Looking forward to this show! My son of 23 years is the ‘product’ of my wife and a sperm donor. As I am a carrier of the Marfan Syndrome (an autosomal dominat genetic disease) it was the only way my wife could have a baby. My son is now a successful professional in Atlanta. At the time the information on the donor was sketchy at best; General description, race, occupation, general health and religion. Today the information as to genetic history and family health is much more detailed. As it turned out the one atribute we blew off had the most impact on our son as to his looks, religion.
Keep up the good work VPR. A member for 17 years now living at the southern end of your broadcast range in Greenfield, MA. But thanks to the internet I was able to listen to you in Hanoi for the last 3 years.

I used to work for a lab in Boston delivering specimen for IUI and IVF patients that was in 1993.

Sperm Donors are really screened for genetic diffects and sperm counts. the former is hard to test and latter is pretty easy.

It is still hard to find male donors with good sperms.

I have a daughter from the California Cryobank as well. I would not consider the donor a “dad” or a “father”. When my daughter is old enough, she can use all the resources available – and i will assist her as i can – to locate the Donor. More importantly, i have been in contact with her “donor siblings”, who she can also contact

FYI…

“The Sperm-Donor Kids Are Not Really All Right. A new study shows they suffer.”

http://www.slate.com/id/2256212

To swipe from Roger Ebert: This movie isn’t good because it’s about a lesbian couple with two children by the same donor. It’s good because of how it is, not what it is.

I was once a teen and liked privacy, to the extent of not wanting to ask about not having to explain to my Dad and Mom about how I don’t want to have to ask for it.

There are no words to explain how true that scene (11m after the hour) rings about the son who, isn’t rebelling or grunting or “slackering” but doesn’t want to talk about something private, to the extent of not wanting to talk about how he doesn’t want to talk about it.

But I am not against infertile couples seeking reproduction in this way. A known sperm donor seems a better solution. He could be available to weigh in about this or that. Ditto of egg donors.
To me “traditional family” applies to the Amazon outback, maybe. Or in the English upper crust with Sir or Earl to be handed on.

Lazy radio at its best! I have NPR on for most of the day at my workplace and I believe this is the 3rd program on this subject in less than a week. Terri Gross did it and I am sure there was another program as well. They feature the Same audio clips and either the same commentators or people who voice the same opinions. Talk about a Stealth marketing campaign! Often wonder if this is a virtual package piped down radio row, all you have to do is provide the on air talent, Tom is this case, and have him follow the script; instant, low cost programing for an hour. Look for the same topic / script on Diane Rehm and Emily Rooney on your radio soon. // On the more broad scale, memo to Tom and staff – why is so necessary to determine the validity of a subject by viewing it thru the lense of popular culture? Put another way, ever notice Just how Many programs / topics utilize lifts from recent movie dialoge to make it appear relevent? NPR: New Publicity Radio? // Non Offensive Programing Radio??

If sperm donor kids are “troubled kids,” you can imagine those adopted can be troubled too. If you feel you and your partner can handle that, it is worth it in extraordinary ways. But the children are likely to continue troubled. There are alcohol syndrome babies, and crack babies. They can grow up a lot healthier and happier than if not adopted, but to my observation, expectations are not that said children will mostly grow up to be neurosurgeons. You have to be happy with happiness itself.

How do they prevent people conceived through sperm-donation by the same donor from marrying each other later in life (because they wouldn’t know who their donor was)? (I concede that this seems highly unlikely, but there seems to be the potential for it.)

Brilliant comment. Bring up a stupid popular song (“In the year 2525″) and extrapolate to this subject. Just as people throw around Aldous Huxley searching for parallels to “1984.” It’s nonsense. Of course adoption is a socially responsible activity to forming families but some seem to require that biological connection or want the experience of giving birth. These are not inconsequential experiences and I’d be concerned for the future if humans stopped wanting to have them.

Your guest says we should instead adopt. I sure hope he has adopted a child and has had the horrifying experience that it can be. The push to use a donor is not narcissism, it is the simple fact that the adoption procedure is too expensive and gut wrenching. Until the government gets serious about making adoption easier, no one should be surprised at the use of donors. Don’t judge until you have walked in someones shoes.

and another one …

It is much easier to become a father than to be one.
~Kent Nerburn, Letters to My Son: Reflections on Becoming a Man, 1994

You know, the point that “donor kids” have a difficult time with coming to terms with where they’ve come from is kind of a moot point. Most children, even those who come from the white picket fence Leave it to Beaver families have a difficult time with these exact same questions. It’s human nature to wonder where we’ve come from, why we’re here, and who we really are. These kids’ problems aren’t worse than the problems that kids who have a mother and father in the typical sense, they’re just different. I myself had a typical mother and father type family and I still struggle with where I’ve come from and who I am. I don’t think that this should be a legitimate arguing point.

