shattering,” one respondent said. “I have so many questions and realize now that I may never learn more about the man who helped to create me.”
“It appears that donor-conceived offspring respond more positively when told [about their conception] at an early age,” said Cambridge’s Dr. Vasanti Jadva. “This finding is in line with research on adoption which also shows that children benefit from early disclosure.”
So the Donor Sibling Registry and similar groups are advising parents of test-tube babies to tell children their origins early. They offer booklets to help break the news. A 3-year-old, for example, could be told, “Babies are usually made from a little bit of mummy and a little bit of daddy, but because Daddy wasn’t very well, you were made from a little bit of mummy and a little bit of another man.”
Few Rules
According to the Donor Sibling Registry survey, however, less than a third of heterosexual couples who used third-party sperm or egg for an artificial conception tell their children. Single parents and lesbians are more likely to divulge, presumably because they have an absent opposite-sex parent to explain.
It’s not just IVF parents bucking the trend towards openness. Gamete donors are still free to choose anonymity — and most do.
For example, sperm donors — commonly recruited from college campuses with offers of free movie tickets, beer and $1,000 a month for their services — are invited to enter “open” arrangements where they might be contacted by “future offspring” once they turn 18. But they have no obligation to respond.
And when they don’t, to their genetic children they are merely no more than an anonymous number at a sperm bank with a fact file resembling a dating service ad.
Gamete donation is completely unregulated in America. There is no limit to how many children one donor might produce.
Wendy Kramer informed one fertility clinic that one of its donor numbers showed up on the Donor Sibling Registry for more than 100 children.
“They told me, ‘We don’t see a problem so long as they’re not in the same geographic area,’” she said.
But there is no guarantee of geographic separation for unaware half siblings, either. Kramer knows parents of related children who met by chance at a playground.
“Why can’t we ask the question in this country, where there is a $3 billion infertility industry, if this kind of anonymity is in the best interest of a child?” asked Kramer.
Margaret Somerville, founding director of the Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law at Montreal’s McGill University, believes the rights of the children have been completely ignored when considering whether any new reproductive technologies should be used to bring them into the world.
Instead, the “right” of infertile couples — and now homosexuals — to “have their own children” has been accepted without question. And technological advancements, from harvesting sperm from cadavers to seeking to manufacture children for homosexuals from two eggs and two sperm, continue towards fulfilling that “right.”
“A child is not something owed to one, but is a gift,” according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. “The ‘supreme gift of marriage’ is a human person. A child may not be considered a piece of property, an idea to which alleged ‘right to a child’ would lead. In this area, only the child possesses genuine rights: the right ‘to be the fruit of the specific act of the conjugal love of his [her] parents,’ and ‘the right to be respected as a person from the moment of conception’” (No. 2378).
“A child’s most fundamental human right is to be conceived with a natural biological heritage,” said Somerville. “Children have the right to be conceived with the untampered, natural sperm of one identified, adult living man and the natural ovum of one adult living woman.”
Added Somerville, “With IVF and donor insemination, society is intentionally funding and supporting the manufacture of children as commodities and is complicit in the violation of that fundamental right.”
Anger and Grief
And while many donor-conceived children seem unaffected, others, as they reach adulthood, are calling themselves “genetic orphans” — and voicing grief and identity crises.
“It makes me physically sick that I have a father, grandparents, half siblings out there that I can never, ever meet!” one adult respondent told the Cambridge researchers.
Given such anguish, it’s not a surprise the Donor Sibling Registry website had 94,000 visitors in the first half of 2008. More than 21,000 people have registered, and it has “matched” more than 5,000 siblings, as well as donors and children.
In the Cambridge research, respondents had gone on to find an average of four donor siblings each, with a maximum of 13.
But “it’s critical that you adjust your expectations so you aren’t setting yourself up for failure,” the registry warns its members.
Ryan Kramer was crushed twice in his teens when he located genetic half siblings whose parents would not tell them and wanted no further contact. But his new relationship with his donor sister seems to be meeting a deep need.
Having struggled through his teens without an image for the paternal half of his genetic identity, he said, “Anna lets me see that invisible side of myself in someone else.”
“A child is not something owed to one, but is a gift,” according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. “The ‘supreme gift of marriage’ is a human person. A child may not be considered a piece of property, an idea to which alleged ‘right to a child’ would lead. In this area, only the child possesses genuine rights: the right ‘to be the fruit of the specific act of the conjugal love of his [her] parents,’ and ‘the right to be respected as a person from the moment of conception’” (No. 2378).
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I think your babies are blessed to have you for a parent :)
My triplet nieces, just shy of 18, were conceived via IVF and are a blessing and a joy to everyone who knows them.
All well and good if you can reproduce without any help to have a family, but not everyone on this planet is perfect in their bodies and have problems that prevent them from having a family naturally--[waves my hand to show I'm in that unlucky population
Ditto! There are a great number of infertile couples in this country and around the globe. Like you, we wrestled with how to address the pain of infertility. Ultimately, we turned to adoption. The reasoning being that these children were already born and in need of a loving home.
I find it hard to believe that God would provide humanity with the science and technology to help infertile couples achieve what He commanded in Genesis ("Go forth and multiply")...
God gave us brains and intelligence but He also gave us wisdom and faith to distinguish between right and wrong. Several years ago, a team of British infertility experts developed the means to harvest eggs from aborted girls. They viewed this as 'progress' in the arena of assisting infertile couples. A group of psychologists intervened, however, and pointed out the obvious flaw in their solution: the impact of the child learning that her mother had never been born.
