Mother Nature doesn't like to be messed with.
There are so many children that need adopting there's no need for all this genetic mish-mashing around.
47
You really don’t get to choose your child even when you know your spouse. My blue eyed blonde daughter took a DNA test and by southern standards she is black too! She is 2% West African and then as much Cherokee Indian as Elizabeth Warren is!
18
Reminds me of a case in Hawaii where a wife found out she was going to be dumped/divorced. She went down to her husband's sperm bank and withdrew some of the husband's sperm to impregnate herself with an heir to her soon-to-be ex-husband. The husband was heir to a genuine fortune from a local land trust...
Legend has it that the sperm bank was sued for allowing an unauthorized withdrawal. The daughter is happy.
10
Neither I nor my wife have felt the need to have children, so that obviously colors my opinion. As people said, you spend your money, you have expectations, sure, I get it. But all this could be avoided by adopting a kid who really needs loving parents with the means to raise them. This whole thing just seems a bit creepy and selfish. I hate to sound callous, but maybe go to the pound, not the breeder...
44
Why would anyone trust a company that sold sperm in the first place.? Was it all the white coats?
16
I can't help but feel uncomfortable with the idea that procreation and childrearing need to have guarantees which is driving all this ART. Trying to give everyone who wants to conceive or have a biological child, that opportunity has opened up a can of worms that we have not prepared for and is determining the lives and fates of children in ways that are worrisome. An even bigger concern than getting the "wrong" sperm is the dozens of half-siblings that so many of these children end up with.
16
interesting that the one case, fertility fraud, that seems to have been successfully litigated was brought by a man as compared to the cases, brought by single mother and female same sex couples were thrown out. It would be interesting to know if this apparent bias is real.
28
25 years ago, the likelihood of an error being made at a sperm bank was likely fairly high. People cannot attribute a level of accuracy, to certain procedures, that likely isn't possible especially given the type of product and the fact that human beings are involved.
If sperm could be looked at and differentiated from one another with the naked eye then people could double check the donor prior to use. Given the nature of the specimen and, human fallibility, it is unrealistic to think that mistakes won't be made. This should be noted on consents prior to dispensing sperm.
Anyone using alternate forms of fertilization cannot expect 100% accuracy given the current state of science.
5
wondering if the same thing happens when women go to retrieve their frozen eggs. how would one know?
27
"The court described a new kind of loss — a loss of “genetic affinity” — and awarded the couple 30 percent of the costs of raising the child, about $233,000."
This makes sense because a parent will need to take classes and learn about another culture. This is similar to fostering children with unique needs. Spending a chunk of money to produce progeny is the customer's priority - not fostering real-live breathing children. So yes, that award seems logical.
2
If clinics are holding themselves out to the public as being able to deliver an embryo fertilized by a specific, selected donor’s sperm and are charging people for that service, but have not implemented appropriate internal controls to make good on the promise. Why is this not punishable as a deceptive trade practice under the FTC Act or state consumer protection laws?
38
@Anthony Miles clinics should inform patients that mistakes are possible given the nature of the procedure.
6
“Confounded procreation”. Ain’t it the truth?
8
I have long felt that fertility clinics should be placed under the same scrutiny as abortion clinics. People scream "baby killers" as they protest Planned Parenthood clinics, yet completely ignore the Frankenbabies created--or created and destroyed--at fertility clinics. It is telling that Alabama SPECIFICALLY exempted fertility doctors and their treatments and IVF from any liability. As lawmakers realized, abortion affects the poor; fertility treatments affect women THEY know.
58
Anyone who’s disappointed that their child is biracial instead of white shouldn’t be raising children.
27
@Kelvin Ma it isn't as simple as you make it. Some couples may not want to the world to know about their fertility status.
How about this: anyone who can't provide public documentstion of their fertility status should not make public comments regarding the fertility ststus of others.
11
@Kelvin Ma:
I disagree. It doesn't mean they're racist, just that selected a specific sperm donor and were given sperm from another man.
