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My Father Was an Anonymous Sperm Donor
Washington Post ^ | 17 December 2006 | Katrina Clark

Posted on 12/18/2006 5:26:26 AM PST by shrinkermd

...I'm 18, and for most of my life, I haven't known half my origins...

...That part came from my father. The only thing was, I had never met him, never heard any stories about him, never seen a picture of him. I didn't know his name. My mother never talked about him -- because she didn't have a clue who he was.

When she was 32, my mother -- single, and worried that she might never marry and have a family -- allowed a doctor wearing rubber gloves to inject a syringe of sperm from an unknown man into her uterus so that she could have a baby. I am the result: a donor-conceived child....

...I was angry at the idea that where donor conception is concerned, everyone focuses on the "parents" -- the adults who can make choices about their own lives. The recipient gets sympathy for wanting to have a child. The donor gets a guarantee of anonymity and absolution from any responsibility for the offspring of his "donation." As long as these adults are happy, then donor conception is a success, right?

Not so. The children born of these transactions are people, too. Those of us in the first documented generation of donor babies -- conceived in the late 1980s and early '90s, when sperm banks became more common and donor insemination began to flourish.. I'm here to tell you that emotionally, many of us are not keeping up. We didn't ask to be born into this situation, with its limitations and confusion. It's hypocritical of parents and medical professionals to assume that biological roots won't matter to the "products" of the cryobanks' service, when the longing for a biological relationship is what brings customers to the banks in the first place.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Unclassified
KEYWORDS: father; liberalagenda; moralabsolutes; search; spermdonor
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To: shrinkermd
It's hypocritical of parents and medical professionals to assume that biological roots won't matter to the "products" of the cryobanks' service, when the longing for a biological relationship is what brings customers to the banks in the first place.

Bingo.

221 posted on 12/19/2006 9:21:42 AM PST by Tired of Taxes (That's taxes, not Texas. I have no beef with TX. NJ has the highest property taxes in the nation.)
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To: Mrs. Don-o

I'm no expert, but from what I understand, adoption is extremely costly and can take years and years. I don't think it is a realistic option for everyone. It is definitely not an option for a single female. The powers that be should make it easier for people to adopt children.


222 posted on 12/19/2006 9:58:01 AM PST by Born in a Rage
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To: OldFriend
I believe life is precious, no matter how it was conceived.

On this we all agree. Taking away the label of illegitimacy from children was a good thing. But we need to re-apply that label to parents who willfully fail to provide the other parent for their child.

223 posted on 12/19/2006 10:00:26 AM PST by Albion Wilde (...where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. -2 Cor 3:17)
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To: Mrs. Don-o
...One factor is that when one's father has died, his memory is usually honored....though he's passed on, he still has a role: he "lives on," so to speak, and gives the child a sense of identity and continuity.

Excellent point. This is a vital difference between deliberate fatherlessness, in which the father is a complete void, and the untimely loss of a father. The orphaned child is still completed by his/her knowledge of the father.

224 posted on 12/19/2006 10:04:54 AM PST by Albion Wilde (...where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. -2 Cor 3:17)
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To: Rb ver. 2.0
Yep.

Glad to hear that!!

225 posted on 12/19/2006 10:05:32 AM PST by Albion Wilde (...where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. -2 Cor 3:17)
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To: shrinkermd
Gee.

Life sucks.

Now get on with the task at hand - living, not lamenting.
226 posted on 12/19/2006 10:07:53 AM PST by roaddog727 (BullS##t does not get bridges built)
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To: Mrs. Don-o
The whole thing is silly if you ask me.

Maybe people who are only children do 'better' than people who come from a family of ten children...should we try to stop people from having so many kids?

Maybe people who have extended family around them (aunts, uncles, grandparents) do 'better' than people who have no extended family around...should we tell people not to move away from their extended families?

Maybe people who come from mixed marriages don't do as well as those who come from unmixed marriages...should we tell people who to love?

Maybe people who grow up in poverty don't do as well as people who are born into wealthy families...should we now tell poor people that they shouldn't have any children?
227 posted on 12/19/2006 10:09:00 AM PST by Born in a Rage
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To: Born in a Rage
I know many people who came from two parent homes who ended up very messed up.

