Should anonymous egg and sperm donation be legal?
| February 28th, 2005In a comment on Family Scholars Blog, Narelle (who, I gather, was never given the opportunity to know who her biological father is) writes:
I am not saying that DC [Donor Conception] should be banned, but if it is to exist it should so via a model similar to open adoption, whereby the person born, after all this thinking and contractual agreement, is able to have the OPPORTUNITY to know their biological mum or dad. This should be a decision only the person born as a result can make, especially since their parents had a lot of time to think about what they were doing and the position they were bringing them child into.
Donor conception refers to sperm donation and egg donation (and perhaps some other procedures as well?).
I agree with Narelle; open arrangements should be the norm, and probably the legally-mandated situation. If someone can’t live with the possibility of his biological children contacting him someday, then he shouldn’t donate (or sell) sperm. (And the same for egg donation, of course.)
Narelle also asked several question intended to make readers understand her point of view as a person whose parents used DC technology. “How would you feel if the name of your biological father was sitting in a filing cabinet over the other side of the city, and only other people had access to that information, but not you? How would you feel when people ask you what nationality you are?” I’m afraid those and similar questions fell flat with me, because - insofar as anyone can predict how they’d react to hypothetical situations - my honest answer is: I wouldn’t care.
It reminds me of an “understanding transsexuals” questionnaire that was passed around a lot in the 1980s: “How would you feel if you woke up tomorrow and your body was the other sex? Wouldn’t you feel horribly wrong and out of synch with yourself?” Well, truthfully, I don’t think I would; I’d be taken aback, of course, and it would be annoying to have to deal with sexism, but I don’t think being female would inherently bother me. Being male has never been a positive or important part of my self-identity. (I’ve often wished I could switch sex back and forth, actually, but without the huge sacrifices and effort that real transsexuals must deal with).
Narelle’s questions, like the transsexual flier, miss the point. It doesn’t matter that I wouldn’t care. The point is, obviously she cares; and obviously she has an important need to know where she comes from, biologically. My lack of caring doesn’t magically cancel out Narelle’s needs.
One thing I like about Narelle’s proposal is that it leaves choice with the donor conceived person herself; if if a D.C. child prefer not to know, or simply has no interest (a possibility that discussions at Family Scholars Blog tend to brush aside), Narelle’s proposal allows them that liberty, as well.
How about infertile couples (either infertile because of something wrong, or infertile because they’re same-sex, or any other reason) who use DC technology? Don’t they have a right to keep their child’s biological origins secret from their child? No. Children are in the temporary caretaking of their parents, but in the end they belong to themselves - and that includes information about where they came from. The child’s right to know herself should supercede the desire of her parents to keep her origins secret.
I do think that both children and parents are served by laws that make custodianship clear and immutable; parents who conceived a child via sperm donation shouldn’t have to worry that the bio-father will appear out-of-the-blue ten years down the line and claim custody. And children shouldn’t suddenly have their lifelong home made insecure by a lawsuit coming from a person who has never been their guardian.
On the other hand, I would like to see more flexible and varied laws about who can be a parent. There’s no good reason that a child being raised by two mothers and a father shouldn’t have her relationship to all three of her parents recognized legally.
This exchange was also noteworthy:
Dan: Not to appear unsympathetic, but I guess the ultimate question is whether the whole debate over artificial insemination should be defined by the perceived “victim” status of children who wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the technology.
Narelle: i do not feel that i have to condone donor conception because it is what bought me life. so saying things like “whether the whole debate over artificial insemination should be defined by the perceived “victim” status of children who wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the technology” is really just insulting. so many people say well you wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for it. i know this, however that does not mean i have to think it is right. do people born from rape have to condone rape? they would not be here without it! (blunt but true).
I was leery of this analogy when I first read it; the differences between rape and DC are huge and significant, after all.
While the analogy may disturb me and others, logically it makes sense for the narrow point Narelle was making: No one is obliged to approve of the means by which they were conceived. (Many “Alas” readers made the same point, in a different context, on this thread.)
February 28th, 2005 at 1:17 am
Amp said:
“I’ve often wished I could switch sex back and forth, actually, but without the huge sacrifices and effort that real transsexuals must deal with.”
Hey, me too! I’ve also wanted a totally androgynous option. Think of the insights that could be gained and the myths that could be rubbed out with this ability. In fact I think it should be mandatory that we all spend at least 6 months of our early life as the other sex. That way a whole host of ugly misconceptions can be nipped in the bud…
…lacking sleep…
This comment was written by DRA.Report this comment to the moderators
February 28th, 2005 at 1:40 am
The “what if you could switch sexes easily” conversation has come up from time to time before, among my friends, and, interestingly, I usually find the men like the idea of it, whereas most of the women are unenthusiastic.
This comment was written by Julian Elson.Report this comment to the moderators
February 28th, 2005 at 2:06 am
Oh, and I’m included among the men who think that easily switched sex would be neat.
By the way, I was wondering if you saw any problems with non-anonymous donations. I think, to some extent, they have their own problems associated with them (though not, of course, finding out bio-paternity/maternity). I’ve seen creepily eugenicist adds asking for eggs saying things like, “woman’s egg sought: minimum SAT score: 1400. Must be slim, brunette. Jewish preferred.” etc. Overall, I think it’s true that anonymous donation is to be less preferred than named donations.
This comment was written by Julian Elson.Report this comment to the moderators
February 28th, 2005 at 4:04 am
I’d think that suddenly changing sex would be an immensely disorientating and probably pretty traumatic experience. By and large people probably underrate the extent to which a lot of how they think of themselves and relate to the world is actually bound up in their body- normally we don’t notice the importance of our bodies because they don’t change very fast and tend not to change really dramatically. The whole ‘what if you woke up one morning…’ scenario pretty much relies on this idea of the body as something peripheral to identity and not something that affects it much.
I’m having trouble thinking of an appropriate analogy but the closest I can come up with are the arguments in deaf communities about hearing technologies: having a fundamental aspect of your body alter wouldn’t simply leave you unchanged and although it wouldn’t be an absolute and complete reversal in who you were, it would be pretty unlikely if you ended up as Ampersand in a female body.
Ampersand said:
“I’d be taken aback, of course, and it would be annoying to have to deal with sexism, but I don’t think being female would inherently bother me. Being male has never been a positive or important part of my self-identity.”
I do think that the old dualism of man= rational\mind and woman = body is in play here. There’s much less cultural pressure to think of men as embodied and I think that to some extent that helps men downplay just how much the body is actually really important to identity. Julian’s comment about his female friends being much less enthusiastic about the body switch idea is interesting as if you’re already aware of how important your body is to society’s perception of you as a person and your self-perception and identity (which I think women are much more aware of than men) I think you’d be much less sanguine about how easy it would be to adapt to a fundamentally different body.
