#identitymatters
Some thoughts about identity...growing up not knowing your true identity...but knowing that things don't add up.
Our parents were told not to tell anyone about mixing donor sperm with the dad's sperm. So, it starts with the parents not knowing with certainty the true biological father and our true genetic identity. Create confusion...genealogical bewilderment. Create the belief that the social father could be the biological father...confusion in the family relationships.
My parents didn't know for sure, but according to mom, they suspected that the sperm donor was our biological father. Indeed he was. As often happens in gamete donor families, the biologically related parent, in this case the mother, feels more like the "real" parent. Mothers can become more domineering/entitled in the parental role. There is a power differential in the couple's relationship. It can't be talked about, so it is brewing under the surface. In donor gamete families, there seem to be a lot of divorces, emotionally distant fathers, fathers leaving the family or dying early. Not sure what the statistics are on this compared to all families, but it would be an interesting research project.
As the donor offspring, you know things don't add up. You wonder about the arguments behind closed doors. You wonder why your dad asks you if he should divorce your mother, you tell him yes, but he doesn't do it. You wonder about the strange comments, e.g. your dad saying that somewhere in his Jewish background there is Native American blood...huh? What is going on here? Confusion...
As the donor offspring, you wonder why your body is conveying one thing, but your parents are telling you something else about who you are. Confusion. For example, my parents were told that I had a high IQ and needed to go to a school for the gifted. My parents chose to keep me where I was in school, which I believe did limit my growth and potential. Another example, as many teenagers/young adults do, I questioned my religious/faith/spiritual beliefs and decided that my parents were hypocritical in their religious practices and I rejected my Jewish upbringing. Turns out genetically I'm only half Jewish anyway. My parents were city people; I'm a country girl.
It was never okay in my family to be who I really was. I was not accepted for who I was, didn't fit into the family in a lot of ways. There is an underlying sense of shame, when you are not okay for who you are. You have no idea what the basis for this is...the secret, genetic donation that helped create you and the family.
When I talk about my parents here, I want to emphasize that they were good people, they were doing the best they could in the circumstances of their lives. This is not to condemn them. I share these things to make a point about the effects of the confusion of unknown genetic factors in the family and how that impacts the family relationships and identity of those conceived in this way and raised in confused families.
I had a lot of identity confusion. My body was telling me I was one person and my parents were telling me I was someone else. They had a strong need to make me fit into the family, so that it wouldn't be apparent to others that there were differences, so that others didn't question that perhaps I wasn't totally biologically connected to the family. My parents worked very hard at fitting a square peg in a round hole...trying to mold me in their likeness. I had a lot of confusion, anger, depression growing up. I withdrew. Neighbors were able to abuse me because I didn't know how to assert myself. I never knew "what I wanted to do when I grew up." As an adult, I changed majors in school frequently, went back to college several times, switched jobs every couple of years due to lack of passion for what I was doing and boredom, had trouble maintaining lasting relationships. My life has not been a straight journey. I have been all over the place and tried so many things, trying to resolve myself.
My apologies about the meandering babbling in this post, but the point is to convey the identity confusion of growing up in a family that doesn't know your true identity and the personal impact of not knowing who you really are.
A message to parents of gamete donated people...please accept your children for who they are, both in ways they are like you and aspects that are not like you. Accept, embrace, and encourage them to flourish for who they are in their own right. No shame. Tell your children early on, in age appropriate ways, who they are and allow them to know their genetic relatives as a part of who they are. This is their life story.
#identitymatters When intentionally creating people from a gamete donor, the parents and/or the physician doing the procedure know who the donor is. The offspring have a right to know their true identity and who they are genetically connected to. Identity matters!
Sunday, May 26, 2019
Wednesday, May 8, 2019
Ethics of Donor Conception conference, NYC, May 3-4, 2019
Thank you to Professor J. David Velleman and the Center for Bioethics at NYU for the vision in creating and the skilled facilitation of an amazing conference. It was a meeting of the minds of academics, including bioethicists, philosophers and attorneys, and a large group of donor conceived people.