10
@Kelvin Ma The fact that the child was biracial was their clue that the sperm used did not come from the donor they selected. I don't think we can assume that they are racist because they were upset that the donor they selected was not the one whose sperm they received.
24
My family was built through domestic open adoption. Donor sperm or eggs were not for us. We've met birthparents, their families, had access to medical histories. There are no guarantees when it comes the reality of becoming a parent. You can plan, wish, and hope.
38
There are a lot of procedures that can minimize mistakes from happening.
The bottom line is, however, that mistakes are bound to happen as we humans are not perfect.
Assumption of risk....
3
I think an important point that a lot of those commenting have missed is that women who pursue motherhood through the use of donor sperm are spending tens of thousands of dollars to have a child. It is perfectly reasonable to opt for the healthiest potential outcome, if given the opportunity.
When undergoing artificial insemination or IVF, a lot of fertility doctors recommend/require women do genetic testing themselves, so selecting a donor who is most compatible (not a carrier of any of the same potential mutations) is important.
Also, those who choose a physical partner with whom to have children get to choose physical characteristics, in a way - you are attracted to your partner for some reason. Why should these moms not have the same option?
48
@sgob Is that reasonable, though? I don't think it's a guarantee of anything.
2
Wouldn't it be better to get sperm from people they know?
How about asking for volunteers, or reaching out to the community.
There's just something strange about selecting fathers of children based on statistics.
And just because someone might be genetically perfect, they can still have the jerk gene - and there's no test for that.
30
@Postette
It would be extraordinarily dangerous for any man to father a child in the fashion you suggest. If the couple splits they will immediately seek child support from the donor and, under the best interest of the child standard, the man would be on the hook for decades of support.
26
Test tube kiddo here. Just glad my parents were so capable and loving. Don't really care which vial of sperm I came from.
Living is not a scientific job.
89
Sad but true. Profit trumps all even in the sperm bank business. Probably better to ask a good and healthy friend!!
9
Oh for heaven’s sake. All this talk about designer and perfect babies misses the point completely and is just plain cruel and judgmental to boot.
Maybe there are a small minority who use the book to choose such babies, but did it never occur to you holier-than - thous that people have totally legitimate and normal reasons for seeking certain attributes?
Who doesn’t want the healthiest child possible? And how irresponsible would it be not to try if you have the chance to swing the odds in that direction? A million things besides genes determine illness but if people seeking (usually out of other options) IVF have a shot at prevention, this you condemn?
And maybe they would like the chance at a child who resembles them in some ways, eye color? Hair color? A propensity to be smart (this is wrong?) or athletic or artistic like one of the parents? People pick what they hope for.
Nothing is guaranteed and shame on those of you trivializing this trauma over serious potentially life-threatening life events as baby “perfection” or “design”.
What I don’t understand is why these aren’t legally clear-cut breach of contract cases? The user was promised one thing and that contract was violated. Large judgements against some companies would clean up their acts pretty quickly if liability for these “mistakes” was established.
In another case reported in The NYT a company threatened to sue a client because of an inadvertently broken confidentiality agreement. Good for the goose?
73
Justice Thomas is barking up the wrong tree when he conflates abortion rights with eugenics. IVF proponents and infertile couples should hope that he most does not subscribe, as is most likely the case, to the NYTimes, lest he starts legislating IVF from the bench.
7
If a woman aborts a fetus because it may have Down’s syndrome or something like that, that is the definition of eugenics. This couple is no less guilty.
4
Decades ago I met a single woman who chose to reproduce by selecting a man from her social circle. The man was handsome, built well, and an artist. She chose him based on these facts. What she didn't factor in was the fact that he was a falling down drunk. I don't know if he did drugs, but she did. People then didn't think about or realize the probability of an offspring inheriting substance abuse from parents. I often have worried about this innocent baby conceived by two addicts. I think of him and wonder if he is suffering from addiction and if he is still alive.
30
goes to show, an ill wind etc. just don't pull one off when it's blowin hard in the wrong direction!
