This is a very interesting story about a Detroit sperm donor, Barry Bremen, the Great Sports Imposter.  One of his donor daughters is sisters (grew up together) with one of my donor sisters.

 

I'm thrilled to announce that my new book, Healing Journey for Your MPE Discovery: A Journal for Donor Conceived, Adopted, and others with Misattributed Parentage Experiences, is now available on Amazon. I hope it is a useful resource for people going through their MPE healing journeys. 

Amazon.com: Healing Journey for Your MPE Discovery: A Journal for Donor Conceived, Adopted, and others with Misattributed Parentage Experiences: 9798839150539: Spencer MA, Lynne W.: Books

The tides are turning...legislative action in Michigan

So grateful to announce that legislator's in Michigan are understanding the needs of sperm provider offspring and are taking action to make changes in gamete conception practice in Michigan.  Five bills, House Bill 5713-17, have been introduced to the Michigan House of Representatives in a bipartisan effort.  They will be reviewed by the Committee on Health Policy and go to the Michigan Senate as well.  Looking forward to what the future brings with this.

The bills are about fertility fraud, involve civil and criminal charges, and include:

• Statute of Limitations
• False representation in assisted reproduction causing harm to the patient, patient's spouse, the individual conceived, or the donor
• Sexual conduct with the patient, even if the patient initiates or consents to it
• A pattern of fraud or deceit resulting in personal financial gain to the licensed provider of care
• False or misleading information related to an assisted reproductive procedure, including
• the embryo or gamete used
• the identity of the donor of the embryo or gamete
• a donor's medical history, family history, education, ethnicity, or religious background
• If the person is a health professional and knowingly causes their own embryo or gamete to be implanted into a patient through assisted reproduction without the patient's prior knowledge and express written consent
• False representation or practice as a health professional
• Knowingly using a human embryo or gamete other than the one agreed to by the patient in assisted reproduction procedure

With immense gratitude to the people of the Right to Know (righttoknow.us) organization for their tireless work and wisdom in being instrumental in promoting Fertility Fraud legislation state by state, including Michigan.

(Note: historically the term sperm/egg/gamete "donor" has been used.  The person is actually not a "donor" as they get paid for their gametes.  At times, people now use the term sperm/egg/gamete "provider" instead.)

My Donor Offspring Research

WHAT IS THE EXPERIENCE OF CONFRONTING THE REALITY OF BEING A DONOR OFFSPRING?

Thesis for MA in Humanistic and Clinical Psychology, 2000

Center for Humanistic Studies (now the Michigan School of Psychology)

Donor Conception areas of concern:

1.        Secrecy – regret, anger, feeling of injustice
2.        Feeling different, discomfort telling others due to lack of understanding by others of the donor conception experience
3.        Feeling of not fitting in family, differences with social family and importance of acceptance of donor offspring for who they are
4.        Identity confusion – Who Am I? 
5.        Search for donor and family, need for ancestral connection
6.        Search for half-siblings, feeling a connection with them
7.        Concern about next generation and inherited medical concerns
8.        Feeling alone, having a need for contact with others and support
9.        Finding support and similar experiences in adoption groups
10.        Need to seek out information about donor conception
11.        Positive feelings:  being special, interesting, wanted, grateful to be alive
12.        Negative thoughts and feelings:  trouble, angry, injustice, loss, nonexistence, split feeling
13.       Wanting to normalize being donor conceived or parent, accepting the reality
14.       Belief that knowledge of genetic and medical history are a birthright 
15.       Becoming an activist, finding a sense of purpose, duty to speak up

        

        For further information:

        https://www.amazon.com/Sperm-Donor-Offspring-Identity-Experiences/dp/1419672614

Detroit Jewish News about history of Detroit sperm donors

https://thejewishnews.com/2021/01/06/donor-deception-new-stories-surface-of-fertility-doctors-misconduct-in-metro-detroit/?fbclid=IwAR0apdA3sPhg4dd8hWCgQcBuFpk5BFjFN6Ai8eCzJFmaRMy7STr2oPwmm8k 

https://thejewishnews.com/2020/12/17/longtime-fertility-doctor-in-the-jewish-community-used-his-own-sperm-to-inseminate-patients-dna-tests-show/?fbclid=IwAR0VYNKsLRXyTyjI2sEOKJyFlw5hHPVRm8BBPHYT2_RIQ7YaAEJmb8_ibuk

Donor Conception Book Bibliography

Almeling, R.  (2011).  Sex Cells; The Medical Market for Eggs and Sperm.  Berkeley, California:  University of California Press.

Baran, A. and Pannor, R.  (1993).  Lethal Secrets: The Psychology of Donor Insemination; Problems and Solutions.  New York:  Amistad Press, Inc.

Barratt, C., and Cooke, I.  (1993).  Donor Insemination.  Cambridge, UK:  Cambridge University Press.

Blyth, E., Crawshaw, M., Speirs, J., ed. (1998).  Truth and the Child 10 Years On:  Information Exchange in Donor Assisted Conception.  Birmingham, UK:  British Association of Social Workers.

Blyth, E., Landau, R., ed.  (2004).  Third Party Assisted Conception Across Cultures; Social, Legal and Ethical Perspectives.  London:  Jessica Kingley Publishers.

