G. Costanza
Posted on 01/31/2019 8:58:12 AM PST by Red Badger
Danielle Teuscher's 5-year-old daughter Zoe is one of thousands of children conceived with sperm from an anonymous donor. When Teuscher wanted to know more about her daughter's ancestry and possible health issues, she and other family members decided to get DNA tests from 23andMe and added one for Zoe. What turned up appeared to be one of the anonymous donor's immediate relatives. She was shocked.
The donated sperm had come from Northwest Cryobank, which offers donors anonymity, but Teuscher said the apparent relative she found on 23andMe listed themselves as open to messaging.
"I said 'I don't want to cross any boundaries. I just want to let you know that we are out here and we are open to contact if you are,'" Teuscher said.
The relative responded "I don't understand," so Teuscher said she let it go. But then she got a "cease and desist" letter from Northwest Cryobank, telling her not to contact the donor or "learn more information about his identity, background or whereabouts." The sperm bank warned it could "seek $20,000 in liquidated damages." Worst of all she said, it took back "four [4] additional vials of donor's sperm that" she "purchased" – sperm she'd planned to use to have Zoe's genetic siblings.
"Devastating. I mean … I was shocked, I was crying for days, I could barely eat," Teuscher said. "I felt embarrassed almost. Here I thought I was doing this thing I thought was in the best interest of my daughter … And then it just came back on me in just such a harsh way that made me feel like I did something terrible, like I was a criminal."
Northwest Cryobank told CBS News it does not prohibit DNA testing, but said "concern arises when one uses DNA test results to contact a donor and/or his family." The bank said clients like Teuscher have "contractually agreed to not independently seek the identity or attempt to contact these individuals." According to Teuscher, the contract was online.
"I mean, you just click the boxes," Teuscher said. Plus, she said, it's not all about her.
"My daughter is an actual living, breathing, feeling human being who did not sign that contract," Teuscher said.
Contracts or not, many donor-conceived children and their families are finding each other. Wendy Kramer runs the Donor Sibling Registry, a group that connects donor-conceived children and their families. Her own donor-conceived son has found 18 half-siblings, most of them through DNA test matches.
"All of us, thousands of us, have made these connections," Kramer said. "It's a right for everybody to know the truth about their own DNA, their own background, their relatives and their medical histories."
Northwest Cryobank said not all donors will want that opportunity. It said "there is a human being on the other side of the gift who may have a partner, parents, job and children of his own" and uninvited contact "could jeopardize these relationships and families."
But experts say in 2019, that contact may simply be unavoidable. He said despite our best efforts, it's impossible to promise anonymity anymore.
"The problem we have now is that the science has kind of overstepped where we are, in terms of legality," said Dr. Peter McGovern, an infertility specialist.
But Teuscher said with the loss of her vials, the promise of more children could be ended for her.
"They literally took my babies. My future babies," she said.
After we contacted Northwest Cryobank for this story, a representative sent Teuscher an email saying the bank would refund the money she paid for those additional vials of her donor's sperm, but did not offer to give her vials back.
The representative we spoke to at Northwest Cryobank told us that this is the only letter threatening legal action that they've ever sent to a client, to his knowledge.
Sperm donors are scum’ lol. Those who choose to get impregnated by such are scum buckets. No pity for those fools but pity the children of such.
I was half expecting the story to be about that.
That’s what I thought at first! But then I read it was the donor’s relative. Which is what you would expect, I mean how else is it supposed to work? If there is a match it will presumably be the actual donor or a relative. Maybe she just gets shocked easily, she sounds super flakey as it is.
Freegards
excuse me....HE GOT PAID to squirt...
That is the crux of the issue - I can understand when a married couple (male + female, the only legitimate kind of marriage) has fertility issues - like the prospective father is sterile, pursuing sperm donation, though adoption would be a far more God-glorifying and society-helpful avenue to children.
But when single women or homosexuals decide to circumvent God’s pattern and purpose - they are sinning and I have zero sympathy for that person and there rebellion.
As to the child - I see no legal obstacle to her seeking knowledge of her donor father once she is of the age of “majority” - but mom signed a contract and then tried to break it.
What????? So the sperm donor is at fault here? I just don’t see your reasoning. It’s not as if he had a one night stand with this woman... He sold his sperm to a sperm bank. End of story.
Lunatic leftists play their twisted games and they want to change the rules on their sanctimonious emotional whims.
;-)
The “mother” sounds like an utter dipstick.
The mother was flat wrong to attempt to contact the biological Father. I am sure it is in bold ink NOT to attempt to do this.
She entered into a binding contract which appears to have covered the situation. And she was the party to breach. Doubt she has a case at all but she's certainly looking at $20K in liquidated damages (plus the attorney fees on both sides of the action most likely) if she wants to push it.
Dude fathered a child and walked away. Father abandoned mother and child. Father did not take responsibility. Intentionally.
Any father who does this should be taken out behind the barn and shot.
This shouldn't be that difficult to grasp.
” Worst of all she said, it took back “four [4] additional vials of donor’s sperm that” she “purchased” – sperm she’d planned to use to have Zoe’s genetic siblings.
:: They literally took my babies. My future babies,” she said ::
Just look at it as “pre-conception abortion”, honey. Things will be alright.
But, she violated the contract.
According to the article, all she did was check boxes on a website...............Now, the contract was with ‘her’ but not her child. She has wiggle room...............
The contract was with her but not her child..............
How do you figure he walked away - he have never come into contact with the woman in question. She BUYS the sperm from the sperm bank - SHE chooses to give birth (and in this case like many others - doing it in circumvention of God’s plan and model for childbearing). He helped provide what was essentially a “consumer product” for which there was a paying demand.
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