Preserving Reproductive Donor Anonymity

Premise

Many adults long to be parents, but are confronted with reproductive challenges. Some of these challenges include infertility or elevated medical risks, like diabetes. For some women they’ve found economic and personal happiness, but not the right man to settle down with. For others, there’s no desire to settle down with any man, either due to sexual orientation or the belief that two people don’t need to get married to make a “whole person”.

On a smaller scale (in terms of annual business), a gay male couple, or a single man (regardless of sexual orientation) may choose to enlist the help of a surrogate that will carry a fertilized egg to term. For legal reasons, a surrogate should not use her own egg, but the egg from a second woman so that she has no genetic claim to the resulting offspring, so as to minimize the risk of a custody battle.

In a majority of cases, these children have at least one anonymous parent. Since the 1990s, some mothers and/or their children that are the offspring of an anonymous donor (usually a biological father, but rarely, a biological mother) have been seeking to find the missing “branch” in the family tree. Those seeking to find the donor often report frustration, as the person they are seeking to find has been promised anonymity.

Backstory

Since the 1970s, more than 1 million children have been conceived through in vitro fertilization in the United States, which is a technology that fertilizes a woman’s egg outside the human body with a man’s sperm with the intention of creating a zygote. Some news sources report that (world-wide) more than 5 million children have been conceived using this technique.

Assisted reproduction is not a new field of medicine. Indeed, the first artificial insemination occurred over 125 years ago (and quite possibly long before that) in humans. In 1953, Jerome Sherman created the world’s first sperm bank, allowing for the birth of today’s multi-million dollar human reproductive donor market.

Today there are over 70 sperm banks (comprising the largest portion of the reproductive donor reserve for the fertility market) worth more than $320 million. There are a multitude of requirements for a would-be sperm donor. Depending on the genetic makeup and specific donor demand, some sperm samples command higher prices than others, and some donors can even earn over $20,000 per year.

To any young men reading this, I implore you not to quit your day jobs just yet. Over 90 percent of applicants are rejected, and not everyone is paid the same, as some women are looking for perfect sperm. Genetic tests, motility counts, STD/STI screening, family histories, baby pictures, audio recordings, and more bits and pieces come together to create “designer donors” for well-heeled women longing to become loving mothers.

Egg donors make up an important (but much smaller) percentage of the reproductive donor/fertility market than sperm donors. When factoring in the blood tests and the waiting a man has to go through on a regular basis is more than most realize, his commitment is much less risky and less labor-intensive than it is for a woman donating her eggs. Until the technology was developed to “ripen” eggs outside of a woman’s body, some donors would actually burst their ovaries, becoming partially or completely infertile in their quest to help other women conceive. A woman also only has (on average) 300-400 ovulations in her lifetime. By comparison, men are often fertile into their 80s (even if they aren’t usually donors after 39).

In short, egg donation is a bigger commitment for a woman than sperm donation is for a man. Whereas most men receive $35-$50 for a contribution (that the clinic sells for hundreds—or even over a thousand—dollars) an egg donor can make up to $50,000. Surrogate mothers (in whom donated, fertilized eggs are implanted) can expect to make between $24,000 and $28,000.

Why the Topic Interests Me

I’ve known I didn’t want children since I was six-years-old. My career, traveling, entertaining, and the family I grew up with (and have seen grow around me) have always been more important. Some people see this as selfish, but in 2010 the New York Times reported that it cost $222,360 to raise a child from birth to age 18. That’s a lot of money, and doesn’t even begin to cover the average cost of college ($15,971 public, $42,504, 2013 numbers), which can add another 2-5 years after high school graduation.

As the oldest of several children, I was repeatedly told how loved and wanted we all were, as well as the struggles my mother went through in order to conceive and maintain three successful pregnancies. The people I grew up calling “mom” and “dad” were my biological parents—mom had other challenges that her specialists addressed through surgery, treatment, and medication.

During her second pregnancy (after years of waiting) she got a call from the adoption agency that a child was available. She thought about how badly she’d wanted a baby and told the lady on the other end of the phone that she was expecting her second child, and that the agency should give the child to a family that wanted a child as much as she had, and that was that.

