The Sperm-Donor Kids Are Not Really All Right

The results are surprising. While adoption is often the center of controversy, it turns out that sperm donation raises a host of different but equally complex—and sometimes troubling—issues. Two-thirds of adult donor offspring agree with the statement "My sperm donor is half of who I am."

It's surprising and troubling to them that a sperm donor acknowledges it takes a man and woman to conceive and that just because a couple of dykes want to play house doesn't mean they are going to forget that half of them comes from a man.

Nearly half are disturbed that money was involved in their conception.

Yes it is disturbing but what did women and gays expect? Women and gays have turned the natural process of creating life into a product that can be brought and sold. Sperm donor children are products.

More than half say that when they see someone who resembles them, they wonder if they are related. About two-thirds affirm the right of donor offspring to know the truth about their origins.'

These things are only shocking to a deluded mind. Lesbians and single women need to understand logic. Of course people manufactured by sperm donor and IVF are going to wonder about who their father is, they are missing out on a whole part of their heritage and family history.

I'm glad this article was posted. I am an "adoptee" and I am an advocate for adoption (I advocate for parents to adopt if they want children as well as for unprepared parents to place their children up for adoption). I am against any type of artificial insemination, surrogacy, etc. for the same reasons the article states.

As an adoptee, I can tell you that like most adoptees (and I have spoken to a lot) we really don't feel a "void", I know some adoptees are more curious about their birth parents than others and seek them out when they are adults, but for most it is really more of a curiosity than any big emotional need. Every adoptee I know is very happy with the birth mother's decision and none of us feel "abandoned". In fact we feel more loved because we were chosen and wanted by our adoptive "real" parents.

As far as my siblings and I (all of whom are adopted), none of us has sought out our birth parents. My brother and I both know our birth mother is dead. I also know my adoption records are 'sealed" and it just isn't worth my effort (I believe it is impossible). Perhaps if my records weren't sealed, I would at least check it out to get some of the details or seek out extended relatives.

And I have no interest in my biological father. My adoptive father is the only dad I need.

I have read articles about adoptees that have issues and suffer emotionally, but I really think it is few, and I think there may be underlying causes and secondary issues. Even when I read about these cases, the people never express that they would have been better off with their biological parents.

As far as the attitude that artificial methods of creating children is mostly perpetrated by females, I will remind readers that it still take both males and females to create a baby (for every female "buying" sperm, there is a male "selling" sperm) and there are many gay males, lesbians and hetero males and females that use these services.

As far as a father's role in artificial 'donor' methods vs. a father's role in adoption, I would think that it would be worse to know that your father purposely created you in exchange for money with the knowledge that he would never love you vs. being adopted and knowing that the pregnancy was unintentional.

what I say bellow is more so in consideration to those who aren't in a serious relationship with someone who can't concieve.

The father sells the sperm and the mother buys the sperm, either way they are treating what will be a child like a commodity which obviously involves an unwilling participant. The mother buys the sperm with the intention of raising the child. I find it especially odd that someone would actually want to bring a kid into this world, want a bond with that kid, and all the while simply deny the kid his or her father ("half of who they are").

The father undervalues the act of creation, similar to people who "accidentally" concieve in a very unfavorable way. They both are very distanced from the human being that could result from their act. The mother on the other hand actually wants to build a relationship with the person she did all this to. I'm not making excuses for the father, its worse than prostitution, but the mothers should know they are selfishly hurting the ones they supposedly love.

The thing about this article that is disturbing in another (but unsurprising) way is this:

"What to do? For starters, the United States should follow the lead of Britain, Norway, Sweden, and other nations and end the anonymous trade of sperm. Doing so would powerfully affirm that as a nation we no longer tolerate the creation of two classes of children, one actively denied by the state knowledge of their biological fathers, and the rest who the state believes should have the care and protection of legal fathers, such that the state will even track these men down and dock child support payments from their paychecks."

Any paragraph that mentions both ending anonymity, and child support, makes me think that pretty soon, sperm donors are going to get tracked down. Once found, they could be made to pay CS because it will be "in the best interests of the child."

If that starts to happen, then the sperm supply may very well dry up.