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.
Got to love FReeper humor!
You made my day!
She paid for a product, and it seems to be taken from her because the company does not want the bad PR to get out. they should have quietly given her the money back... but her lawyers see the 8-figure numbers for the company depriving her of the siblings anyway. Juries are mostly stupid.
The next iteration would be to collect child support from deadbeat or recalcitrant sperm donors. Which, if I’m not mistaken has already been tried in a court of law, and I am unsure of the legal outcome of that decision. But I do know that the decision to become either an Anonymous or Non-Anonymous sperm donor is final and irrevocable. If you were undergoing in-vitro you had to sign paperwork that stated sperm would be available for x amount of years and that you agree that the Clinic could dispense your sperm without your notification, and that no claims could be made against the recipient.
But hey, it appears laws or contracts are seemingly made to be broken, disregarded, litigated, or rewritten.
“I felt embarrassed almost.”
As well you should, lady.
Possible that mom’s secret fantasy was the donor would show an interest in the kid and then the mom with the end result of everyone living happily ever after as a family.
How many pedo pervs have saved that pic for future use?
I don’t know, but I am assuming the relative of the donor she got in contact with voluntarily gave their identity out, with purpose that anyone could contact them after using the same DNA outfit.
“...but Teuscher said the apparent relative she found on 23andMe listed themselves as open to messaging.”
Maybe there are DNA outfits that keep everything confidential or just give a location as to were our ancestors come from. But I still wouldn’t trust them not to give or be forced to give their records to the authorities. I know I have relatives that have already done this dna stuff, but I am skipping it unless something medical comes up.
Freegards
That’s kind of what I was expecting based on the headline.
“My baby is also my niece!”
Watch the Korean movie version of “Old Boy”...
Thanks for the information. I know my genealogy back at least five generations on some lines and more than ten on others so I have no reason to submit to such a test. And being 65 now, I suspect any hidden significant health problems would have manifested by now. Just wondering.
The sister-in-law is very persistent, even to offering to pay for it, but she has her own and her dad’s test results so either my husband’s test would confirm her test or raise awkward questions which aren’t worth asking at this point.
Podestas?
She broke the contract in such a way as to potentially be damaging to the third party, and the sperm bank could be subject to damages.
No, she's not entitled anything back, and should pay all damages and all attorney's fees should all this go to court.
If a women donated eggs to an egg bank and some other sterile woman chose to take that egg and have implanted would you say that the egg donor woman Had abandoned the child and should be taken out behind the barn and shot
Simple fact men donate sperm and women donate eggs.. In the past it was for couples where the man or the woman was sterile that would take advantage of these services
unfortunately now it's single women exploiting these services but you don't hold them responsible.
Yet it's the same women there make it all the choices but you don't hold them a response at all
In logic, to say that A did such and such and therefore should be treated in such a way, is entirely unrelated to what B, C, and D did, and how they should be treated.
I made no comments on B, C, and D and any speculation is, well, speculative.
Men who do not take care of the children they father should be taken out and shot. Men who walk away from the children they father with their sperm should be taken out and shot.
I have not commented on mothers, doctors, the state, sisters, brothers, politicians.
Why not? One could easily get the impression it’s because they don’t bother you as much.
[or the milkman]
Oh there was a short film on that. About 5 minutes it seemed. Black and white all the language is in French. A teenage boy hates his father so he makes a voodoo doll. Been years since I saw it so I don’t remember the title.
It’s pretty good. Wish I could find it.
[ This is a stupid story about “nothing.” ]
You know, you could create a TV show about that.....
God has reasons some people are able to have children and some not. God has reasons He allows all these fertility options but it’s by no means a right, nor is it the right of that woman to say they took her babies. It’s a big mess, not God’s best which is a man and woman married and having kids as God designed it. Plenty of kids needing adoption and fostering. I don’t really see the biblicalness of artifical methods of trying to conceive but God will allow some kids be born that way - but as this article shows it leads to tangled mess of not knowing a real (biological) parent.
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