First of all, terminology. In the donor conception world, there isn't standard terminology for all of the relationships and processes. Terminology is difficult and evolving. The term "donor" is definitely a misnomer. Gametes (sperm and eggs) are not donated. They are provided for a fee, the person is paid for their gametes, it is a transaction. One amazing young man at the conference calls himself "transactionally conceived". There was agreement that "provider conceived" was a more accurate term than "donor conceived". I will use both terms, to honor the new, more accurate term and because people understand at this point the term donor. It's an evolution.
Also, we provider conceived people are often referred to as "the babies" or children. Please don't do that. We are people, of all ages, some of us senior citizens. It is so demeaning to be called a child. I use the term "offspring", but that isn't ideal either. It's rather cold. If anyone is aware of a better term for those of us conceived from provider gametes, please let me know.
It is a great shift that there is more attention in the academic world to understanding the implications of gamete provider conception, for all parties, offspring, families, providers and those that facilitate the donor process. We appreciate those that have pioneered research about donor conception, including Ken Daniels, Eric Blyth, Amanda Turner, Rona Achilles. Hopefully, there will be a surge of exploration into the effects of gamete "donation". There is certainly a surge in public media now, especially articles about the large groups of half-siblings created and doctors providing their own sperm.
What is sometimes missing in the academic explorations, however, is the lived experience of those of us created from provided gametes. That was the magic of the Ethics of DC conference this past week...bringing together those that study donor conception and those that live it. In addition to the academic presentations, Erin Jackson, founder of "We Are Donor Conceived" on Facebook, presented the experience of donor conceived people. Thank you, Erin for bringing so many of us together and advocating for change. During the conference, there was an amazing amount of dialogue and discussion, and an honest attempt to understand the true, real implications of this practice on real human beings, we donor conceived. Thank you for the opportunity for DC people to share their stories and experience, and the effort to understand us.
The vital consensus of those at the Ethics of Donor Conception conference was that secrecy and anonymity in gamete provider conception is NOT ethical. There was also general consensus that large numbers of offspring from a provider creates complicated and burdensome relationships, and is not ethical.
First of all, terminology. In the donor conception world, there isn't standard terminology for all of the relationships and processes. Terminology is difficult and evolving. The term "donor" is definitely a misnomer. Gametes (sperm and eggs) are not donated. They are provided for a fee, the person is paid for their gametes, it is a transaction. One amazing young man at the conference calls himself "transactionally conceived". There was agreement that "provider conceived" was a more accurate term than "donor conceived". I will use both terms, to honor the new, more accurate term and because people understand at this point the term donor. It's an evolution.
Also, we provider conceived people are often referred to as "the babies" or children. Please don't do that. We are people, of all ages, some of us senior citizens. It is so demeaning to be called a child. I use the term "offspring", but that isn't ideal either. It's rather cold. If anyone is aware of a better term for those of us conceived from provider gametes, please let me know.
It is a great shift that there is more attention in the academic world to understanding the implications of gamete provider conception, for all parties, offspring, families, providers and those that facilitate the donor process. We appreciate those that have pioneered research about donor conception, including Ken Daniels, Eric Blyth, Amanda Turner, Rona Achilles. Hopefully, there will be a surge of exploration into the effects of gamete "donation". There is certainly a surge in public media now, especially articles about the large groups of half-siblings created and doctors providing their own sperm.
What is sometimes missing in the academic explorations, however, is the lived experience of those of us created from provided gametes. That was the magic of the Ethics of DC conference this past week...bringing together those that study donor conception and those that live it. In addition to the academic presentations, Erin Jackson, founder of "We Are Donor Conceived" on Facebook, presented the experience of donor conceived people. Thank you, Erin for bringing so many of us together and advocating for change. During the conference, there was an amazing amount of dialogue and discussion, and an honest attempt to understand the true, real implications of this practice on real human beings, we donor conceived. Thank you for the opportunity for DC people to share their stories and experience, and the effort to understand us.
The vital consensus of those at the Ethics of Donor Conception conference was that secrecy and anonymity in gamete provider conception is NOT ethical. There was also general consensus that large numbers of offspring from a provider creates complicated and burdensome relationships, and is not ethical.