This comment was written by Tarn.Report this comment to the moderators
February 28th, 2005 at 4:26 am
Except for the medical histories of Donors (or biological parents) that may concern health or health care choices, what other information should the children of IVF or adoption have a “right” to? Why should they have a “right” to get to *know* their biological parents? I see nothing wrong with non identifying information being given out: medical histories, race, hair/eye color, etc… But beyond that I don’t see the reasoning. I don’t know what reasons a person might have for donating eggs or sperm, but being anonymous, and staying that way may have been a big factor. Maybe they just wanted to help others who couldn’t have children? And people who give children up for adoption often have very good reasons for not wanting to be traced or not wanting anything to do with the child in future.
And if it is decided that bio-parents have no right to privacy, where does it stop? Will the children seeking to *know* their bio-parents be allowed to access any information prior to the time the eggs/sperm was donated or the child given up? Will bio-parents be required to check in via a parole system in case the child wants to get to *know* them in future?
By that reasoning, shouldn’t the people who donate sperm/eggs or give up children for adoption have the right to not have a child “appear out-of-the-blue” and claim a right to *know* them? Don’t they also have a right to not have “their lifelong home made insecure” by a child they have never been the guardian of disrupting the lives they have made for themselves?
This comment was written by mousehounde.Report this comment to the moderators
February 28th, 2005 at 7:27 am
The “what if you could switch sexes easily”? conversation has come up from time to time before, among my friends, and, interestingly, I usually find the men like the idea of it, whereas most of the women are unenthusiastic.
They’re probably just thinking about that Steve Martin joke about how if he were a woman, he’d stay home and play with himself (herself?) all day.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
February 28th, 2005 at 7:42 am
I’ve seen creepily eugenicist adds asking for eggs saying things like, “woman’s egg sought: minimum SAT score: 1400. Must be slim, brunette. Jewish preferred.”? etc.
People apply these sorts of criteria when selecting a mate for normal reproduction too.
This comment was written by Stentor.Report this comment to the moderators
February 28th, 2005 at 8:00 am
By that reasoning, shouldn’t the people who donate sperm/eggs or give up children for adoption have the right to not have a child “appear out-of-the-blue”? and claim a right to *know* them? Don’t they also have a right to not have “their lifelong home made insecure”? by a child they have never been the guardian of disrupting the lives they have made for themselves?
I donated eggs twice about 10 years ago. I needed the money badly. I felt no connection to the tissue I donated, I certainly didn’t think of it as potential life, given that the eggs were unfertilized and the success rate back then was so small.
I had to sign away any right or claim I possibly could assert to any child that may have come from the donations; in fact, it was understood that I would not be told of the success or failure of any IVF procedure resulting from the donation. I understood that my identity would also be protected; if there was a question of some kind of genetic problem, the hospital had my medical records and would be able to address anything from that.
I really *don’t* want some person showing up on my doorstep wanting to get to know me as their biological mother. I donated a few cells (and with considerably more pain and less pleasure than a sperm donor derives from the experience). I did not have a baby. Someone else may have done that from the donated material, but not me.
This person may feel she has a right to know the identity of her biological parents, but that right must be balanced against the privacy of the donor. I sympathize with the quest for identity, but it sounds like she’s conflating the legitimate need for medical information with the desire to know the identity of the donor and therefore to know something about her own identity.
This comment was written by zuzu.Report this comment to the moderators
February 28th, 2005 at 8:00 am
Well, yes, but I’ve always assumed that it was because these criteria were for “people they want to spend a lot of time with, become emotionally intimate with, have sex with, etc”, and not “people whose gametes would combine with theirs to produce the [genetic] child of their dreams,” except on the subconscious evo-psych level or whatever.
Oddly enough, while I’m uncomfortable with this kind of stuff that seems to claim that SAT scores are some allele in your chromosomes, I don’t mind eugenics in gamete donation in a far more literal sense: e.g., suppose Mary has recessive cystic fibrosis, and Sarah has recessive Tay-Sachs. Suppose we have two batches of sperm, one from a man with recessive cystic fibrosis and one from a man with recessive Tay-Sachs. I see nothing wrong, all else being equal, with giving the recessed Tay-Sachs batch to Mary and the recessed cystic fibrosis batch to Sarah, so as to avoid the possibility of a homozygous child who expresses either of these syndromes.
This comment was written by Julian Elson.Report this comment to the moderators
February 28th, 2005 at 8:44 am
Julian states: I don’t mind eugenics in gamete donation in a far more literal sense: e.g., suppose Mary has recessive cystic fibrosis, and Sarah has recessive Tay-Sachs. Suppose we have two batches of sperm, one from a man with recessive cystic fibrosis and one from a man with recessive Tay-Sachs. I see nothing wrong, all else being equal, with giving the recessed Tay-Sachs batch to Mary and the recessed cystic fibrosis batch to Sarah, so as to avoid the possibility of a homozygous child who expresses either of these syndromes.
sounds reasonable, sure… except when one considers what have been labelled “diseases” & “syndromes” throughout history by the powers-that-be.
all depends on who gets to do the defining, don’t it?
————————————————
gratuitous (yet entirely relevant to this point) sci-fi recommendation: Gattaca
This comment was written by jam.Report this comment to the moderators
February 28th, 2005 at 8:54 am
I would say that hard as it may be to find where to draw the line, some things really are genetic diseases. I don’t think that people dread cystic fibrosis due to prejudice–it really is a traumatizing illness that kills.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
February 28th, 2005 at 10:28 am
i’m not denying that real diseases exist. nor am i saying that people dread Cystic Fibrosis because of prejudice…
what i am saying is that given that prejudice & disease have been such common bedfellows throughout the ages, not to mention the rich histories across cultures of mis-used science for political ends, i believe there is ample reason to be concerned when people start talking about solving problems through genetic manipulation….
of course no one wants Cystic Fibrosis, or wants their kids to have it. it’s a question, again, of what other things get rounded up under the rubrics of disease or “syndrome” (e.g. homosexuality, which has historically been considered as such, by all manner of eminent doctor & scientist - or any number of so-called “mental illnesses”).
This comment was written by jam.Report this comment to the moderators
February 28th, 2005 at 4:05 pm
amp: People respond to incentives. Always have, always will. Clearly a lot of egg and sperm donors find value in anonymity. If you take away the opportunity to donate and never be contacted again, then you will inevitably reduce the number of people willing to donate, probably by a huge margin. The impact that this would have on infertile couples would be huge. Further, it would result in the non-birth of thousands of children. Its sad to think of donor-produced children never knowing their biological parents, but the alternative, in most cases, if for them to never be born in the first place.
stentor: If looking for a high SAT score is eugenicist then so if the process by which most college-educated people find mates. There are not, after all, a lot of ivy league grads looking for Mr. or Ms. Right at the local union hall or truck stop. And the Jewish thing is probably because Jewish law says that children of Jewish mothers are of the tribe. Children of non-Jewish mothers are only Jewish if they convert. Its not especially creepy for devout parents to want children to be of the same religion.