Cahn, N.  (2013).  The New Kinship; Constructing Donor-Conceived Families.  New York:  New York University Press.

Cooper, S., Glazer, E.  (1994).  Beyond Infertility; The New Paths to Parenthood.  New York:  Lexington Books.

Copeland, L.  (2020).  The Lost Family; How DNA Testing is Upending Who We Are.  New York:  Abrams Press.

Creighton, P.  (1977).  Artificial Insemination by Donor; A Study of Ethics, Medicine, and Law in our Technological Society.  Toronto:  The Anglican Book Centre.

Daniels, K., and Haimes, E., ed.  (1998).  Donor Insemination; International Social Science Perspectives.  Cambridge, UK:  Cambridge University Press.

Davis, L.J.  (2009).  Go Ask Your Father; One Man's Obsession with Finding His Origins Through DNA Testing.  New York, NY:  Bantam Books.

Dorfman, A.  (2017).  I've Got Dibs:  A Donor Sibling Story.  amydorfman@withanxpress.com.

Fox, D.  (2019).  Birth Rights and Wrongs; How Medicine and Technology are Remaking Reproduction and the Law.  New York:  Oxford University Press.

Frank, D. and Vogel, M.  (1988).  The Baby Makers.  New York:  Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc.

Guichon, J.R., Mitchell, I., Giroux, M., ed.  (2012).  The Right to Know One's Origins; Assisted Human Reproduction and the Best Interests of Children.  Brussells:  ASP - Academic & Scientific Publishers.

Hertz, R. and Nelson, M.  (2019).  Random Families; Genetic Strangers, Sperm Donor Siblings, and the Creation of New Kin.  New York:  Oxford University Press.

Kramer, W.  (2018).  Your Family:  A Donor Kid's Story.  The Donor Sibling Registry.

Kramer, W., and Cahn, N.  (2013).  Finding Our Families; A First-of-Its-Kind Book for Donor-Conceived People and Their Families.  New York:  Avery.

Lorbach, C.  (2003)  Experiences of Donor Conception; Parents, Offspring and Donors through the Years.  London; Jessica Kingsley Publishers Ltd.

Mason, M. and Ekman, T.  (2017).  Babies of Technology; Assisted Reproduction and the Rights of the Child.  New Haven, Connecticut:  Yale University Press.

McWhinnie, A.  (2006).  Who Am I?; Experiences of Donor Conception.  Warwickshire, UK:  Idreos Education Trust.

Morrissette, M., Ed.  (2006).  Voices of Donor Conception.  Behind Closed Doors:  Moving Beyond Secrecy and Shame.  www.VoicesOfDonorConception.com.

Mroz, J.  (2017).  Scattered Seeds;  In Search of Family and Identity in the Sperm Donor Generation.  Berkeley, California:  Seal Press.

Noble, E.  (1987).  Having Your Baby by Donor Insemination; A Complete Resource Guide.  Boston:  Houghton Mifflin Company.

Plotz, D.  (2005).  The Genius Factory; The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank.  New York:  Random House.

Robertson, J.  (1994).  Children of Choice; Freedom and the New Reproductive Technologies.  Princeton, New Jersey:  Princeton University Press.

Shapiro, D.  (2019).  Inheritance; A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love.  New York:  Alfred A. Knopf.

Spencer, L.  (2007).  Sperm Donor Offspring; Identity and Other Experiences.  www.booksurge.com.

Stotland, N., ed.  (1990).  Psychiatric Aspects of Reproductive Technology.  Washington D.C.:  American Psychiatric Press, Inc.

Swanson, K.  (2014).  Banking on the Body; The Market in Blood, Milk, and Sperm in Modern America.  Cambridge, Massachusetts:  Harvard University Press.

Trueblood, K.  (1998).  The Sperm Donor's Daughter; and Other Tales of Modern Family.  Sag Harbor, New York:  The Permanent Press.

Vercollone, C., Moss, H., and Moss, R.  (1997).  Helping the Stork;  The Choices and Challenges of Donor Insemination.  New York:  Macmillan.

We Are Donor Conceived.  (2020).  Welcome to the Journey.  We Are Donor Conceived.

Momentum and Possibilities

 Wow...the ball is rolling.  More and more people are advocating for DC/NPE/MPE people.  (Donor conception/not parent expected/misattributed parentage experience).  This is very exciting.  It has been such a Herculean effort to get people interested in what life is really like for people in these situations.

Some great websites:

* npecounseling.org

* donordeceived.org

* https://www.facebook.com/RighToKnowUs/

Relevant podcasts:

* Everything's Relative

* Sex, Lies & the Truth

* Three Makes Baby

3rd Annual Michigan Psychological Association Health Psychology Symposium

* I will be presenting either a talk or a poster to explain the realities of donor conceived people and ethical issues of donor conceptions.

23andme is working on getting media attention in Michigan, in particular about my family DNA story.

Court cases  There are more people issuing court cases in their states, e.g. for fertility fraud.

The circumstances of donor conceived people have been intentionally kept in the dark for so long.  It is exhilarating to see all of the work people are doing to bring forward the realities of being donor conceived so that practices can become more ethical and take into consideration our needs and rights.