Canadian Medical Association Journal - "Disclosing the identity of sperm donors"

CMAJ - Canadian Medical Association Journal

NEWS
January 11, 2010

Disclosing the identity of sperm donors

SOURCE:
http://www.cmaj.ca/earlyreleases/11jan10-disclosing-the-identity-of-sper...

Excerpt from article:

"Mitchell, along with Guichon, is assisting in the editing of a book on the rights of children of assisted human production. In one chapter, Mitchell wants to tell the story of a medical student sperm donor. Before payment for sperm donations was banned in Canada in 2004, medical students were frequent donors. Thus far, however, he has had no luck finding a former medical student willing to participate. According to Guichon, medical students, and other young men who donated sperm for money, may not have considered the gravity of what they were doing.

“For some reason, people want to pretend that they are not procreating,” she says.

Guichon says some children conceived from donor sperm suffer psychological pain because of their ignorance of their genetic, cultural and historical roots. Furthermore, she says, they have difficulty creating an identity. British Columbia resident Olivia Pratton, who was conceived with donor sperm, is so determined to discover her genetic heritage that she has launched a lawsuit in the BC Supreme Court to allow all offspring over 19 to learn the identities of the donors whose sperm gave them life.

As for the argument that sperm donors were promised anonymity and that the promise shouldn’t be broken, Guichon says that offspring were not party to that agreement. These offspring are sometimes told they should be happy just to be alive, says Guichon. “I could be alive because of rape,” she says, repeating an argument she has heard donor-conceived people make, “but that doesn’t mean I condone rape.”

Then there is the fear of genetic diseases being passed on to offspring. In the United States, a sperm donor unknowingly passed on a potentially deadly genetic heart defect to nine of 24 offspring, one of whom died at age two from heart failure. The donor had no symptoms of the disease when he donated sperm, and his family history provided no obvious indication of any danger.

Instead of waging legal battles, some donor-conceived offspring are taking to the Internet to seek out information about their genetic history. For example, Wendy Kramer of Boulder, Colorado, who has a son through donated sperm, started an online registry to help connect sperm donors with offspring. So far, the Donor Sibling Registry has attracted more than 25 000 members from all around the world and has facilitated 7000 matches."

Read full article here:
http://www.cmaj.ca/earlyreleases/11jan10-disclosing-the-identity-of-sper...

In the future, suggests Guichon, society may become more supportive of donor-conceived children seeking out the identities of donors. “There is social approval of adopted children looking for their parents,” says Guichon. “Why facilitate reunions in one group and not the other?”