"I've had this recurring dream of floating through darkness ... whirling faster and faster ... I get weary and want to put my feet down to stand ... but there's nothing to stand on. This is my nightmare -- I'm a person created by donor insemination, someone who will never know half of her identity. I feel anger and confusion, and I'm filled with questions. Whose eyes do I have? Why the big secret? Who gave my family the idea that my biological roots are not important? To deny someone the knowledge of his or her biological origins is dreadfully wrong."
Margaret R. Brown, Newsweek, 1994
What are we doing to the children? To the estimated 30,000 to 60,000 who are conceived each year in the United States using sperm from anonymous donors? To the thousands of donor-conceived offspring born each year in Canada and around the world?
We live in an age when artificial reproductive technologies are mainstream. Eggs and sperm obtained in one country can be transferred to a surrogate in another, for a couple who are playing reproductive tourists in a third. But in our rush to ensure that every couple has some means of creating a child, we have neglected to adequately consider what this potpourri of gametes and technologies might be doing to the resulting children.
That answer is now in. Last week, the Institute for American Values released a report that compares the experiences of donor offspring with adopted children and children who were raised by their biological parents.
My Daddy's Name is Donor is the first large-scale study to take a comprehensive look at the well-being of adults aged 18 to 45 who were conceived with anonymous donor sperm.
As Brown suggested, these adults struggle with issues of origins and identities. Sixtyfive per cent agreed that, "my sperm donor is half of who I am," 69 per cent wonder if the donor would want to know them and 48 per cent feel sad when their friends talk about their biological parents.
Forty-three per cent feel confused about who is a member of their family and who isn't -- compared to 15 per cent of adopted persons and six per cent of those raised by their biological parents.
The identity phenomenon described by donor offspring is known as genetic or genealogical bewilderment. There is a fear of what unknown traits and predispositions may lie inside their cells.
Brown wrote: "All the love and attention in the world can't mask that underlying feeling that something is askew ... like I'm borrowing someone else's family."
An innate need for connection and a biological heritage is lacking and the study demonstrates it can make a disturbing difference to the well-being of offspring.
Donor offspring are significantly more likely than those raised by their biological parents to struggle with serious negative outcomes. Donor and adopted offspring are twice as likely to report problems with the law. Donor offspring are 1.5 times more likely to report mental-health problems and more than twice as likely to have problems with substance abuse.
Those numbers go even higher for donor offspring of single mothers and those whose parents kept their origins a secret.
Technology may be able to surpass the limits of reproductive biology, but it can't replace that innate desire to know who you are and where you've come from.
How can we, in good conscience, continue to use gametes from anonymous donors to create a generation of children who have no knowledge of their biological, social and medical history?
As Brown said, "I can understand a couple's desire for a child and I don't deny that they can provide a great amount of love and caring, no matter how conception occurs ... [But] I don't see how anyone can consciously rob someone of something as basic and essential as heritage."
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/opinion/children+sperm+donors+robbed+their+heritage/3308010/story.html#ixzz0uoJXHWHg
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