2
On the one hand, I agree that these parents are in the right. They paid for a certain donor's sperm, they got some other donor's sperm, it's pretty clear that the facility is at fault and that they're entitled to some form of compensation.
On the other hand, the way they express themselves is really disturbing. Lots of us have a family history of some illness or another. We're not damaged goods.
39
@Uly I think the point of being so picky is how expensive it is to go the route of purchasing (expensive) donor sperm and undergoing expensive fertility treatment. Women can spend 10s of thousands of dollars, so when spending that much, you want to opt for the most healthy outcome possible.
13
@Uly
from another poster:
"ann
ct9h ago
I can’t believe some of these comments. We are not talking about blue eyes versus brown. Our family has an identifiable and disastrous genetic mutation, Cystic Fibrosis. And it is the most common inherited genetic mutation. If both parents carry this gene their child has a 1 in 4 chance of having the disease and a 1 in 2 chance of being a carrier. Why in the world would you ever take that chance? So a couple who both have the mutation may want to screen for a sperm donor without it. Sparing the risk of having a child with Cystic Fibrosis. Being given the wrong sperm could put their child at the same risk they were avoiding. Shame on these clinics for being so careless with people’s lives."
23
Do it like Maude Lebowski. The Dude got a good and thorough checkup and was healthy, but not someone she would have to interact with socially.
6
It's not just better motility within the facilities?
I'm surprised courts have been so unsympathetic to these claims: this seems like very straightforward fraud or breach of contract. If I order an Hermes handbag and the store sends me a Mulberry, they don't get to claim no harm, no foul, since it's still a nice bag and anyway it carries just as much stuff as an Hermes. These companies purported to sell a specific, exclusive product: people with clean family medical histories are hard to find. Instead, it appears they were swapping in easier to find knock-offs, thinking the buyer in a pre-DNA testing world would never find out.
92
@Daniela Smith the difficulty lies in the common law itself - one cannot get damages unless they have suffered damages and the courts would have to then say that the resulting child should never have been born - wrongful life - which courts for obvious reasons are loathe to do. The issue has come up not infrequently in other contexts - failed contraception or failed vasectomies for example. It requires a court to say that a particular child should never have been born.
14
A child is not a “product”.
11
I wondered about this back in the 1990s, when I knew several women who were inseminated with donated (purchased, really) sperm. (One woman and her female partner turned down an offer of sperm from a dear friend, as they were advised by a lawyer that there could be legal entanglements down later on. They were desperate to have children, although they soon split up when the one who gave birth to the kids soon went off with a man. The female partner had no parental rights...very complicated.) I never trusted that, in an industry so poorly regulated, the sperm a woman chose would be the sperm she got. It seems my skepticism was not unfounded. A distant relative of mine has a daughter in her late twenties who looks very little like her mother, and nothing like the donor the parents chose. She is loved and has a happy and privileged life, but I wonder how the parents feel about what obviously happened there. I think they must know, although no one has ever mentioned it in my presence.
17
Lawsuit time. This discovery is a monstrous deceit of the parents who established standards and were thwarted in their efforts. This is unconscionable activity by the sperm bank(s) should be punished in the Courts.
20
Commenters who imply that women/couples should not care about who the sperm they use come from baffle me. When heterosexual people are choosing a mate they are knowingly or unknowingly selecting that mate based on certain characteristics. Why shouldn't people choosing sperm donors be able do the same? Sperm banks definitely need to be better regulated.
97
It’s not nice to mess around with Mother Nature.
11
@Cold Eye well, then, we shouldn't have antibiotics, or surgeries to correct heart defects, or pre-screen for things like Taye Sachs disease, or have amniocentisis to detect other genetic diseases or birth defects? just let the chips fall where they may... and pray that the couples who have these children have plenty of money and assistance.
30
@Cold Eye More like "Cold Heart"...
8
Really? Because I don’t like the idea of harvesting human beings for profit? Gimme a break!
5
This mistake could have been prevented by DNA testing of the donors at the time of the donation and DNA testing the sperm when used.