This comment was written by sd.Report this comment to the moderators
February 28th, 2005 at 5:24 pm
Yeah, but they aren’t looking for Mr. or Ms Right the Ivy League Grad because they specifically want their children to be brainiacs. Most people aren’t looking for someone’s genetic potential so much as they are looking for someone they feel that they can share a life with.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
February 28th, 2005 at 10:06 pm
Remind me again why I should care if people combine gametes for silly reasons? They’re gametes, not living Jews. I don’t think they care how we pick and choose.
Note that the world of Gattaca would look rather different without drug prohibition and the ensuing loss of privacy.
This comment was written by Omar K. Ravenhurst.Report this comment to the moderators
February 28th, 2005 at 10:38 pm
Tarn:
It could be. I certainly can’t deny the possibility that I’m vastly underestimating how central my body, and my sex, is to my identity.
Then again, it’s also possible that you’re projecting your own feelings about your body onto the rest of us. There’s really no way to tell.
As for men being likely to think they wouldn’t care, I’m skeptical about that. Most men, it seems to me, care far too much about maintaining their maleness. And although I don’t have a reference, I think I read in a women’s studies class once about a survey finding that more high school girls than boys were agreeable to the idea of being the opposite sex (the conclusion the WS class came to is that this shows that boys have more reason to be concerned with holding on to their current status than girls).
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
February 28th, 2005 at 10:46 pm
Mouse Hounde wrote:
I don’t think anyone has a right to “get to know” their biological parents, if by that you mean have a personal relationship with them; everyone’s biological parents are free to slam the door in their bio-children’s faces.
But I think it’s reasonable for people to want to know where they came from; not just medical facts, but also cultural background, sociological background, etc.. And whether or not you feel it (I don’t), obviously some people (I suspect a minority, but who knows?) do feel incomplete all their lives without this information.
I guess I think the need of a person to know the truth about herself, should outweigh the need of the person’s parents to keep themselves secret from her.
I’m not proposing that anyone who has already donated anonymously have their identity made available; that would be breaking the terms under which they donated, which I think would be wrong. However, I am suggesting that future donors should be made to understand, as a condition of donating (or of selling), that their identity will not be withheld from their biological offspring, should the offspring ask.
I wasn’t discussing adoption. However, since you bring it up, what about the opposite case; people who love their child but don’t feel able to bring it up, and so give it up for adoption, but only agree to be anonymous and unknown to the child because they are pressured to make that choice or not told that any other options exist?
I don’t think that slippery slopes, in real life, are usually all that slippery.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
February 28th, 2005 at 10:50 pm
I agree. I think the way to balance that should be to 1) keep already-existing agreements to keep donors anonymous, such as the agreement you signed, but 2) not accept current or future donors unless they sign an agreement that their identity may someday be disclosed to their biological children, if the child or children request it.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
February 28th, 2005 at 10:55 pm
I think you’re assuming a lot. There’s only one way to know for sure.
But in any case, all that would happen in the scenario you describe is that the cost of sperm and egg donations would rise until supply matched demand. Taht would be unfortunate - it would make it harder for everyone to afford using those services (and it’s already quite hard!) - but it’s not at all clear that the benefits of self-knowlege for children born of D.C. wouldn’t outweigh the harm of higher prices.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
February 28th, 2005 at 11:35 pm
Perhaps I should have phrased my comments better:
There’s a distinction between being someone else and changing bodies, the whole ‘what if I were different’ scenario apparently operates on the basis of ‘what if I had a different body,’ whereas in practice I think it’s probably operating on the basis of ‘what if I were someone else.’ The second thought experiment is fine, whereas the first has a bunch of pretty questionable assumptions behind it. What I particularly object to is the assumption that identity is something separate from the world, that it functions as an essence independent of its representation and experiences in the world.
Whilst it is possible that I’m projecting my own feelings onto others, I’d personally feel that my own perspective has significantly more evidence (albeit evidence that doesn’t relate directly to gender change) supporting it. People react with difficulty to major shifts in the function or appearance of their bodies- lose a limb or suffer a facial accident and you’re unlikely to approach it as a simple shift. Now, I don’t want to directly analogize between damage to the body and a shift between genders, but I think it’s reasonable to accept that major (traumatic in my examples, but could be something like full body vitiligo) alterations in bodily appearance or function carry with them difficulties in adjusting and require that the individual adapt their function and relation to the world.
Secondly, whilst it’s not conclusive, the existence of so many body related subcultures and identities that are essentially founded on the function and performance of the body (certain sports, bodybuilding, the body mod community, dieting culture) would certainly seem to imply that body and identity are pretty tightly linked.
Thirdly, although it’s a slightly different argument, it’s uncontestable that the state\function of your body influences how you live in the world (you acknowledge that by pointing out the issue of having to deal with sexism.) I trust that you’d accept that your daily experiences alter your identity and how you think of yourself, so surely the implication of that would be that your identity would alter as an eventual consequence of your body altering.
Fourthly, there’s a bunch of evidence that the manipulation of the body can be used to manipulate and alter the identity of the individual. I’m only familiar with the negative side of that work, particular stuff like Scarry’s ‘The Body in Pain,’ and various other sources that look at the effects and use of torture and sexualised violence on the identities of the victim and perpetrators. Similarly, there are many neurological studies showing that injuries to the brain can bring about personality changes (the most famous one I’m familiar with is the case of a guy called ‘Phineas Gage.’) Again, it doesn’t directly analogize to a gender shift, but it’s certainly evidence that the state, function and use of our bodies matters to our identities.
Finally, pretty much the only direct evidence about gender transition we have available certainly seems to indicate that actually gender and the gendered body is extremely important to individuals. Trans people, whether non-op or not, undertake a great deal of effort to reshape their bodies to conform to their sense of themselves and take on a great deal of prejudice in the process: whilst there’s obviously a problem of using the extreme examples to model the mass of the population, the only available examples of gender transition certainly seem to indicate that the body, and specifically the gendered body, really does matter to identity.
The divide between men and women over shifting bodies probably ends up coming down to how permanent it is; if it’s something you can do occasionally or for brief periods my (purely anecdotal) experience is the same as Julian’s- men are much keener on the possibility. Make it a permanent shift and I’d imagine that the balance would probably change.