The argument that a child is best raised by his or her genetic parents might be valid but the conclusions stated by W. Bradford Wilcox are not valid. If a woman uses donated sperm to reproduce, that child would be raised with 1 genetic parent which is 50% less than his ideal. Therefore, a child given up for adoption would be raised by parents 100% short of this ideal. Should they have been aborted instead?

Caleb made a great point about consumer ethics propelling the trend of artificially conceived “designer babies”. I agree that it ultimately diminishes the value of a human life simply because it is the result of a shopping trip. Caveat emptor.

Sperm was never designed to be stored in tubes, frozen, or delivered by a syringe. Is there a degredation to the sperm after going thru these unnatural processes? Why don’t women looking for sperm select a donor, then arrange for an anonymous delivery in the natural way? It can be done, and is.

I have known adopted children who even with the greatest parents still have problems accepting they have been adopted. I expect children born because of sperm donation to be no different. I believe most will be well adjusted adults. Look at hetrosexual couples and their offspring-same odds. I’m almost 70 and have 3 children, 4 grandchildren and believe sperm banks are a great resource for many lovely people. Am looking forward to seeing the movie!

Two comments:
Mr. Wilcox’s statements re negative feelings experienced by children of sperm donors are noted: but are they at different from those felt by adopted children?

Also, a close experience with parental figures of both genders ideally gives the growing child the pleasure of working things out with people of the same and opposite sex – to the satisfaction of both people. But an actual parent of both genders is not necessary for this.

Christian conservatives representing organizations like The Marriage Project are trying to put their own hateful, narrow minded views on the backs of children who were conceived outside of the one man/one woman family, using them as unwilling dray horses to carry their divisive message.

Perhaps Mr. Wilcox, in citing this study from the conservative Institute for American Values, should interview teenagers who were born unwanted into broken homes. They might have to visit homeless shelters and prisons to get enough respondents, but their comments might be enlightening.

Couples who cannot have children do not need additional roadblocks, discouragement, or scolding. They should not be threatened with specters of unhappy, angst ridden children as a result of turning to modern medicine to circumvent their infertility. And they most certainly do not need medieval religious dogma informing their decision as to how to bring a wanted, loved child into the world.

Tom:

I’m listening to today’s program about sperm donors and the resultant children. I’m hearing terms like genetic father, partner, my child, etc.

There seems to be a quality of possession connected to the child. The woman all seem to talk about wanting their child and the child as being my child.

As a divorced parent of a child and a step parent it seems to me that the man’s role has been reduced to sperm donor, not father. A child needs a father, just as much as a mother. Both contribute to the child’s development and sense of self.

If a woman could conceive without any input from a man then she would have “her child”.

If men could be pregant then woman could be reduced to egg donors.

Children need a mother and father if at all possible. Many single parents do cope without having the other parent, it can be done. But let’s not forgot the best interests of the child in the discussion.

Frank Shaughnessy

To follow up with my earlier comment on the air and respond to one posted above.

“Of course adoption is a socially responsible activity to forming families but some seem to require that biological connection or want the experience of giving birth.”

What some seem to require for themselves is the whole problem with this way of thinking. The only socially irresponsible aspect of this whole debate is the fact that all of these women think in a self-centered vacuum concerning their personal life-decision to produce a child, their personal desires in what they want in their offspring, how it will compliment their life personally. However, what needs to be said is that IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU. It’s about all of us. The world, as a whole, is gravely overpopulated already and adding yet another high-level consumer to the mix – versus dealing with the so many destitute millions already irresponsibly forced into its impoverished, exploited, indifferent reality – is repulsive, whether or not one inseminates naturally or artificially. To add in the biological reductionist tendencies of a myopic consumerist culture – I want a humble, high-achieving, active, affable Italian with brown hair (“I, me, mine” to reference another hokey pop lyric from the 60s) – on top of the basic atrocity of reckless child production adds insult to injury.

To Caleb K … re:atrocity of reckless child production

Let me see if I understand your point correctly.

Obviously, you are pro abortion which is also called … pro-choice. Meaning, women get to choose whether to have a child or not. And then you rave against single women deciding to have a child??!?!?!?!
You contradict yourself.

So, you advocate that anyone, who got pregnant by mistake and is not part of a traditional family, man/woman, financially able to support a child, married, and will NEVER get divorced should be the only ones to keep their child? Everyone else – off to the clinic?!
That will solve the “problem” of teenage pregnancies as well. Single women wanting to have their own child, own – as in not adopted, should not have children by themselves unless they find a guy who a) will marry them, b) will be a productive member of this society and will provide for his child and family, c) is mature enough not to lie, cheat or disrespect his partner and not leave that family in the future?