2
@Robert Bosch - DNA testing wasn't around when some of these donor-conceived children first were born.
10
@Robert Bosch I don't think there exists a DNA test that can be done on a sperm before it is used to fertilize an egg. Even pre-implantation testing of embryos has been shown in some studies to adversely affect the chances of successful implantation and live birth.
4
I can’t believe some of these comments. We are not talking about blue eyes versus brown. Our family has an identifiable and disastrous genetic mutation, Cystic Fibrosis. And it is the most common inherited genetic mutation. If both parents carry this gene their child has a 1 in 4 chance of having the disease and a 1 in 2 chance of being a carrier. Why in the world would you ever take that chance? So a couple who both have the mutation may want to screen for a sperm donor without it. Sparing the risk of having a child with Cystic Fibrosis. Being given the wrong sperm could put their child at the same risk they were avoiding. Shame on these clinics for being so careless with people’s lives.
151
Nah! We don’t need anymore big government regulations stopping companies from making a profit.
9
This revelation shouldn't surprise. Matter of fact it simply confirms my long held belief that "Nature Rules" . There are reasons why people can't conceive. Nature's way of species control perhaps? I recall the old and wonderfully profound TV commercial wherein an imposing woman commands....." Don't mess with Mother Nature!". Truer words etc......
9
@Syl
Wasn't it "It's not nice to mess with Mother Nature"? And there was a thunderclap, I believe.
I loved that ad, too, and have thought about it many times over the years. Clever and true.
It could have been an ad for dairy butter versus butter substitute, but it wasn't.
1
@Syl:
so, if you come down with a serious, life threatening bacterial infection, you would refuse antibiotics because "its just mother nature"?
6
There are no guarantees with any ancestry or with any birth - one never really know what one is "getting".
Biology is infinite in its permutations and its possibilities.
Sperm bank moms are pretty much in the same boat as the rest of us.
11
@r mackinnon True point.. the only difference is that sperm bank moms are spending a LOT of money, so any opportunity to increase the odds of good health seems ideal. Who wouldn't want to maximize their chances of healthy offspring, given the opportunity?
9
@r mackinnon I'd rather be in the boat with a donor who didn't have a grand parent who'd died at 60 of brain cancer.
4
it will be interesting to see how many men will still be willing to donate sperm as more and more people are able to narrow down who their biological father is. When the number of people who have their DNA tested reaches a critical mass, almost everyone will be identifiable. It's one thing to intellectually, and theoretically know there may be humans out there who were sired by you. It's another to have them all find you.
34
@Working mom The USA is some distance behind other countries which have already ended donor anonymity, including the UK, Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Finland, Switzerland, Austria, Australia, and New Zealand.
According to HFEA figures, the numbers of UK sp-rm donors went *up* eight years in a row since the ending of anonymity, thus reversing a three year decline. The 631 donors in 2012 was the highest figure since they started keeping records, and well over double the figure in 2004 (237) just before anonymity ended.
8
“Oh brave new world
with such people in it.”
Literally.
6
Thirty plus years ago a good friend was making extra money, $50 each, by donating his sperm to a fertility clinic on a very regular basis. I know that the doctor paid him cash and that no records were kept since transactions sometimes took place in the doctor’s parking lot.
My friend died of pancreatic cancer at the age of forty. I can’t believe that the doctor or his patients were ever informed.
28
@Ron, I know the odds are against it, but I fear that half siblings could meet and — unaware of their relationship — produce children. We are predisposed to be attracted to our kin, and being raised together generally makes our brains overrule that attraction with familial feelings (this has been shown to be a problem when a parent and adult child meet for the first time and are inappropriately attracted to one another).
I am the aunt to two adopted girls who were fathered by unidentified men. They know absolutely nothing of their genetic heritage. I wonder how that feels for them. One of the nice things about 23 and Me is that you can put your DNA out there and find blood relatives if you want. It’s an option.
18
I am adopted. I know nothing about my birth father. It does not bother me at all.