Statistically, the majority of well-adjusted kids come from two-biological-parent homes. Just as you would not want the FDA to lower the standards for vaccines, medicines or inspections of the meat you ingest, you should not want society to lower its standards for what constitutes a good enough environment for children unless you really do want to destroy this country from within. Unfortunately, we are already far down that road.

228 posted on 12/19/2006 10:09:13 AM PST by Albion Wilde (...where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. -2 Cor 3:17)
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To: Albion Wilde

I was just echoing the "lesbians bearing kids to raise in fatherless homes is justified because Dick Cheney can do no wrong" crowd.


229 posted on 12/19/2006 10:12:59 AM PST by Rb ver. 2.0
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To: Tamar1973

LOL!!

I was originally going to post "clone wars".


230 posted on 12/19/2006 10:27:04 AM PST by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: Born in a Rage; maica; Mrs. Don-o
My screen name? Thanks for asking. I joined FR many years before you did, during the Clinton scandals back in 1998 or so...(my profile says I joined in '99 but it was actually before that because I had to rejoin at one point). My 'name' is the title of a song I wrote and was chosen because of my outrage at the Clinton Administration. Happy?

When we joined is irrelevant to the discussion of what is best for children. Besides my child-rearing experiences, I also did a graduate thesis in the 90s on U.S. family law and social policy; how would our sign-up dates at FR have anything to do with determining our relative ability to comment on family policy and sociology in the United States?

I'm not wasting breath on the libertarian hard-heartedness here to make myself happy or unhappy; rather, I am advocating for the needs of children, which were regarded as essential by our Founders -- that children would be raised properly in order to perpetuate a free republic. (On the Founders' intentions for marriage as an integral part of a republic by scholar Kay Himowitz of City Journal.)

Children need parents who are capable of selflessness and sacrifice, financial productivity, cooperation, long-term planning, stamina, and willingness to see it through. That's why societies have supported a marriage institution and why marriage extracts promises for the future as part of its covenants between the individual and society. People who ignore their marital promises offload the burden of their children onto the rest of society.

And thirdly, if as you say, you titled yourself "born", presumably as a conservative or a FReeper during the Clinton administration, does your rage at Clinton's behavior still exist? If so, why is this author's disappointment in her father's behavior constitute unacceptable "whining"?

231 posted on 12/19/2006 10:35:29 AM PST by Albion Wilde (...where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. -2 Cor 3:17)
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To: Born in a Rage
I'm no expert, but from what I understand, adoption is extremely costly and can take years and years. I don't think it is a realistic option for everyone. It is definitely not an option for a single female. The powers that be should make it easier for people to adopt children.

Actually, things are improving, and adoption is easier now than it was just a few years back. And I would disagree that adoption is "definitely not an option" for single women. In fact, many single women do adopt babies from overseas (e.g. China) and in the USA, I'm pretty sure almost any agency, public, private, or church-related, will help singles adopt hard-to-place children, which includes a wide spectrum ranging from older-than-infant, mild handicap, serious handicap, sibling groups, and other special needs.

As for expense, well, compared to what? Our Russian son's adoption cost less than the siding on our house. Adoption can be very expensive, but rarely as expensive as IVF, which on average costs about $13,000 per cycle, and may take 3, 4 or more cycles before pregnancy is achieved. It's not uncommon to spend $40,000 on IVF and end up with no baby.

Having said all that I still completely agree that adoption needs to be made much easier. It is a scandal that on the one hand there are many babies and children who need a mom (even a single mom), and many women who would love to take those little ones in their arms, and roadblocks in the middle that prevent it from happening.

Yes, a sigle woman can adopt a child, but it takes persistence. (LIke getting a husband takes persistence!) ;o)

232 posted on 12/19/2006 10:36:05 AM PST by Mrs. Don-o (Live and let live.)
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To: Rb ver. 2.0
I was just echoing the "lesbians bearing kids to raise in fatherless homes is justified because Dick Cheney can do no wrong" crowd.

I hear you.

