My Father Was an Anonymous Sperm Donor

Washington Post ^ | 17 December 2006 | Katrina Clark

[Albion Wilde]

Social scientists have been tracking the outcomes of children in various family formats for the past century, many in long-term studies of 30 years -- I'm thinking of the work of Judith Wallerstein here, among other reputable researchers. They have found that while individual persons may do well coming from many kinds of upbringing, the most successful group of people in terms of school performance, getting a job, staying out of trouble, having good health and having good relationships themselves with a spouse and children, statistically are those raised by both biological parents, married and living together.

Such studies reinforce what the author is trying to get across: family form matters. Deviating from the known best situation has consequences and can affect many individuals negatively.

[nopardons]

No, it most assuredly is nothing at all even remotely similar to that.

That comparison is hyperbolic nonsense.

[OldFriend]

Okay, you've vented. Feel better now?

[Rb ver. 2.0]

Yep.

[maica]

Do you then think that it's okay for a woman to have an abortion, when she is raped and a child is conceived? Just a simple yes or no will suffice.

####

If a rape victim goes to a hospital immediately and is given the morning-after medication, yes. If she waits 3-4 months and then wants to have the growing child removed from her womb, no! That is what adoption is for.

[CDHart]

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!

[bvw]

Not a whiner. She's got a most valid and timely complaint. Without a Dad, she was born into that status once labelled in law as a "bastard". What modern mores, medical practise and her mom allowed to happen was something that in law is called "bastardy".

This intelligent and well-spoken young woman is warning us all not to continue falling into that trap of "we know better" modernity. Viz Mary Cheney.

There was and continues to be a very real reason why bastardy was a crime.

[OldFriend]

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

[Mrs. Don-o]

Explain to me how IVF is an insult to human dignity.

There are a number of reasons that would go to book-length (no, I won't do that here!) but let me just speed through the biggest ones summary-style.

The most obvious problem is that IVF "begets" or produces more offspring than will be implanted in your womb. That results in two really inhuman options: (1) killing your "surplus" offspring (or storing them in frozen form until they deteriorate and are ultimately dumped); or (2) using the embryo as a human experimental subject, without any of the safeguards essential to its moral status as a nascent human being.

The third problem is that the entire process of ovum extraction, sperm collection, in vitro fertilization, and so forth, has already reduced human procreation to an laboratory procedure resulting in a product who/which is a commodity in commercial transaction.

The entire distinction between a human being, a lab animal, and a bit of biological property is in smithereens.

So we (Americans) are right back where we were at the time of the Dred Scott decision of 1857, with the law unable to distinguish between a human being and a piece of property. Except at a potentially worse degree of complexity, since the human genome can now be altered through the introduction of heterologous genes, and the embryo manipulated into forms of abnormal development, so that distinguishing between "human" and "not-human" becomes almost impossible.

When Aldous Huxley wrote "Brave New World," he assumed --- didn't he? --- that people would want to prevent this from happening. There must be somebody out there who is thinking strategically about how to stop this whole race to total depersonalization. I think it should be done.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I've read that children raised by widows do better than those raised by single mothers where the father is merely absent. Children with deceased fathers know that their father is gone not because he doesn't care but because he CAN'T be there.

This is true. One factor is that when one's father has died, his memory is usually honored. There's his picture on the mantel, there are the snapshots in the family album; and the mother will say things like,
--"You've got perfect pitch, just like your father"
--"Oh, I wish your father could have been here for your graduation"
--"Your dad had a wild, wacky sense of humor, just like yours"
--"Your dad always said ..."
--"Your dad's wuld be so proud..."
--"He was the best husband, the kindest man..."

In other words, 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. A religious child knows that his deceased father still knows him, loves him, and prays for him in heaven; and amazingly, even non-religious kids can have this sense of being accompanied or cared-for by the father who died years before.

I agree: being fatherless from tragic death can actually be less traumatic than being fatherless from abandonment, artificial insemination, etc.

Something about love eternal.

[Born in a Rage]

That may be true statistically, however I know many people who came from two parent homes who ended up very messed up.

[Born in a Rage]

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?

[Born in a Rage]

Just because one doesn't come from the "most successful" group according to social scientists, it doesn't mean they shouldn't have been conceived (IVF or whatever).

[bannie]

The flip side:

No one tells you,
"You're gonna' be a drunk, just like your father."

(Just kidding!!!!)

[Born in a Rage]

So, would you rather that a woman sleep around (perhaps on her husband) and get 'fertilized' naturally instead of having IVF? I guess there is a 'moral dilemma' either way, isn't there?

[Born in a Rage]

lol...unfortunately, 'tis true!

[Mrs. Don-o]

"That may be true statistically, however I know many people who came from two parent homes who ended up very messed up."

I know people with two legs that ended up very messed up. It's not clear they would have done better with just one leg.

[bannie]

I recently had a great laugh with part of my family over something like this (We're a large, close family; sit it may not seem fair of us to laugh about this...but we did.).

A co-worker of one of my sisters is gay and she paid $50,000 for invitro fertilization. She was moaning because the process didn't work, and she blew $50,000.

We all worked out a cheaper way of conceiving and picked out the characteristics we'd opt for.

Y'had to be there to hear a bunch of senior citizen ladies (including my 87-year-old, retired librarian mother) work out the details.

:-) Humor isn't the last thing to go.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Thre are right ways and wrong ways to get a baby. But it would make no sense to wish someone's non-existence because they were conceived in a wrong way: a way that's injurious to human rights and dignity.

[Mrs. Don-o]

So, would you rather that a woman sleep around (perhaps on her husband) and get 'fertilized' naturally instead of having IVF? I guess there is a 'moral dilemma' either way, isn't there?

It's not a "dilemma" if there are more than those two possible courses of action.

Are those the only two options? (Would I "rather" have her sleep around? Ha! Ha!) Of course not. Adoption, for instance, is wonderful choice; and not the only one.