18
@Zejee That's great, but it doesn't mean that other adoptees or donor-conceived people will or should feel the same way.
10
Although there are some valid reasons for using a sperm donor--sometimes even a donor who is not personally known to the parents--caution is warranted.
Even given the unprecedented knowledge gained by contemporary science, none of us comprehensively understands the intricacies and implications of our genetic makeup, nor how our DNA interacts with social realities to form an adult human being.
This particular marriage of scientific technology and commerce must be regulated more than most. For everyone's sake.
16
@W. H. Post
Regarding the poorly understood genetics of sperm (or egg) donors, is not the same true about ourselves?
10
Nature sides with the hidden flaw. The more we meddle in her checks and balances the more likely the slip up. That assisted reproduction is a big business only adds to the chances of fraud.
Brave new world.
25
First, I have nothing but compassion and sympathy for people who want children and for a variety of reasons turn to sperm banks. That said, there is something a bit unsettling about choosing the attributes of your donor in order to get a jump start on getting a "better" baby. Health is of course very important and I do not minimize these concerns. But these are just the usual business problems that arise when human life is commodified. Conceiving a child is now a business transaction and the buyers did not receive what they agreed to pay for. So they want restitution. The other thing they want is a perfect world where everything goes exactly as they prepared and planned for. Where mistakes aren't made; where accidents don't occur. [It also presupposes all sperm donors are telling the truth on their applications. Not so sure about that.] This is the problem with Americans these days - they can't accept it when something "bad" happens to them. There is the mother who sued her doctor for wrongful birth because her beautiful son has cystic fibrosis and she had submitted to all the genetic tests to avoid this and other potential "problems." I know about this as she wrote about it and shared her anger and truth publicly - explaining that she although she loves him, she wishes he had never been born. If you go to a sperm bank assume that an accident or sloppy book keeping could occur. Weigh the options and decide if you want to proceed. Nothing is perfect.
34
@Suzanne
In the case of these women, they chose a very specific man's sperm and trusted their healthcare team to carry out their wishes. Whether or not they ended up with a healthy child, what matters is that they received the sperm of a donor that they did NOT choose. As a fertility patient myself, I can tell you that my clinic utilizes many layers of security, including coded ID cards for me and my husband, to ensure that our genetic material doesn't get misplaced/misused. It's not too much to ask fertility clinics to tighten up their security measures in a similar manner.
65
@Suzanne What exactly is "unsettling about choosing the attributes of your donor in order to get a jump start on getting a "better" baby." Don't women do this when selecting a husband or partner with whom to start a family?
Women are absolutely entitled to decide which sperm might fertilize their eggs, whether this decision involves choosing a sexual partner or choosing candidates from a sperm bank.
An "accident" or "sloppy bookkeeping" resulting in insemination with unselected sperm is never acceptable and always represents gross negligence.
51
@Suzanne I agree with what you said and thank you for writing it so succinctly. Babies aren't microwave ovens. And, in any event, even if you think you know exactly who your ancestors are, there is no foolproof way to assure that your offspring have the traits you desire. Procreation is, in a way, not that different than a game of Russian Roulette.
16
Styleman, as the parent of a child conceived through donor insemination, this story chilled me to the bone. Not for the reason you indicated, but because of the questions it raises about our child’s health history. We took this into account when selecting our donor, and for our (now adult) child, what the sperm bank supplied is all of the health data we have for 50% of our child’s genetic makeup.
It also raises potential concerns for our child, who has been seeking “donor sibs” through Somme of the websites that have been set up to facilitate this research. Questions about our identities are very real and fundamental; for donor-conceived individuals there is an added layer of complexity that is somewhat analogous to that of adoptees. Imagine thinking you had located your (half) siblings and established relationships with them, only to learn that they are not your bio-relatives after all. No matter how close you might feel to these found “siblings,” this would alter your understood relationship with them and reopen questions of self-identity you thought you had settled.
14
Another example the importance of government regulation in a capitalistic society that is ruled by money.