This comment was written by Tarn.Report this comment to the moderators
March 1st, 2005 at 9:01 am
Tarn writes: Fourthly, there’s a bunch of evidence that the manipulation of the body can be used to manipulate and alter the identity of the individual. I’m only familiar with the negative side of that work, particular stuff like Scarry’s ‘The Body in Pain,’ and various other sources that look at the effects and use of torture and sexualised violence on the identities of the victim and perpetrators. Similarly, there are many neurological studies…
not to mention the effects of psychedelic drugs. a mere 100 micrograms is enough to alter an adult’s perception & sense of self-consciousness in a profound way. to give an idea of scale here, we’re talking about 1/10th of the weight of a grain of sand…
now, i know most folks drop a tab or two, watch the funny lightshow & revel in the weirdness (”dude, did you ever, like, look, i mean really look at your hands??”). but, back before they were all
demonizedcriminalized there were significant studies being done both in the governmental & private sectors that demonstrated that psychedelics could have deep & lasting effects upon people’s self-image & sense of identity.what’s that thing ol’ William Blake said about a grain of sand again?
anyways, just another example of the way in altering one’s body (in this case, the chemistry) can have effects on one’s consciousness/self.
This comment was written by jam.Report this comment to the moderators
March 1st, 2005 at 11:55 am
>People apply these sorts of criteria when selecting a mate for normal reproduction too.
And that’s fine, that’s one of the main things we think about when choosing a mate, isn’t it? They marry each other, and their children are a mix of both of them. That’s so totally different from selecting a different person to be the DNA donor of your child and selecting another person to be your spouse. Those should be the same people. Sheesh…
This comment was written by Johnny Moral.Report this comment to the moderators
March 1st, 2005 at 12:27 pm
[Thread drift]
The divide between men and women over shifting bodies probably ends up coming down to how permanent it is; if it’s something you can do occasionally or for brief periods my (purely anecdotal) experience is the same as Julian’s- men are much keener on the possibility. Make it a permanent shift and I’d imagine that the balance would probably change.
This reminds me of an interview I heard on the radio last summer. The guest was blind, and the host asked him whether, if he had the chance to be cured, would he take it? He said only if he could go back if he didn’t like it.
I’d be very curious to see what being a woman was like, but obviously that’s hugely different to a permanent change.
[/thread drift]
This comment was written by Andrew.Report this comment to the moderators
March 1st, 2005 at 1:12 pm
That’s so totally different from selecting a different person to be the DNA donor of your child and selecting another person to be your spouse. Those should be the same people. Sheesh…
Well, for better or for worse, you don’t generally find out that one or the other of you can’t contribute to the DNA of any child until long after you’ve selected the spouse.
The way my experience worked was, I signed up, did all the testing, and then the clinic contacted me when they had a match — meaning, they were trying to match the donor’s characteristics to the donee’s.
Then, Fun With Needles began!
This comment was written by zuzu.Report this comment to the moderators
March 1st, 2005 at 1:46 pm
I must admit I’m confused at this talk of self-knowledge. This is a difference scenario than adoption, wherein there actually are specific, unanswered questions bound up in that identity, namely the cliche “why didn’t my birth parents want me.”
egg or sperm donors gave up clusters of cells, not people, and more than likely, were doing so for money.
since DC is automatically sending the resulting zygotes to particular, loving families, I can’t imagine the same lack of self identity could possibly be generated than someone who bounced between foster homes.
as after-school-specialish as it sounds, the people who raise a child are that child’s “real parents.”
if the DC produced child is the first generation that worked their way up and managed to graduate from college, is it any less of a joyous occation, does it have any less significance, if the donor of the sperm or egg as a college graduate? do they cease to be “the first in their family to go to college?”
how could it possibly have any real bearing on a child if someone who donated tissue liked Nascar, sushi, and owns the entire collected works of Kraftwerk?
It seems unreasonable to me for a donor to be allowed to insist on being a part of the DC child’s life. and just as unreasonable for a child to insist on being a part of the donor’s life.
This comment was written by karpad.Report this comment to the moderators
March 1st, 2005 at 1:53 pm
>Well, for better or for worse, you don’t generally find out that one or the other of you can’t contribute to the DNA of any child until long after you’ve selected the spouse.
You aren’t guaranteed children! You select the spouse, and then try. Maybe you have children, maybe you don’t. Maybe it’s more heartbreaking than I would understand, not really caring for kids myself (though I’m sure I’d love them if I had them), but I think then that there’s a problem with how much importance we put on having children, or on not being heartbroken or dissapointed. I think the world should accept more heartbreak and dissapointment, rather than accepting everyone’s need for self-actualization and fulfillment, which are just marketing implanted needs anyhow.
This comment was written by Johnny Moral.Report this comment to the moderators
March 1st, 2005 at 2:46 pm
I agree with Mr. Moral! I also think that people should accept that they have no right to dictate what others do in bed, and live with the disappointment the lack of control over others’ sex lives.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
March 1st, 2005 at 10:23 pm
Being male has never been a positive or important part of my self-identity.
I’m not sure if you addressed this, Amp, but that’s you. Gender is a very positive and important part of many people’s self-identity.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
March 1st, 2005 at 10:30 pm
Mythago, I don’t deny that. Hopefully, it was fairly clear that I was speaking only of myself.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
March 1st, 2005 at 11:32 pm
That’s so totally different from selecting a different person to be the DNA donor of your child and selecting another person to be your spouse. Those should be the same people. Sheesh…
Why?
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
March 2nd, 2005 at 5:33 am
This is my polite comment (see the Changing Sex Survey thread for my less polite comment) and I really want this comment to be read as very tentative as I’m conscious that I don’t want to end up telling people who they are.
Amp said:
“Being male has never been a positive or important part of my self-identity.”
But surely your gender is important to a lot of aspects of your identity that, at least from my blog-skewed perception of your interests, seem pretty important to you. For example, in the civility threads there was a lot of discussion over whether your advocacy and approach to feminism is inevitably altered by your gender- would you say your feminist identity is catalysed and transformed in important ways by the fact of your body and gender? Second (and this is something I think you’ve mentioned in other posts- the Air America ones if I remember correctly,) the fact of your maleness alters how others perceive and interact with you and what opportunities you’re offered.
This comment was written by Tarn.Report this comment to the moderators
March 2nd, 2005 at 7:08 am
Tarn -
I think you’re not distinguishing between becoming a different person and being the same person whose identity is being transformed through experience.
You suggested considering the example of people going through traumatic change - for example, losing a limb. Certainly, such events alter people’s self-understandings and self-identity; however, I don’t think that’s the same thing as ceasing to be the same person. (Who you are after a traumatic event is determined, to a great extent, by who you were before the traumatic event. I know that studies of happiness and well-being have shown that the surest predictor of happiness and well-being after a mobility-reducing accident is happiness and well-being before the accident.)
No matter what we do, our experiences affect who we are. If I change sex tomorrow, that will alter who I am 10 years from now, because my experiences over the next ten years will be that of a male-to-female transsexual. But if I don’t change sex tomorrow, that too will alter who I am 10 years from now, because my experiences over the next ten years will be that of a non-trans male. Every choice I make, including the choice of avoiding change, will inevitably bring me a different set of experiences than other choices would have.
Yet no matter which choice I make, I continue to experience a continuity of self. In that sense - no matter how changed I am by experience - I can continue to correctly think of myself as the same person. To use an extremely cliched image, changing the course of a river doesn’t make it a different river, just the same river with a changed course.