As a neo-Malthusian, I believe we have too many people on planet Earth, and that the least qualified people are having the most children. For me, a population contraction would be seen as painful, but advisable and even manageable if done correctly, drawing the world’s population down 50-80 percent to achieve sustainable levels over the course of 30-120 years. However, there are those that have the mental, psychological, and financial means to have children, but have not been given the reproductive apparatus (either in part or in whole) to do so. Many of these people have ruled out adoption (for whatever reason) as a viable alternative.

When I was in high school I read a TIME magazine article talking about in utero surgery for spina bifida. A fetus was going to be born with this disease and the doctors saved him/her from it, ensuring a better quality of life that eliminated hundreds of visits to physicians, specialists, wheelchair salespeople, etc. On one hand, widespread surgery like this is as detrimental to the assisted living industry as the Sauk vaccine was for the iron lung maker, but I hope most would agree it is a worthwhile tradeoff.

Then I got to thinking: what if genetic engineering could correct problems even more complex than spina bifida? What if—either through nanotechnology or in vitro selection—diseases could be cured before they manifested themselves? What if this could be done without the controversial topic of abortion, and with the informed consent of the mother and (if applicable) father? Totally fatal diseases like Tay Sachs that kill most children by kindergarten (or earlier) could be stopped in their tracks with the right proactive therapies.

Once causal links for diseases with genetic propensities like diabetes, cancer, ALS, and a myriad of others could be smoked out from fetal stem cells, blasted off of organisms growing inside expecting mothers no larger than an iPhone with this technology. The total lifetime cost to treat diseases that are eliminated before they could appear would produce a net savings to society in the billions of dollars, with that benefit growing higher and higher every year. In a time when healthcare dollars are critically thin, technology once again could prove a worthy “mother of invention”.

The system could potentially wipe out genetic disease in 2-6 generations, if applied on a broad enough level. It would have to be done judiciously, cautiously, and without being discriminatory. Aldus Huxley’s Brave New World and the lessons of Gattaca must apply—forcible ethnic cleansing can never be allowed as a policy du jour again for as long as the human species endures, and genetic discrimination must remain illegal. Indeed (and with safeguards in place) as we shrink towards a smaller population the mantra should be, “quality over quantity”.

For those that want children, can afford to raise them properly, and who have ruled out adoption (or been discriminated against unjustly to adopt) I don’t see an issue with him/her/them starting a family through surrogacy or sperm donation. Children are an accomplishment, but giving birth is only the first milestone in a newly born human being’s lifecycle.

My Position

I would never want to be a sperm donor. In addition to my population control beliefs, I really don’t want kids—in any capacity. For most of us, though, the desire to know where we come from is an easy one to identify with. However, sperm and egg donors—especially those donating through clinics—have traditionally been promised anonymity. To reverse this promise retroactively is a huge violation of their rights.

The ideal sperm donor for many women is a taller man (at least six feet) with symmetrical features, a nice smile, a “clean” genetic history, and who is in college or has at least a Bachelor’s degree. He is between the ages of 18-24 and often has a glowing personal profile available through the sperm bank. Some sperm banks are as choosy (or choosier) than Ivy League schools.

A sperm donor usually claims to donate for one or more of the following reasons: altruism (to help a couple conceive by donating a viable material he has a surplus of), to spread his genetics around, and to get paid. For many college-age men, money is always in short supply, and getting paid to do something they’d do anyway seems a lucrative opportunity.

By contrast, a sperm donor cannot be a man that has had sex with another man in the last five years. He is also usually a late teenager in college or in his 20s. By that estimation, only the most deeply closeted gay men and their strictly heterosexual counterparts are eligible. Members of both these groups of men may go on to father children in a setting where they both know the child(ren) and are known to the child(ren), such as within the parameters of a marriage or a surrogate pregnancy.

Most women that turn to sperm donors are between 28-40+ years of age. While some of these women are married or in long-term relationships with an opposite-sex partner (who may be infertile), a majority are single, lesbians, or bisexual women in a same-sex relationship that cannot conceive on their own. These seemingly unrelated groups are much more dependent upon one another than one might think.