108
Another unfortunate example of how humans have become a commodity. I suspect these mix ups were not "accidents" of poor record keeping. After all if you have Donor A with clear medical issues and Donor B with none, wouldn't most clients select Donor A? This then begs the question what is the supplier to do with all the Donor B sperm sitting around not selling and turning a profit? Gee, I know! Lets start giving out Donor B sperm without telling the receiver. It's the age old concept of bait and switch. Beyond grandparents, aunts, and uncles, I have no idea what medical issues lurk in my biological children's genes....but if I paid huge amounts of money to be selective, I would certainly be angry. Lawmakers need to address these issues, because clearly the fertility business is not.
52
I sympathize with these people, but it's a bit creepy to think that this is like creating a designer baby. Are only people with "perfect" genes allowed to reproduce?
“I felt like they tainted the gene pool for my kids. I didn’t choose someone who has a history of brain cancer in the family. I would never have chosen this donor. They should be ashamed to even have this donor on the website.”
82
@CK
I don't think that anyone who uses a donor egg/donor sperm would voluntarily sign their child up for a genetic pool that is fraught with risk. If I had the option to choose between a sperm donor with a strong family history of diseases which have a genetic component, or a donor whose family history doesn't, I know that I'd choose the latter.
39
Of course, you are assuming that the fertility clinic is giving you accurate information, Right?
4
Different but the same:
My co-worker thought she was buying a little maltipoo, but within 6 months, it was clearly not a maltipoo.
A deceptive breeder, or maybe fate, had given her a beautiful mutt who explodes with love and joy every time she enters the room.
I told her she was lucky. I never knew a dog quite so utterly perfect.
87
@Pete As much as I love dogs, a puppy is not the same as a human infant.
34
@Pete
Since dogs are classified as property, in some states there is actual recourse for the case you suggest. In some states, it is even referred to as a "lemon" law and falls under consumer protections. Breeders who belong to associations generally have rules and standards to adhere to in order to maintain membership.
The point of the article which made sense was that the time has passed when sensible regulations on donor supplied sperm and eggs must be put into law in every state to protect the children who result from the purchase. Good record-keeping and checking up to see that what is supplied is what was ordered should be a minimum for a business license for companies doing business in this sector.
8
@MsRiver The choice is the same. No matter how hard humans try to breed out imperfections, it's the potential for unexpected results that make all living things special.
12
There is an upside to this -- more genetic diversity.
A surprising (or not) number of women wanted sperm from a limited number of "perfect" men, resulting in real risks in the next generation of half-siblings marrying each other or male half-siblings being the next sperm donors.
9
@Frank that sounds like a lot less genetic diversity to me.
7
Finally, what women want. “Perfect Men”.
So, if precedent emerges for lawsuits based on getting sperm that isn't what you ordered, who could rape victims (without identification of the rapist) who are forced by their states to carry the baby to term sue? They most certainly will most certainly have been wronged--first by the rapist, and then by the government that would require them to carry the baby.
24
If Cindy had met a man that she wanted to have a relationship and children with, and she found out that his grandmother had brain cancer, would she have rejected him because of that?
And is she so sure that her own gene pool is totally untainted? Surely some ancestor, at some time, must have had some disease as well.
115
@PM she might not have rejected the man, but they may have opted for the alternative methods of pregnancy... if they have genetic information at their disposal to make an informed decision.
16
@PM Maybe Cindy wouldn’t have rejected the man, but maybe she doesn’t want children with a high risk of brain cancer. Couples who carry genetic diseases have other options for starting families...one option involves sperm donors. If someone has a known genetic risk factor, they should not be a sperm downer. Period.