I don’t think your other examples prove much. Yes, there are some subcultures in America which identify themselves very strongly with their bodies; yet these don’t represent all people, just some subcultures. And of course taking LSD (or whatever) alters how we think and act, but that doesn’t mean that we cease to experience a meaningful continuity of identity. (Well, maybe while peaking on LSD, but that’s only temporary, and not everyone experiences it that way. And after the peak is past, meaningful continuity of identity returns.)
Yes, I agree. The experiences I’ve had as a white man have helped create who I am today. But if I changed sex tomorrow, I wouldn’t cease being who I am; I would just begin having different experiences, which would help create who I am in the future. But I’d still be “me,” in some sense. Even if I was female tomorrow, I’d still recall having been a guest on Air America, and that memory would not be a delusion, but an accurate reflection of continued identity.
Finally, I should make it clear that I’m not arguing that there’s a complete separation of body and identity. I have a hard time imagining an identity without a body of some sort; at the very least, we’d require a brain being kept alive in a jar. (Religious people would say differently, but I’m not religious). However, wihtin those bounds there’s room for a lot of physical change while maintaining a continuing identity.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
March 2nd, 2005 at 8:28 am
I wrote, regarding people selecting a spouse for their genes: “That’s so totally different from selecting a different person to be the DNA donor of your child and selecting another person to be your spouse. Those should be the same people. Sheesh…”
Myca asked: “Why?”
Because eugenics is bad. People shouldn’t be under pressure to accept some genetically better DNA in place of their own. People should feel right about having children with the person they love and not feel that they shouldn’t have had their own child, they should have bought some better sperm.
And as to how we select a mate, let me clarify that I don’t think that a person should put a big priority on how likely they are to give you healthy children or not. The priority should be on how much you love them. But what that poster was pointing out, I think, was the fact that people do, indirectly, find healthy, smart people attractive, and I was saying that is not the same thing. Perhaps some people even reject people they think would have unhealthy children, and that is sad. But they shouldn’t feel that “hey, I can marry that person and just use someone else to be the bio parent” because it’s eugenics, it’s putting too much weight on being genetically perfect, it’s really arrogant and insulting and starts us down a very slippery slope. We should all be created equal, as the real children of the people who love each other and married.
This comment was written by Johnny Moral.Report this comment to the moderators
March 3rd, 2005 at 10:00 am
I’m with zuzu on this one.
Also, despite the grace you show by noting that just because YOU don’t care about this stuff doesn’t mean that some people ought not care about it, there’s a logical jump made from that point that I disagree with–and that’s the assumption that because somebody wants something (in this case, to gain info about her biological parents) that they ought to have it. I want to fly unassisted. But that doesn’t mean that I ought to be able to.
For me, the burden of proof is on those who think that a child has a right to that information.
Also, I think there’s reason to be concerned for tying so much of the ‘truth’ of oneself to one’s biology, especially to one’s biological HISTORY. It’s one thing to want to know what your body is capable of and such, but it’s another to tie your identity directly to people who may have nothing more in common with you than some DNA.
This comment was written by jp.Report this comment to the moderators
March 3rd, 2005 at 2:28 pm
Johnny Moral -
This comment was written by karpad.You seem to have trouble grasping that “different” is not the same as “better” if you are unable to procreate, for any reason, accepting SOME DNA and raising it as your own isn’t Eugenics.
DC isn’t eugenics any more than adoption is.
“This is the person I choose to be married to, because I find them beautiful, charming, and pleasant. sadly, they are infertile due to damage incurred in a car crash. but I know this person would make an awesome parent, and give the kind of nuturing enviroment needed to raise a great child. So we cannot produce our own genetic child, but that doesn’t mean we can’t raise A child”
your position clearly requires that people who want children MUST consider the ability to produce children as a prerequisite of relationships.
Report this comment to the moderators
March 3rd, 2005 at 3:12 pm
karpad, did I say adoption should be illegal? No. Did I say opening your home to foster kids ought to be illegal? No. So you can marry a car crash victim and still parent. But you won’t be able to have your own biological children. But if you knew that going into the marriage, that was the choice you made, and it isn’t grounds for divorce.
And when people choose the anonymous donor sperm they want to use, they select based on the best genes, they select eye color, etc. And the sperm bank won’t even accept people without “good” genes, free of known heriditary problems. That is eugenics.
This comment was written by Johnny Moral.Report this comment to the moderators
March 3rd, 2005 at 10:29 pm
actually, as I understand it, typically they try to select based on proximity to their actual spouse.
and even if they didn’t, it still isn’t eugenics. breeding for physical traits is, well, breeding.
eugenics is pseudoscientific, and includes factors that aren’t genetic as being “bad.”
rapists and murderers are legally entitled to donate. it isn’t weeding to create a master race, or even “better people”
in case you haven’t noticed, I take less issue with your ideas (although I obviously think you’re wrong) than the fact that you keep saying “It’s eugenics! it’ eugenics!”
This comment was written by karpad.“The Bell Curve” advocates eugenics. Nazis advocate eugenics.
wanting to have kids, even if you’re physically incapible, isn’t eugenics.
if a couple is infertile because of one partner, the other can go out and fuck some stranger on the street to donate genetic material. that isn’t eugenics, and really, that’s all DC is, fucking a stranger on the street.
it just more likely to actually produce a pregnancy, and less likely to result in an STD.
Report this comment to the moderators
June 1st, 2005 at 5:55 pm
just thought i would say hello. i am the narelle from family scholars :) it’s funny what googling ones own name can find! i am glad to see people talking about these issues, whether positive or negative it’s much needed. so thank you!
This comment was written by Narelle.Report this comment to the moderators
June 1st, 2005 at 6:44 pm
I’m glad you posted, Narelle, because I’d missed this one the first time around, and it was an interesting thread!
On the question of parental privacy rights vs. the child’s right to knowledge in regard to egg and sperm donation…this topic comes up frequently in adoption discussions as well, and I always find it odd that it is so often presented as an “either/or.” I see no reason to dictate that all adoptions/donations must be either open or closed. Why not permit both policies as options, and let those who use these services decide which they prefer according to their own preferences?
I realize, of course, that if one believes in a fundamental “right” to know ones biological parent, then privacy policies do indeed denying the rights of the children (or, in the case of egg and sperm donation, the potential and hypothetical not-yet-conceived children). However, I don’t believe that such a “right” exists. It is the nature of life for children to be stuck with the consequences of their parents choices. Children don’t get to decide their parents’ career path, or their religion, or where they live, or any of a host of other things. Similarly, their preferences regarding privacy vs. knowledge don’t get to trump their parents’ preferences. Sucks to be a kid.
