Are Sperm Donors Really Anonymous Anymore? (Slate)
In an age of sophisticated genetic testing, the concept of anonymity is rapidly fading. With some clever sleuthing—tests that can track down ancestral origins, donor numbers, and bits of biographical information—parents and offspring can find out the donors. “With DNA testing and Google, there’s no such thing as anonymity anymore,” says Wendy Kramer, the founder of the Donor Sibling Registry. “Donors are choosing anonymity because they’re not educated. If they were properly educated on the consequences, then many would choose not to donate.” …
[I]t will become increasingly difficult for a donor to hide, which means the moral decision of whether to trace him and ignore his request for anonymity will rest less on the banks and more on the parents and offspring. If DNA testing does become more ubiquitous, it may be that even a very few traits will make the men traceable. What will they do then? wonders Kramer. “Create men without DNA?”
Mapping the God of Sperm (Newsweek)
[Kirk] Maxey, 51, happens to be one of the most prolific sperm donors in the country. Between 1980 and 1994, he donated at a Michigan clinic twice a week. He’s looked at the records of his donations, multiplied by the number of individual vials each donation produced, and estimated the success of each vial resulting in a pregnancy. By his own calculations, he concluded that he is the biological father of nearly 400 children, spread across the state [Michigan] and possibly the country.
Doctor Accused of Inseminating Patient with Own Sperm (WPIX)
A fertility doctor based in Connecticut is accused of using his own sperm – instead of a patient’s husband’s – to impregnate a woman who ultimately gave birth to twins. … According to court records, after the child was born both parents – one of whom is African American and the other Caucasian – were shocked at the baby’s fair complexion. … “DNA testing performed at the suggestion of the twins’ pediatrician showed that [the wife] was the mother but that [the husband] was not the biological father.” … Dr. Ramaley claims the whole ordeal was an accident.
Sperm Banks Can Be Sued Under Product Liability Laws, Federal Judge Rules (Law.com)
In the first decision of its kind, a federal judge has ruled that a sperm bank may be sued under product liability laws for failing to detect that a sperm donor had a genetic defect. … Senior U.S. District Judge Thomas N. O’Neill Jr. cleared the way for a 13-year-old mentally retarded girl from Pennsylvania to sue a New York sperm bank under the theory that the sperm used to conceive her had a defect known as “Fragile X,” a mutation known to cause a syndrome of maladies that include mental retardation and behavioral disorders. … [In response to the mother’s inquiries,] doctors at [sperm bank] Idant continued to assure her that Brittany’s developmental problems were not related to Fragile X and couldn’t possibly be the result of the sperm that was purchased through Idant.
$35,000 for One of My Eggs? (Hastings Center Bioethics Forum)
My eggs are ripe for the taking – I am a 22-year-old female Yale graduate. On a semi-regular basis in college, I opened the school newspaper to find advertisements soliciting my demographic to donate. … Nearly all offered high sums of money for prospective donors, ranging from $5,000 to $35,000. … High payments could lead to “undue inducement and exploitation” that cause women to discount the physical and emotional risks associated with donation. Such payments could also lead prospective donors to conceal medical information relevant to their biological offspring, make donor oocytes available only to the very wealthy, commodify gametes and devalue human life, or promote the birth of persons with traits deemed “socially desirable.” … In addition to physical risks, young women [donors] face psychological ones, such as stress caused by feelings of attachment to the eggs or resulting offspring.
Payment Offers to Egg Donors Prompt Scrutiny (The New York Times)
Demand for human ova has been growing in recent years, fueled by infertility treatments and increased investment in stem cell research. Young women at top colleges and universities, long a prized source of eggs, are now being recruited not just through advertising in student newspapers but on Web sites like Facebook and Craigslist, even on highway billboards. … The study [in The Hastings Center Report] noted the possibility that the ads represented a “bait and switch” strategy, with large offers primarily designed to lure donors but with prices negotiated downward once they respond. …
Sean Tipton, a spokesman for the reproductive medicine society, said that the group had little authority over egg brokers and that concerns expressed about donation smacked of sex discrimination. “It’s interesting to me that people get upset about egg donation in ways they don’t get upset about sperm donation,” he said. “You never hear discussions about, ‘Oh, the sperm donor is going to regret it some day that they have a child.’ ”
Self-Regulation, Compensation, and the Ethical Recruitment of Oocyte Donors (The Hastings Center (requires free registration))
This is the study discussed in the previous two items.