Whatever the case, most sperm donors do not wish to be found, either by adult offspring and/or by the mother(s) of minor children they provided 50 percent of the genetic material for. The donor that goes on to have children “of his own” are often seen as his “real kids”. Even though a child conceived through an anonymous donation has no claim to child support or inheritance from her/his biological father, their very existence is problematic for some men who may be in their 30s, 40s, or even 50s when a child they helped to father 18+ years ago shows up.

In a blog post published at one clinic, one concerned employee stated that, “in a survey taken of the offspring, it was found that 2/3 of donor conceived children felt they had the right to know specific information about their donors”. Some legal scholars are calling for a similar end to donor anonymity, citing this being done in other nations.

The UK and Holland chose to end anonymous donation several years ago (2005 for the UK). Three years after anonymity for donors going forward was ended, the available number of donors had dropped by more than 40 percent. By 2012, the UK had started importing sperm from the United States to meet demand.

Ending donor anonymity means ending a great deal of the donated supply as well. Sometimes “dad” simply does not want to be found. The children that he helps to conceive “the natural way” (or using a surrogate he hires) may be seen as his only “real” children, in effect.

There are many compelling arguments in favor of allowing the children of sperm donors to be found, including discovering siblings, filling in medical records, and “finding one’s roots”. Sometimes something life-changing (like an organ transplant) is needed. Indeed, donors have even begun looking for their unmet offspring. However, when a donor elects to have a “closed” or anonymous donation (either intentionally or by default) that is a decision the future mother of his donation is informed about (or at least is supposed to be informed about). Putting the “shoe on the other foot”, try imagining a sperm donor petitioning (or even suing) a clinic to find his child/children 5, 10, 18, or 20+ years after making his contribution.

What Should Be Done in the Future

Life is imperfect. This theme is universal and constant, and often extends to the conception of life. A child that is conceived as the result of an anonymous one-night-stand has little hope of finding out whom his father is under ordinary circumstances. By contrast, the offspring of a mother that used the services of a fertility clinic has obtained the genetic material of a highly virile man, who has been tested for all major STI/STD infections, and (based on IQ, education, motility count, and other criteria) beaten out over 90 percent of all would-be donors. This hopeful mother-to-be has also deliberately sought out (at great personal expense and personal sacrifice) to become pregnant.

For mothers that want to know who the biological father of their child is, I encourage them to seek what is called an “open” donation. At age 18, the identity of an “open” donor is disclosed to the child(ren) conceived through donated sperm. Not surprisingly, there are fewer open donors, but they are available. 

www.donorsiblingregistry.com is a website that mothers that have chosen sperm donors can reach out to one another through. Sometimes children discover dozens (and, rarely, over 100) “new playmates” that are also genetic half-siblings. This also begs the question (which I’m not going to answer in this post), “how many children should a sperm donor be allowed to father?” with supporting reasons.  Mothers (or grown children) are able to find one another because all sperm donors are tracked using a unique ID number—children under the same ID number are related.

The danger in programs like Donor Sibling Registry is as follows. Let us assume that in 2004, donor 445123 began to make contributions to his local fertility clinic. He chose to be an open donor. In 2007, he stopped. By 2009, his last sample was used. Children conceived from his donated sperm have a five-year age range. Now let us assume that the first child conceived with his DNA from the clinic was born in 2005. In 2023, that child turns 18 and opts to discover her/his biological father. 445123 is now known. This is a detail that can now suddenly be shared with the mothers and children of the other 35 (or 10, or 70, or another number) children conceived using his DNA, ranging in age from 13-18, effectively making the open donor unintentionally open to minor children.

The very last thing that should be done is to destroy sperm donor anonymity going forward. It will effectively cripple the supply of genetic material if donor anonymity is ended. Retroactively, anonymity should also be preserved. The system is imperfect, but disrupting the donor’s privacy will permanently strangle it.

Open Questions

• Would you want to be a sperm donor? (For the Men.)
• If “yes”, would you be an “open” or “anonymous” donor? Why? (For the Men.)
• Would you want to be an egg donor? (For the Women.)
• If “yes”, would you be an “open” or “anonymous donor? Why? (For the Women.)
• (If you’re a woman) would you ever consider being a surrogate?
• Do you think that donors should be allowed to be anonymous? Why?
• What do you think the future of this business should be?