Besides, I’m never quite sure why these discussions always seem to assume that the child will grow up to value knowledge over privacy. I was adopted as an infant via closed adoption. Does it sort of suck not knowing my medical history? Yeah, I guess. Do I consider this ignorance a fair trade for freedom from worry that some complete and utter stranger is going to show up on my doorstep one day and claim to be my mother? Oh, you bet!
Mind you, I really don’t like it that women are often pressured to accede to “closed” adoption systems against their will. That’s nasty and evil. But I don’t think that the solution to the problem is to remove closed systems as an option for those who would prefer to retain their anonymity.
This comment was written by Elkins.Report this comment to the moderators
June 1st, 2005 at 7:46 pm
However, I don’t believe that such a “right”? exists
Then you’re not really balancing the debate you set out in your first paragraph; you’re simply deciding it in favor of one side and then declaring anybody who doesn’t like it can opt out.
You are not ‘free from worry’ that a stranger may show up and claim to be your mom, as I’m sure you know; it is not illegal, and it is no guarantee, closed records or no.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
June 1st, 2005 at 7:51 pm
Just to clarify my previous post, which was rather hurried and ill-considered…
To “legally mandate” open donations as the norm, as Ampersand suggested, would be to criminalize something that is currently legal in the US.
As a general principle, whenever anyone suggests that the government ought step in to criminalize a currently-legal practice or institution, I want to feel convinced that there is a Very Good Reason (TM) for permitting the State to exercise such control. Just call me a Closet Libertarian, I guess — or maybe just a Closet Paranoid — but I don’t take criminalization lightly; seemingly off-hand suggestions that the State should step in to make this or that or the other thing illegal tend to make me feel very, very nervous.
In this case, there seem to be two Very Good Reasons (TM) on offer.
The first argument seems to rely on the notion that knowing the identity of ones biological parents is in some sense a “human right.” This argument fails for me because I don’t accept the premise: while I do think it’s nice for people to know who their biological parents are, I don’t believe that it is a right to which all human beings must be considered entitled, and which therefore must trump all other considerations — such as, for example, prospective bio parents’ desires for privacy and anonymity.
The second Very Good Reason offered seems to be the mental anguish suffered by the subset of people conceived through egg or ovum donation who will later feel harmed by not knowing who both of their biological parents were. I do feel for these people, and I don’t mean to trivialize their feelings. But put bluntly, that’s just not enough to convince me that the State would be justified in criminalizing closed donation services. We do not illegalize everything which can cause mental anguish, particularly when to do so would be to infringe on others’ choices and freedoms, thus possibly causing them mental anguish.
In short, this is just one of those cases where even I find myself thinking that governmental non-interference is the far more fair and prudent way to procede. Let donation services establish whatever policies they prefer, let them be open and honest about those policies, and then…well, how about letting the market take care of the rest?
This comment was written by Elkins.Report this comment to the moderators
June 1st, 2005 at 7:58 pm
(I cross-posted with you, Mythago)
Well, Mythago, if we wanted to play duelling “rights,” then I suppose the actual conflict would be the right to know who ones biological parents are vs. the right to buy, sell or exchange genetic material under the cloak of anonymity.
I don’t really consider either one of of those to be a “right,” honestly.
This comment was written by Elkins.Report this comment to the moderators
June 1st, 2005 at 9:05 pm
If you don’t, then you probably shouldn’t have presented them as a right vs. a right (in your second, not first paragraph, my bad) but simply said they aren’t rights at all–we just have competing interests.
To “legally mandate”? open donations as the norm, as Ampersand suggested, would be to criminalize something that is currently legal in the US.
Nope. It would simply make promises to keep adoptions ‘closed’ have no legal force. Certain exemptions would dissolve, i.e. information that is normally public, but is made private due to its being in a ‘closed adoption,’ is no longer exempted from disclosure.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
June 2nd, 2005 at 2:18 am
Yep, you’re right. I was very sloppy. Mea culpa. But yes, “competing interests” is indeed pretty much how I parse the situation, with the caveat that these two interests are not intrinsically at odds, nor do they fall along predictable lines. In other words, not all prospective parents or donors prefer closed systems to open ones, and not all of the children who emerge from such systems favor open systems over closed ones. All too often these discussions get framed as “parents vs. children” (or, when applied to adoption law, “bio parents vs. adoptive parents”), and I guess that’s just become a bit of a pet peeve of mine. False Us vs. Them dichotomies always leave me feeling cranky. Individuals differ widely in how they prioritize these values, just as (to refer briefly to the thread drift) they differ widely in to what extent they consider their physical body or sex to be an intrinsic part of their identity.
Ah! I see. Sorry, I was really not being deliberately obtuse, you know. Just being normally obtuse. So in other words, the sperm banks could “promise” all they wanted, but their promises would be pretty meaningless (if not downright dishonest), as all they would really be saying is: “hey, we promise that we won’t be spreading any of your personal information around to our clients. But we won’t be able to stop other people from accessing the information about you that we have on file, if they really want to get at it.”
Eh. Well, that’s pretty much the status of so-called “closed adoptions” these days, isn’t it? (You’re almost certainly better acquainted with those laws than I am.) I don’t suppose those changes have caused society to collapse. I do think that they have significantly reduced the effective choices open to women who find themselves pregnant but who do not want a child, and that does concern me — but it’s also a factor relevant only to the adoption issue, not to the question of sperm or egg donation, and so pretty far off the topic. No one, after all, winds up a sperm or egg donor by accident.
The refusal to consider the possibility of multiple options when it comes to these policies does disturb me, though. Mandating closed systems was wrong-headed and problematic. Is there any reason to believe that mandating open systems is any more equitable, or likely to work out any better in the long run?
This comment was written by Elkins.Report this comment to the moderators
June 3rd, 2005 at 6:48 pm
“Why not permit both policies as options, and let those who use these services decide which they prefer according to their own preferences?
I realize, of course, that if one believes in a fundamental “right”? to know ones biological parent, then privacy policies do indeed denying the rights of the children (or, in the case of egg and sperm donation, the potential and hypothetical not-yet-conceived children). However, I don’t believe that such a “right”? exists. It is the nature of life for children to be stuck with the consequences of their parents choices. ”
Where i live there is only the option of using known donors, which i completely support and think should be enacted in the rest of the world. Their should be no preference because this is a thought out and intentional creation of a child, who should have the opportunity to know of their true origins. It is in fact a right, if you have a look at the UN convention of the rights of the child (CROC) article 8 states that all children have the right to an identity, without interference from government. As it stands today legislation is keeping information about my biological father and my identity in a filing cabnet. I see this as a direct breach of CROC and believe it is every person’s right to be able to access such information about themselves. Parents should not be able to decide whether their child will grow up with a severed kinship network or not. Donor conception is different from adoption in that it is a well thought out process, no mistake that the person they are creating will have missing links.