233 posted on 12/19/2006 10:39:28 AM PST by Albion Wilde (...where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. -2 Cor 3:17)
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To: roaddog727
I'd say she IS getting on with the task at hand: she has acknowledged her mother's love and sacrifice, and has searched out, found, and been reconciled with her father. All that, and college, too: that's a lot for work for a young woman of 18.

She's also doing something of great value, which takes skill, tact, and courage: she's using her writing skill and her life experience to remind the world that a girl needs a father.

A kid can thrive with just on foot, but it would be wrong to, deliberately, of set purpose, design a child to have just one foot. And the same goes for intentionally, with deliberate forethought, begetting a child half-bereft.

Some children are fatherless by change. No child should be fatherless by choice.

234 posted on 12/19/2006 10:46:54 AM PST by Mrs. Don-o (Fathers: not replaceable, not optional, not redundant.)
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To: Born in a Rage
"Maybe people who are only children do 'better' than people who come from a family of ten children...should we try to stop people from having so many kids?"

Maybe people who have extended family around them (aunts, uncles, grandparents) do 'better' than people who have no extended family around...should we tell people not to move away from their extended families?

"Mother" and "father" are essential components of personal and genetic identity, to say the least, and aunts etc. are not.

If I'm not mistaken, what you're getting at is, "Can we welcome children who don't come in optimal conditions?" And the answer is a big, vehement YES!, assuming that you're not deliberately depriving the child of some part of his common human birthright.

That "deliberately" part is important. Children grow up and even thrive under all kinds of sub-optimal conditions; but father-deprivation is one of the most serious deprivations; and to deliberately beget a child into this kind of deprivation is as seriously wrong than to deliberately design a child to be armless, or eyeless, or deaf.

If a child's parents were blind, and they preferred a blind child so they had him blinded by some prenatal maiming, would your attitude be, "So, he was born! Get over it!"?

235 posted on 12/19/2006 11:09:31 AM PST by Mrs. Don-o (Fathers: not replaceable, not optional, not redundant.)
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To: Mrs. Don-o

Besides all the eloquent points you made about a dead father versus an absent one, there is usually the attachment of grandparents to their orphaned grandchild, plus various aunts uncles and cousins - all of which are missing from the self-made baby's life.


236 posted on 12/19/2006 11:54:37 AM PST by maica (America will be a hyperpower that's all hype and no power -- if we do not prevail in Iraq)
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To: OldFriend

I believe life is precious, no matter how it was conceived.

&&&&&

No one has said that this writer's life is not precious. She is just asking folks to focus on a problem that results from adults choosing to deprive a child of one of his or her parents = on purpose, not as a result of death, divorce or other separation after the fact of conception.

I advocate for women not to go out and "make": a baby, whether with an accomodating or duped friend, or with a turkey baster - knowing that she is planning to beget a child with only half the heritage, love and affection that every child deserves.


237 posted on 12/19/2006 11:59:46 AM PST by maica (America will be a hyperpower that's all hype and no power -- if we do not prevail in Iraq)
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To: Born in a Rage

It is fact that single mothers have a harder time financially and emotionally raising children. Why should society condone and support single women who waaannt a baby to conceive one - so she can either go on the dole until the child is school age or put said child in day care from infancy whice she works to support it? There is only one explanation - the self-centeredness of such a woman.


238 posted on 12/19/2006 12:05:22 PM PST by maica (America will be a hyperpower that's all hype and no power -- if we do not prevail in Iraq)
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To: Mrs. Don-o
Perhaps what I wrote was a bit harsh/abrupt, however, my folks got divorced when I was 10, Mom stayed in NJ and father moved to FL. Father died when I was a SR. in College - I had (and desired) little if any contact with father.

Also, through my own accord, went to and graduated from College, got 2 master's degrees, got commissioned as an Army officer and am right now serving on active duty at a rather high level of organization.

So to me, it is just something else to overcome.
239 posted on 12/19/2006 12:36:07 PM PST by roaddog727 (BullS##t does not get bridges built)
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To: maica

Thanks for your answer. I was just curious as to where you stood on the issue.


240 posted on 12/19/2006 12:56:47 PM PST by nopardons
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