[A]nalysis indicated that average SAT scores at the college or university where an advertisement was published were a strong predictor of the compensation offered. This effect was strong and significant for advertisements placed by donor agencies and individual couples, but absent for advertisements placed by fertility clinics, which suggests that donor agencies and couples valued specific donor characteristics and based compensation on these preferences—a violation of the guidelines.
Skirting Laws against Egg Payments (Hastings Center Bioethics Forum)
Egg donors are not supposed to be paid for eggs used in stem cell research. But there are ways around the law. At a fertility clinic that shares an office with a stem cell lab:
… they ask women to agree that if more than 12 eggs are extracted, they will donate some of them, without additional payment, to research. … [A] “seamless integration between the fertility center and the stem cell laboratory” was crucial for … success. “We know we need to get the eggs immediately – we have to start the procedure within two hours after the eggs are retrieved,” he said. The “seamless integration” both permits this rapid timeline and facilitates the claim … that ”the oocytes used…were donated, without compensation.
Building a Baby, With Few Ground Rules (The New York Times)
To become parents, the Kehoes arranged for sperm and egg donation and a surrogate mother. A month after they took home their twins, the surrogate mother took the babies back.
The creation of Ethan and Bridget tested the boundaries of the field known as third-party reproduction, in which more than two people collaborate to have a baby. Five parties were involved: the egg donor, the sperm donor, Ms. Baker [the surrogate mother] and the Kehoes. And two separate middlemen brokered the egg and sperm. … The lax atmosphere means that it is now essentially possible to order up a baby, creating an emerging commercial market for surrogate babies that raises vexing ethical questions.
Childbirth at the Global Crossroads (The American Prospect)
Women in the developing world who are paid to bear other people’s children test the emotional limits of the international service economy. … Nowadays, a wealthy person can purchase it all — the egg, the sperm, and time in the womb. “A childless couple gains a child. A poor woman earns money. What could be the problem?” … Observers fear that a lack of regulation could spark a price war for surrogacy — Thailand underselling India, Cambodia underselling Thailand, and so on — with countries slowly undercutting fees and legal protections for surrogates along the way. …
Staying detached from the genetic parents … says, helps surrogate mothers give up their babies and get on with their lives — and maybe with the next surrogacy. This ideal of the de-personalized pregnancy is eerily reminiscent of Aldous Huxley’s 1932 dystopian novel Brave New World, in which babies are emotionlessly mass-produced in the Central London Hatchery. …
“It’s my blood, even if it’s their genes.” Psychologists tell us that a baby in utero recognizes the sound of its mother’s voice. Surrogates I spoke with seemed to be struggling to detach. One said, “I try to think of my womb as a carrier.” Another said, “I try not to think about it.” Is the bond between mother and child fixed by nature or is it a culturally inspired fantasy we yearn to be true?
The author of this article, Arlie Hochschild, is the author of The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling
A video on in vitro fertilization.
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Padded bikini bras for seven-year-olds
Resources:
Photo source: New & Simple
Rachel Lehmann-Haupt, Are Sperm Donors Really Anonymous Anymore?, Slate, March 1, 2010
Rachel Lehmann-Haupt, Mapping the God of Sperm, Newsweek, December 16, 2009
Doctor Accused of Inseminating Patient with Own Sperm, WPIX, November 13, 2009
Shannon P. Duffy, Sperm Banks Can Be Sued Under Product Liability Laws, Federal Judge Rules, Law.com, April 2, 2009
Shara Yurkiewicz, $35,000 for One of My Eggs?, The Hastings Center Bioethics Forum, April 27, 2010
David Tuller, Payment Offers to Egg Donors Prompt Scrutiny, The New York Times, May 20, 1020
Aaron D. Levine, Self-Regulation, Compensation, and the Ethical Recruitment of Oocyte Donors, The Hastings Center, March-April 2010 (requires free registration)
Susanne Schultz, Skirting Laws against Egg Payments, The Hastings Center Bioethics Forum, June 7, 2010
Stephanie Saul, Building a Baby, With Few Ground Rules, The New York Times, December 12, 2009
Arlie Hochschild, Childbirth at the Global Crossroads, The American Prospect, October 5, 2009
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