I think that if donor conception is to continue then it ought to with the child’s best interests *really* at heart. At this point in time the infertile, or needy couple/person’s rights are still overriding the child’s. To me it is cruel to intentionally create another human being in such a way that denies them a full identity. Sure not all donor conceived people may feel like myself, or want to know their biological parent/s, however the opportunity for us to make up our own minds about who and what is important to us should be present. Of the many many donor conceived people i have spoken to and met, we all agree on one thing; the information we have been given is not enough, we all believe we deserve more, we all have more questions, than answers, which may never be fulfulled.
I understand what you mean about children being stuck with their parents choices and no one can turn back time, however my own mum for example feels as though she has placed me in an unfair situation, now that she can see the full extent of her decisions. She wishes that she had the choice to use known or anonymous sperm, she tells me if she did she would most certainly would have used known. That is not to say that herself or i wishes i hadn’t been born, as many like to put to us!
People need to be more educated on this matter, they need to listen to the donor conceived people who aren’t happy with a few pieces of non-identifying information and work towards a practice that doesn’t compromise a child’s right to an identity or family, for the desires of adults. Only a system where known donors are availble can achieve this.
This comment was written by Narelle.Report this comment to the moderators
June 3rd, 2005 at 9:58 pm
Well, that’s pretty much the status of so-called “closed adoptions”? these days, isn’t it?
I was thinking more about state laws sealing records relating to adoptions, which are a different kettle of fish than sperm banks.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
June 4th, 2005 at 5:47 pm
You know what Narelle, I am very sorry to say this so bluntly, but if the rules you would like to enact were in place, you would most likely never have been born. Our “hereness” is a mystery regardless of how we got here, and whether we know the “full story” or not — and most of us do not really understand our heritage in any meaningful way. Your quest elevates biological connection beyond all consideration of what it could possibly signify. I am most likely biologicially connected to hundreds of people in an Eastern European country and with whom I can’t imagine that I could ever feel “kinship.” The present and the future break the past into tiny pieces like a jigsaw puzzle that can never be fully assembled.
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
June 4th, 2005 at 6:17 pm
but if the rules you would like to enact were in place, you would most likely never have been born
I have heard advocates of a ban on all abortion make this argument.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
June 5th, 2005 at 1:43 am
Barbara, as i stated in my response to you above:
“She [my mum] wishes that she had the choice to use known or anonymous sperm, she tells me if she did she would most certainly would have used known. **That is not to say that herself or i wishes i hadn’t been born, as many like to put to us!**”
Many people like to make me aware of the fact that i wouldn’t be here without this fantastic scientific experiment, i would like to simply state as i do always, i do not have to condone donor conception because this is how i was conceived. I do not think it is too much to ask to know whom my biological father is or information pertaining directly to who i am. Considering it is being kept from me by people who ought to have thought through such ethical dilemmas, i see the practice as it stand as nothing more than a badly thought out plan. I am not asking to know all of my relatives throughout time, i am asking for some basic human rights to be recognised Barbara, and until people realise this, we have a long way to go as a human race.
“The present and the future break the past into tiny pieces like a jigsaw puzzle that can never be fully assembled.”
You are right, so do you think it is ok that clinics and governments help in the seperation of people from their family by deliberately falsifying birth certificates and keeping such information in filing cabnets, never to be seen by those to whom the information belongs? To me, it’s too much like the x files, myself and other donor conceived people are the end raw product who have just to deal with the ignorant systems that have helped to create us.
This comment was written by Narelle.Report this comment to the moderators
June 5th, 2005 at 2:19 am
Just reading your comments about Narell,e the donor conceived person who was trying to convey how it is to be severed from a biological parent and half her family. It is a bit hard getting people to understand the prediciment of a donor conceived person. It struck me however, that perhaps if laws were changed to read that no one born on this planetwas, by law, allowed to know the identity of one biological parent and half their biological famil people might just ‘get it’.
This comment was written by Lia Vandersant.Report this comment to the moderators
June 5th, 2005 at 6:59 am
No, I do get it. A bio parent who gives up a child, and that includes fathers who abandon their children before or after birth, or chooses never to know the child, isn’t part of your family — the web of interconnected human beings who shape your identity, temperament, world view, and ethical outlook. That is your first leap, that a biological connection with an individual automatically makes them your family. When I was a kid I felt so disconnected from my bio parents that I invented new parents for myself. The sense of disconnection and anomie that you are feeling is claiming a home in the fact that you don’t know enough about the person who contributed 1/2 of your gene pool, but I doubt that’s the real reason or that knowing more would help. I am sorry for your distress. I wish it weren’t such a conundrum and I hope you find a way out of it.
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
June 5th, 2005 at 8:54 am
‘When I was a kid I felt so disconnected from my bio parents that I invented new parents for myself.‘
Barbara, then you will admit that you have had an experience that is not just different but totally opposite to the one Narelle is talking about, so your conclusions that she too must consider the biological connection ultimately irrelevant is even more biased in that sense.
None of us who aren’t in that situation can really fully ‘get’ it. But we can try and at least avoid pretending that everyone must feel the same about it. For us, her situation is only an hypothetical ‘what would I have felt if I were in her shoes’. But it’s a luxury, to be able to ask that question, knowing that we never were and never will be in that same situation.
By the way, I also don’t think a biological link is enough to establish a family. I think it’s something else that makes a parent a real parent. Anyone can be a great parent to anyone, even if they’re not biologically related.
However, the problem of donor anonymity is another question, it doesn’t deny that parenting is *not* limited to biology, and it certainly doesn’t require us to state that biology is enough to make someone a parent; the problem is about the rights of the children of donors to know about their biological origins, for both personal and ethical reasons, and medical reasons.
There are several situations where children never get to know their real biological parents, or even just who they are. But when a child is conceived deliberately with an anonymous donor, then it’s only fair the law should consider that problem carefully.
It sounds very dismissive to respond to a person, who has actually gone through that situation, by telling them they shouldn’t really think in those terms.
This comment was written by noodles.Report this comment to the moderators
June 5th, 2005 at 10:14 am
but I doubt that’s the real reason or that knowing more would help
Wow, that’s dismissive–it wouldn’t help you, so it wouldn’t help anybody else.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
June 5th, 2005 at 3:58 pm
Naral:
That’s a really good point, Naral, and not one that I’d considered! (I’ve mainly seen article 8 invoked in relation to other issues, specifically trafficking.) The definition for this article that I’d always seen quoted describes the right to an identity as constituting the “existential interest of each person in not seeing the external or social projection of his or her personality upset, denaturalized, or denied,” and I’d never even thought to connect that with genetics!
However, when I actually went out looking for the source of that always-quoted passage, I found that later on it elaborates:
And furthermore, it looks like it does often get applied to adoption and assisted fertilization issues. I guess that does make sense: genetic heritage can play a role in the make-up of ones “cultural patrimony.”
So okay. If we accept, then, that the right to identity includes the right to know the identity of both of ones biological parents, how does that affect other issues? What would the ramifications be, for example, for single mothers who conceive naturally, but who then refuse to reveal the identity of the child’s father? It is already the case (here in the US, anyway) that the state can deny them benefits if they do so. Would their children be able to force them to reveal that information under penalty of law?