ARE YOU SERIOUS?!

Show me this futuristic land of such responsible and mature men that somehow we, single women, are all missing?!

Did you hear the program npr did on the decline of ‘male’?!

Maybe you’re one of those men, and maybe you have friends who are also like that, but believe me, you are not the norm.

I have some statistical and sociological concerns about Brad Wilcox’s claims. From what i can gather, his article compares children born by artificial insemination to SINGLE mothers, with to TWO-PARENT biological families. This is a comparison of apples and oranges! It tells us little of how artificial inseminations compares with children born of a sexual union, or how 2 biological parents might differ from a lesbian couple (or even a heterosexual couple!) who chose artificial insemination (which after all is the controversy that, it seems to me, the movie raises)! A telling study in this field might have, for instance, compare two-parent couples (homo as well as hetero-sexual (ideally having these as two separate groups in the study)) and two parent biological couples. And single mothers who had children via a donor and via a partner. Only then can we actually see whether there is any significant difference between children who are conceived through a sexual relationship between the parents or artificial insemination. It seems to me that the way Wilcox is currently presenting the data is purpusefully misleading with the aim of advancing his and his organization’s political and moral stance. Which, i must admit, is something i as somebody who was trained in sociology (in Wilcox’s department, nonetheless), feel uncofortabble with.

In response to “g” who replied to a severe mis-reading of my comment above at 12:21 pm.

1) I’m not necessarily pro-choice…while I do think that some allowance should be made for the termination of a pregnancy under extenuating circumstances, I personally consider abortion to be an unfavorable, last-ditch effort that should not be encouraged in law by a complete open-door policy.

2) From what place in your outlandish interpretation of my comment did you derive the following?

“So, you advocate that anyone, who got pregnant by mistake and is not part of a traditional family, man/woman, financially able to support a child, married, and will NEVER get divorced should be the only ones to keep their child?”

I am not a heterosexual myself and support Gay marriage, single parenting, alternative this and that, etc., etc. I simply propose that far more people than currently do – straight, gay, married, single, cohabiting, etc. – should consider adoption as the FIRST solution to building a life or family with children, should they desire children at all. We are in a vastly different demographic-ecological-economic situation than we were even at the mid-20th Century as a species. The logic of child birth as a right needs to be jettisoned and replaced with child rearing as a major, major responsibility that is only appropriate for a noble few. Declining population growth and more equitable (though not equal) distribution of wealth and life opportunities should be our collective concern. Most of this problem, admittedly, seems to be stemming from runaway growth in the developing nations – but this is not an entirely accurate picture, as high-level consumers leave a much larger ecological footprint and contribute to global exploitation of labor and resources in a more significant way than a child born into a semi-industrializing, low-income region. It should be the burden of those in the highly industrialized regions to adopt those spun out by those women in developing nations without access to birth control, who live in very subordinated conditions with respect to men, who have no access to education, who are subject to high infant mortality rates (which, ironically, contributes to HIGHER not lower family sizes), and whose use of child labor (whether industrial sweatshop wage labor, or agrarian subsistence labor) is a fundamental part of their economic survival.

One FORCES life onto every new child; the child has no say and to momentarily displace the existential and material misery forced onto them (esp. in the context of Modernity and global industrialization, which renders life functional and purposeless), many end up simply deferring their dreams for a different reality into the image of themselves transfigured into something other: their own child. What a sick and desperate neurosis this is.

One of my favorite books from this past year is “Perfect Life” by Jessica Shattuck. The book is about a group of college friends, who are about 10 years post graduation and have families- through very different means: traditional, anonymous sperm donor and a one time friend who donates sperm. “Perfect Life” is a timely piece of social commentary that makes for a great summer read or great conversation starter for a book club. I wonder what Ms. Shattuck- or any of her characters would have thought of today’s show.

Some research that counters what your guest is saying about children being healthier in a “traditional marriage.”
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/126/1/28?maxtoshow=&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=sperm+donor+children&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&resourcetype=HWCIT

Draw back to the research is that it is based on responses from the mother’s, so there may be a “halo effect” when lesbian mothers report about the well-being of their children.