Your children are being raised in a loving family. God has blessed them with you! Perhaps the day will never come but as they grow older, one or another may inquire as to their biological parents. This is true with adopted children. They have a need to know what they genetically inherited. There is also a natural curiosity to see "who they look like". A few years ago, a young girl and her mother appeared on the Good Morning America show. The young girl had tracked down her sperm donor father and was now going to meet him, on live tv! She blushed as the large monitor focused on a handsome man, his wife and two boys. The young girl learned that she had inherited her 'big feet' from her 'Dad', along with a few other things as well. She was thrilled to know that she also had 2 half brothers. And then the show host asked the big question: How many other children had he fathered. The man's face lit up with pride. According to the agency, he had fathered close to 100 children. The camera panned to the young girl's face. The big smile collapsed immediately as the realization of that statement sank in.
While you may not agree with the teachings of the Catholic Church, they are established to provide sanctity to human life from conception to natural death.
“Though it is true that sometimes it is lawful to tolerate a lesser moral evil in order to avoid a greater evil or in order to promote a greater good," it is never lawful, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil that good may come of it (18)—in other words, to intend directly something which of its very nature contradicts the moral order, and which must therefore be judged unworthy of man, even though the intention is to protect or promote the welfare of an individual, of a family or of society in general.”
The title is a bit misleading.
The problem at issue here is not IVF (which is generally done with a husband’s sperm and the wife’s eggs), but when so-called “donor” sperm or egg is used.
It’s just basic luddism.
Extending the same logic against “tampering,” people shouldn’t use anti-biotics.
And that person attempted to pass themselves off as a Christian? I think you can be fairly certain that the individual who said that to you will be a bit surprised at his/her reception at the Pearly Gates, as the sign will read "No admittance". Probably won't get any soup from the soup Nazi, either.
NEXT!
Here’s my take on it, and I have two adopted children. I honestly don’t understand why one would ever have to tell these sperm donor children ANYTHING about how they were conceived! After all, they are at least 1/2 of the couples’ genes, and knowing that stuff will just mess you up! If my kids weren’t 1/2 black and 1/2 japanese respectively, I would vote for not telling them they’re adopted at all. It definitely messes w/their minds, I have seen this firsthand. If the kid looks remotely like you, zip it! For their sakes!! Whether it’s morally right to use sperm donors, is “above my pay grade” (sorry, had to use it :-) ) It’s all quite complicated and I can see the wisdom of the church on it (I’m not catholic) , but also the desire to have children.
Here’s my take on it, and I have two adopted children. I honestly don’t understand why one would ever have to tell these sperm donor children ANYTHING about how they were conceived! After all, they are at least 1/2 of the couples’ genes, and knowing that stuff will just mess you up! If my kids weren’t 1/2 black and 1/2 japanese respectively, I would vote for not telling them they’re adopted at all. It definitely messes w/their minds, I have seen this firsthand. If the kid looks remotely like you, zip it! For their sakes!! Whether it’s morally right to use sperm donors, is “above my pay grade” (sorry, had to use it :-) ) It’s all quite complicated and I can see the wisdom of the church on it (I’m not catholic) , but also the desire to have children.
For their sakes? You mean, for your own. That is morally wrong - worse yet, it is a deceptive lie. Not only am I an adoptive parent, I am also adopted. If you can't trust your parents, how can you trust? Adoptive children have a right to know the medical history of their biological parents. This is especially true in order to understand what illnesses they may have inherited.
Thank you!
“You will know them by their fruits...”-Matthew 7:16
Certainly, if there are illnesses involved, they would need to know, at a time when they could handle it. It certainly wouldn’t be for “my” sake, what would I have to gain? Knowing they were given up at birth loads children with too much baggage. I’m not saying I’m right, but that is my opinion, and I have experience in it. If a child is a test tube sperm donor baby for some single mom who had to own a human being, then I think that’s wrong to begin with and they’re in for trouble; I know a woman whose child has untold anger for being practically “decanted” w/no known biological OR adoptive father, no father at all.
Bless you and your wonderful family. Thank you for that post. You said what needed to be said. IVF is as much a part of Gods plan as everything else, and it is a good and noble thing that brings blessed children and fulfills the command to be fruitful and multiply. Bless you and your wonderful family.
Thank you so much for your kindness. :*) I am not a Catholic Church hater by any means, in fact I agree as a Christian with many of their beliefs, but on this issue it’s no go for me. Years of prayers, begging, pleading and finally acceptance of my condition (I lost 2 documented babies in the first trimester that are buried in the cemetery down the road from me)brought me ever so closer to God, and brought my children into this world. Unlike what some people have tried to tell me, Satan can NOT create life (yep, been told my belief in God’s will in my life was actually Satan in disguise and that the father of lies created my children’s lives) only God is the Creator. I know some people seem to believe that doctors and embryologists create life, but they don’t—IVF is a crapshoot, and if God doesn’t want a pregnancy to happen, it won’t—there’s not a single guarantee in the whole process (a million things must be in place before life begins, another sign of God’s miraculous hand at work) from start to finish! All the glory goes to my Heavenly Father and all my gratitude that He finally let me have my family after so many years of trying, waiting, loss and grief. :*)
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