Well, no. Only a system where known donors are compulsory would achieve that.
If the right to identity constitutes a right to know the identity of both of ones genetic parents, then a system of assured anonymous donation is a violation of human rights, and it would therefore have to be done away with, yeah?
So the question isn’t really one of a choice between anonymous donation or known donation. It’s a proposal to do away with the possibility of institutionalized and assured anonymous donation altogether.
This discussion has convinced me that there may indeed be justification for such a change (which is very cool, and is a large part of why I’m on this thread at all — discussions on subjects about which I already know what I think bore me senseless), but let’s not try to make it a matter of expanding choices, shall we? What is being proposed here would in fact narrow the options, not expand them.
Not that narrowing options is always a bad thing, mind you. But it is what is being proposed here.
[RE: The “then you wouldn’t be here!” argument]
Yeah, so have I (on this very blog, in fact), and it never makes a lick of sense to me in that context either. I thought that Naral’s rape analogy (quoted by Amp at the end of the OP) was a brutally effective illustration of the absurdity of that line of argument.
Lia Vandersant:
How it is for her. And for others who share her response.
I thought that Naral was quite eloquent on the subject, and I do understand her feelings. I don’t share them, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t understand that she has them and accept them as perfectly legitimate, albeit somewhat alien to my own feelings on the matter.
Sorry, though, not everyone who has been severed from biological parents feels the same way about it. And for those of us who don’t happen to share your emotional response, the universality claim is also getting really, really annoying, ‘kay? Nobody likes having their personal experience dismissed. You don’t like it; Naral doesn’t like it; none of the women who participated on those interminable “rape culture” threads liked it; and guess what? I don’t like it either.
It’s also detrimental to your agenda. It is not necessary to claim a universality of mental anguish in order to argue that the ability to know ones genetic parents ought be recognized by law as a fundamental human right, and when you do so, you really make it a lot harder for people like me–who know perfectly well that no such universality exists- to keep anything approaching an open mind when listening to the rest of your arguments.
Noodles:
Yes, thank you, Noodles. Tell you the truth, I don’t ‘get it,’ if by “getting it” one means really understanding it on any gut or visceral level. But you know what? That’s okay. I don’t need to. I can find it personally weird and alien and hard to understand while still accepting it as a real and valid and legitimate emotional reaction that I just don’t happen to share. I don’t know why people so often seem to feel the need to claim that everyone in any given situation must have the same response to it.
This comment was written by Elkins.Report this comment to the moderators
June 5th, 2005 at 4:00 pm
Narelle.
I’m sorry for consistently spelling your name wrong, Narelle.
This comment was written by Elkins.Report this comment to the moderators
June 5th, 2005 at 4:03 pm
It’s a proposal to do away with the possibility of institutionalized and assured anonymous donation altogether.
Exactly. And I don’t see the downside–yes, it’s possible people will have unwanted contact from their birth families, but that can happen anyway. There’s no law that says if your birth mother finds you despite a sealed birth certificate, that she is forbidden from contacting you as an adult.
I agree that knowing about one’s birth family is not a universal desire. I have two half-siblings I’ve never met, didn’t know about until I was an adult, and frankly have no particular desire to meet. But there’s nothing forbidding me from knowing about them.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
June 5th, 2005 at 4:11 pm
There would seem to be a contradiction between the rights of a woman who bears a child as a result of rape and any putative right to know one’s ancestry. Ought a child who is the product of rape be empowered to drag his or her mother back into the trauma of their past experience in this fashion?
I would imagine that for the many women who choose to bear a child after rape, and the many more women who have no option but to bear the child, the last thing they want to do is to associate that man with their family in any way. I would think they would want to put the experience firmly in the past; having their kid demanding his or her right to know who daddy was would just be a monstrous imposition.
Admittedly this is a significantly smaller group than the children of donor conception in the West, but in most of the world I bet there are more children of rape than there are “test tube” kids.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 5th, 2005 at 4:36 pm
having their kid demanding his or her right to know who daddy was would just be a monstrous imposition
If Daddy’s name was in public records, the child would never have to bring the mother into it.
You do realize that your “mother’s peace of mind trumps all” argument applies to more situations than rape?
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
June 5th, 2005 at 4:50 pm
I am not making that argument, Mythago. You are racking up quite a history of misrepresenting my statements.
I think that a mother’s peace of mind ought to trump a child’s right to know their father’s identity, in cases where that is known to the mother but not elsewhere. I am more opposed to the idea that the kid has a right to know (and that the UN has anything to say about it) than anything else. Yes, if the father’s name is in the public record, then the kid doesn’t need mom. What’s your point? If the father’s name is in the public record, then nothing in this thread applies, “public” meaning what it does.
Finally, to reference the father of a rape victim’s child as “Daddy” is sickening.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 5th, 2005 at 6:01 pm
Me:
Mythago:
Oh, I see the downside. The downside is that a woman who wants to give birth to a child without having a relationship with the biological father (because she’s a lesbian, because she already has a partner who is infertile, or for whatever other reason), and who is unable or unwilling to go the risky “have unsafe sex with strangers and don’t leave them any legitimate contact address” route, will now have no way to get a child conceived without all of the emotional messiness of having to deal with the sperm donor.
It’s not my ox gettin’ gored, but I guess it’s probably someone’s.
Mainly, though, I think that it’s the spectre of ugly custody disputes that really spooks people the most about open systems. I suspect that if the records were sure to be kept sealed until the child had reached the age of majority, that would alleviate a lot of people’s concerns. Grown adults may not like the idea of strange personages showing up on their doorstep and claiming kin, but they’re grown-ups; it will not kill them.
Then there’s also slippery-slope anxiety, which is probably irrational. I don’t know if I believe that this particular slope is really all that slippery. Like Robert, though, I am a little bit skittish about anything which seems to erode even further the idea that the paternity of a woman’s child is her own damned business.
Which brings us to the child of rape question…
Mythago:
Yeah, but I think Robert’s point may have been that the name still had to get in the public records somehow. And that means that somewhere along the line, the mother had to name a name. Whether she wanted to or not.
The state already demands such disclosure as a prerequisite to the distribution of benefits — a fact which I find perfectly sickening. I think that’s where the nervousness comes in here, really: if adherence to human rights demands that paternity be registered, then what does that portend for the freedom of mothers?
Like I said, though: this slope is probably really not all that slippery. Looked at rationally, it does seem quite absurd to worry that changing the rules regarding sperm and egg donation might somehow lead us straight into some misogynist distopian abyss where Evil Gubmint Officials get to yank out the fingernails of unfortunate pregnant women one by one until they finally gasp out the fathers’ names.
Some slopes just aren’t that slick.
This comment was written by Elkins.Report this comment to the moderators