Thursday, May 2, 2019
Eugenics and Donor Conception
My first exposure to the idea of eugenics in sperm donation was in the support group 25 years ago. There is a man whose father was in the Home for the Feeble Minded. His dad wasn't feeble minded. He was a troubled teenager without family support, and that's where he landed. In order to get out of the Home he had to agree to be sterilized. Some choices, ey?...staying in the Home for the Feeble Minded or be sterilized? He was sterilized and released from the Home. Then he fell in love, married and needed a sperm donor to have children. For more information about his son's life story, read: Demons at my Doorstep; the Search for my Donor Father, as told to Katherine Marsh, iUniverse, Inc., 2004.
In the historic article "Therapeutic Donor Insemination" by Sophia J. Kleegman, M.D., published in Fertility & Sterility, Vol. 5, No. 1, 1954, p. 20, Kleegman states "we are given the opportunity for eugenics to rule. The requirements (for donors) are for men of high level of fertility, excellent mental, physical, and eugenic attributes, and of high moral character...With careful selection, and ability to choose donors of excellent intellectual and eugenic backgrounds...the children are superior..."
In the article "Adultery by doctor: artificial insemination, 1890-1945", Kara W. Swanson, School of Law Faculty Publications, Northeastern University School of Law, 1-1-2012, it states: "Davis explicitly linked artificial insemination to eugenic policies, which enjoyed broad support among educated elites in the first decades of the twentieth century. Davis, former superintendent of the Oklahoma State Hospital for the Feeble-Minded, believed that while the 'feeble-minded' needed to be confined and cured, superior persons needed to be encouraged to reproduce, and assisted as necessary." (p. 599). "When the 'test tube baby' burst into public consciousness in the 1930s, it did so in the context of a robust eugenics movement...the emerging science of genetics supported the popular movement for eugenic improvement of the United States population. Planned breeding of humans could improve the overall stock, both by discouraging the reproduction of undesirables through forced sterilization programs implemented during this period and by encouraging the scientific selection of mates..." (p. 604-5). "By the end of World War II, eugenics had faded in elite and popular discourse after it became associated with the policies of Nazi Germany..." (p. 630).
Lots of food for thought there!
There are problems with having very intelligent children who don't fit in their families, and problems associated with high intelligence in general, e.g. difficulty with social skills...but that's a topic for another day.
In the historic article "Therapeutic Donor Insemination" by Sophia J. Kleegman, M.D., published in Fertility & Sterility, Vol. 5, No. 1, 1954, p. 20, Kleegman states "we are given the opportunity for eugenics to rule. The requirements (for donors) are for men of high level of fertility, excellent mental, physical, and eugenic attributes, and of high moral character...With careful selection, and ability to choose donors of excellent intellectual and eugenic backgrounds...the children are superior..."
In the article "Adultery by doctor: artificial insemination, 1890-1945", Kara W. Swanson, School of Law Faculty Publications, Northeastern University School of Law, 1-1-2012, it states: "Davis explicitly linked artificial insemination to eugenic policies, which enjoyed broad support among educated elites in the first decades of the twentieth century. Davis, former superintendent of the Oklahoma State Hospital for the Feeble-Minded, believed that while the 'feeble-minded' needed to be confined and cured, superior persons needed to be encouraged to reproduce, and assisted as necessary." (p. 599). "When the 'test tube baby' burst into public consciousness in the 1930s, it did so in the context of a robust eugenics movement...the emerging science of genetics supported the popular movement for eugenic improvement of the United States population. Planned breeding of humans could improve the overall stock, both by discouraging the reproduction of undesirables through forced sterilization programs implemented during this period and by encouraging the scientific selection of mates..." (p. 604-5). "By the end of World War II, eugenics had faded in elite and popular discourse after it became associated with the policies of Nazi Germany..." (p. 630).
Lots of food for thought there!
There are problems with having very intelligent children who don't fit in their families, and problems associated with high intelligence in general, e.g. difficulty with social skills...but that's a topic for another day.
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