19
This is not easy water to navigate through. I have had family and friends that used sperm banks. On the one hand it really goes to show you that some things can't be planned. We marshal ourselves to perfect our worlds and then we have a "mistaken" pregnancy. To me the saddest part is that we believe we can control things so much to the point that we feel violated because we made a decision based on information that was no longer true. This happens everyday when people get pregnant doesn't it? Maybe sperm banks are a bad idea because they promote certainty ideals. Maybe the "bank" should be lottery with a baseline of family history? Life is not predictable though so how can these biologically sensitive realms be "controlled". Maybe we have literally taken on more than we are able to manage by pretending that this process could ever be safe or certain. Having a baby is the most uncertain thing you can do on the planet. If you start out thinking you are in control you very soon realize how silly that mentality is. Making humans is tricky stuff already especially if we regard one type of human as a preferred outcome to any other, I feel we are missing the entire point. Peace to all.
28
@Peggy
"from another poster:
ann
ct9h ago
I can’t believe some of these comments. We are not talking about blue eyes versus brown. Our family has an identifiable and disastrous genetic mutation, Cystic Fibrosis. And it is the most common inherited genetic mutation. If both parents carry this gene their child has a 1 in 4 chance of having the disease and a 1 in 2 chance of being a carrier. Why in the world would you ever take that chance? So a couple who both have the mutation may want to screen for a sperm donor without it. Sparing the risk of having a child with Cystic Fibrosis. Being given the wrong sperm could put their child at the same risk they were avoiding. Shame on these clinics for being so careless with people’s lives."
2
I understand that technically a lab switching what the would-be parents asked for is unconscionable. However, I can't help but ask: What about the living child? Would you willingly go back and replace your child with another more-perfect one? Are you rejecting your current child?
I know there's a bit of magical thinking among some people--that there are little souls in heaven waiting for the next birth opportunity and the child you wished for would be one and the same without the potential for a genetic disposition to a particular disease. Please realize that every single egg/sperm possible combination is a totally different potential person.
22
The desire to have a child is a strong one and the IVF industry satisfied it. But it turns out there is a stronger desire, the desire to know just who the parents of the baby are. The putative parents want to know, if for no other reason than to be sure they got what they paid for. The children born of IVF want to know because people just have a deep-seated desire to belong to a family. Maybe this is what you get when you mess with Mother Nature by using a combined medical and business model to produce children.
19
@Carole Goldberg
there are articles periodically about how ppl lied on the form. t he ivy league genius turns out to be in and out of mental institutions, etc.
7
@Carole Goldberg i’m really disappointed by all the comments about messing with “Mother Nature.” So if you were just diagnosed with cancer, should we mess with Mother Nature and remove the tumor, treat you with chemo? Or let you die because that’s what mother nature intended? Give me a break! My guess is that the people on here making comments about Mother Nature have never had to experience infertility first hand.
17
@Carole Goldberg seems to me that, if "mother nature" had been doing her job, things like IVF and the necessity for sperm donors wouldn't be necessary. genetics would never go wrong. couples would always be fertile when they want to be. or are you saying that people who want children, but cannot have them the usual way, or might endanger them by having a genetic problem that can't be avoided, that these people should just say, "oh well, no children for us"? while i think myself that this overwhelming and costly and emotional drive to have children out of one's body is a bit crazy, i am not in a position to tell anyone how to make their family. neither is anyone else. it's a shame that sperm donors were switched or changed, but it still gave them their family.
5
This area, like the insurance industry, cries out for statutory forms of contract for the consumer.
I would suggest the minimum obligation of the sperm bank is to provide sperm from the advertised donor, something that could be easily verified by DNA testing. Place a duty on the sperm bank to preserve samples of donor DNA, and legislate absolute liability to recipients for failure to preserve a usable sample. Provide reasonable attorney's fees plus statutory minimum damages to winning plaintiffs based on reasonableexpectations regarding the chosen donor. Let the courts sort out the rest of it.
20
It appears that donor swaps involving Repro Lab in NYC were frequent. I used the lab to conceive, back in the late 1980s. My child’s blood type was incompatible with that of the donor I had selected, so we knew from birth that there had been a donor swap. At the time, the lab blamed the obstetrician who inseminated me as the person who made the mistake. Now, as an adult my child has undergone genetic testing and over the last several months has been connected with several half-siblings. As it turns out, several of the siblngs’ genetic tests also revealed donor swaps involving Repro Lab. The extent of errors in just one group of half-siblings is shocking.