I am a single mother with a 12 year old son created with donor sperm. At times my son has expressed his longing to know his dad. While he went through a period os sadness about this loss mostly my son is a bright, beautiful and happy child. I do not regret for an instance choosing to have my son. He is the light of my life and he clearly knows that. The love and support you offer your child is the most important gift. Is he any less than any other child because of the circumstances of his birth? I know he is not. As a teacher, I have had the opportunity to observe that there are many married couples too self involved to pay much attention to the needs of their child. How many children are there out there that have been abandoned by one or both parents? Adoption is a wonderful way to create a family, however many of those children have significant issues be it health, emotional or cognitive. Our society does not provide the much needed support and resources to help the parents and children. That may make adoption a more difficult choice for many as well as the significant financial costs that may preclude this option. I agree with the guest that said there are many ways to become a family. You have to go into this journey of becoming a parent knowing that this is the most important decision you will ever make and that it is well worth it no matter which road you choose.

G is incorrect in so many ways along with the article you posted. I have a son by sperm donor and an adopted daughter. We had to prove we would be good parents in order to be legal parents of my biological son. However, we had to prove nothing to adopt my daughter. If your against abortion don’t have one and you better be adopting children. I am adopted by white parents and many of these arguments were said to my parents about transracial adoption. I was loved, my college paid for and I am contributing to society in many positive ways. People ask me how I can be pro-choice and be adopted. If my bio mom had an abortion how would I know to be angry. Of course you would have one less lesbian on the earth so maybe you should be for abortion. But I am guessing that the many children whose life I have made a difference in would disagree. In fact I could have made a difference in the life of some children in your life G and you wouldn’t even know it. Stop the judgements and inaccuracy of quoting. I would also be willing to bet any of you people who spew this hatred and call yourself Christians will be in hell way before me. A true Christian does not feel the need to spew hatred to boost them self. And don’t get me started on the Catholics who spew this hate while covering and aiding their pedophiles. Straight white males molest more than any other population so if you want to get on a bandwagon there is one for you. Why don’t we keep kids away from any straight white male since studies show….. Sounds stupid huh?

Let me know about female donors of eggs and hiring women to carry children if men do not want marriage.

All this pro-right wing so-called ‘family first’ propaganda is absolutely sickening. I am a 32 year old single female who plans on using DI next year to start a family. My reasons for doing this because as a person who was raised in a two parent heterosexual family, I can tell you that the nuclear family way of doing things can be a LONG way from the best way. I experienced a lot of emotional bullying from my father. The man terrorised me for years. He was a b*stard of the first degree. Unfortunately, men tend to raise daughters to be the kind of women other men like them would be interested in. If I raised a child in the same circumstances that I grew up in, I could never forgive myself. That is why I have decided to do what I am doing.

I fully support that the child has the right to know their genetic origins, and that is why I am having the procedure done in a country that mandates all sperm donations be open so that my child can get to know their genetic father. I would be 510% supportive and proactive in helping my child achieve that. I have put more thought and research into the costs, both physical, emotional and financial envolved in raising a child then most other people do. I plan on being totally honest with my child and talkng through any issues they have with coming from a single parent family.

I have seen comments on other pages saying that ‘nature requires a man and a woman for a reason’. What those people are forgetting is that nature also gave us problem solving and tool making abilities to overcome our natural limitations. That is how we have become the dominant species on the planet.

The second thing I wanted to mention is that both my grandfathers grew up never knowing their real fathers. In fact, one didn’t have a father at all! It didn’t stop them (and especially him) from being productive and prosocial individuals who were a WONDERFUL, LOVING, role models.

The third thing I think needs to be said is that we have to look at where all this ‘anti DI single mum/same sex couple parents’ hatred is coming from. I can’t help but feel that it is coming from the side of conservatism that has traditionally demonised independent women. You know, the ones that refuse to be shackled to marriage? The women who are a threat to the power base behind it all? The one that has always favored men over women? Organized religion, anyone?

The questions that these kids agonise over are no different to what kids who come from nuclear families have. I thought I was the ‘black sheep’ of my family, because I am the only one of my immediate family to have blue eyes and red hair. I did feel alone at times. But it was hardly a crushing, life destroying feeling that would would obssess over. I was lucky enough that I was able to meet my mother’s extended family at one time and I saw that I was the norm rather than the exception.

Having been around the world a bit (literally!) I can tell you that the world needs people raised in a variety of family situations in order to best maximise humanity’s chances of survival.

The bottom line is this: People from two parent families are not necessarily better off than those people in one-parent families. Right-wingers who suggest otherwise need to get over themselves.

Most children are resilient enough to overcome obstacles that occur in the environment in which they grow. However, whether children produced from a sperm donor develop normally or not is irrelevant to the issue of whether anonymous sperm donor-ship is good or bad for a society. To deliberately deny a child a father to satisfy ones own desire for motherhood robs the child and denigrates the role of men. I’m not a particularly religious person and base my opinion strictly on the belief that this practice will only diminish men and produce future societal problems.