I have no idea whether these donor swaps were intentional or merely the result of extreme and repeated carelessness. Whatever the cause, each one is a betrayal of trust. The donor who ultimately fathered my child has a family history for a genetic trait I had screened out in the donor I had selected. It’s time for these labs to be strictly regulated and regularly audited.
151
I know gay couples who have purchased sperm, and I celebrate the children they have. I benefited from IVF, so I am on board with assisted reproductive technology (ART).
But I am uneasy about sperm banks. There's something creepy about choosing a "donor" out of a book - its not too far away from creating a designer baby. And it is more than plausible that oft-requested sperm would help create so many babies that some would end up knowing each other and God forbid have a relationship.
And the commodification of sperm and eggs makes for awkward origin stories (at best). It's just weird, and I worry about the kids I know whose biological history is so complicated and opaque.
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@Cousy Two important things to note: the reason donors are given an identification number is to prevent the nightmare scenario you describe, where two half-siblings who were both donor-conceived could conceivably have a child without knowing they were related. There was a tragic court case this article doesn't cover where that occurred, which led to a law requiring donor identification and a limit to the number of donations a sperm donor can make. Obviously this doesn't take into account criminal cases like Cline. But as to your fears about straight couples using donor sperm - my husband and I are considering a donor, not to create "designer babies" but because he is a carrier of a genetic mutation (chromosomal balanced translocation of the y chromosome) Without going into too much technical detail, if we were to conceive a son, he would almost certainly not be "viable," i.e. the pregnancy would end in miscarriage or stillbirth. We feel it's not responsible for us to play Russian Roulette with our future children's lives and risk a "natural" pregnancy. A donor is our best chance at conceiving a living, healthy child.
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@Ruth
You have my best wishes for a healthy baby!
That said, identification numbers are a pretty limited tool. When in the course of dating or during a night that includes sex do you mention the id number of your paternal sperm?
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@Cousy Actually, my kid tells her origin story with great frequency -- and with great pride. And, when she befriended someone who was also conceived via scientific intervention, one of the first things they discussed was what they knew about their donor.
The odds of entering into a sexual relationship with a half-sibling or relative or probably pretty low, but couples who are concerned can always do genetic testing. But, big headlines about relatively rare possibilities come with a big whiff of fear-mongering and give ammunition to the most conservative members of our community. Just look at the art that accompanies this article.
This is not the first time that The New York Times has adopted this stance.
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"There are no national statistics on the number of children born through artificial insemination each year ... And no one tracks the number of people who find that the sperm they purchased is not from the donor they chose. But in the age of consumer DNA testing, the anecdotes are piling up."
In other words, we don't know if this situation is widespread or not, but we're happy to be a fear-monger ... especially when it comes to artificial insemination.
It's not clear why so many of The New York Times's articles about sperm donation, etc., have such a cautionary slant.
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@Ellen C It's actually clear, as they state it in the article. The industry is only lightly regulated and there is little recourse in the courts when they are negligent or worse.
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@loracle I don't quibble with the need for more regulation and scrutiny, but litigation? As in, "I'm sorry, but this isn't what I ordered, so pay up."
Imagine how the child would feel?
Perhaps these children could commiserate with the kids whose parents were sure that bribery and lying were the best ways to get their offspring into elite colleges.
Unscrupulous sperm banks and unethical doctors should face consequences, but we are still human and mistakes still get made. Hopefully, fewer over time.
My concern is that many of these articles could have a chilling effect for individuals and couples for whom artificial insemination is desirable. I can think of a several groups of people who will point to this article and others as "evidence" that those who choose to use a sperm bank or sperm donor are defying the "natural order" ... and that bothers me a lot.
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That is a heart breaking story. Although I feel that the Indiana law should have been much tougher, the downside is how would that make the child feel? I can't think of a crueler way to make a child feel unwanted. "I love you to death but you weren't what I ordered".
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