Yes, but is that just because it is so hard to find people without any problems? Surely, when they get donors without any of these things, that guy’s sperm flies off the shelf, and he might make ten or twenty babies. There was a guy in California who has like 80 children (now there’s a limit, i know) becuase his profile was probably very healthy.

Choosing who you want to reproduce with is not eugenics; everyone does that. It’s when one tries to control everyone’s reproduction on a mass scale that it becomes eugenics.

That’s true, that’s why a person choosing a mate because they would make good babies is not practicing eugenics. But, they are practicing crypto-eugenics, or having it practiced on them. Crypto-eugenics is when the eugenicists operate by trying to influence individual choices in a way that has a positive effect on a mass scale. Market forces control the gene pool on a mass scale. The individual decisions are not coerced as with forced sterilization, but by changing people’s options and perceptions, more and more people would make carefully planned and screened choices about the genes of their baby, including the decision not to use one’s own genes. Please google crypto-eugenics.

So yes, to choose someone as a spouse because they seem to have good genes is certainly crypto-eugenics. But they are at least raising the baby together, committing to each other, and certainly ought to be in love with each other. We would all agree it was repugnant if they were not in love with each other, just choosing each other for their stock and treating the children like resources to be socialized for the good of humanity. That is why we go to great lengths to get people to see inner beauty, to respect character, to marry in spite of adversity, for love.

I do have great sympathy for someone who is unable to find a loving spouse because all the prosepective spouses do not want to have a child with that person’s genes. It does seem like it would be a victory for character and love if we could remove the gene factor from the equation entirely, so that people didn’t think that they had to use each others genes if they wanted to have children. Then they could marry for love, and use donor gametes to have children, and everything would be great. But that is addressing the problem at the wrong end. They should be able to have their own children, no one should feel pressured to using someone else’s better genes instead of their own.

Do you see how radical that would be? How it could spread to lesser and lesser defects, where more and more people chose to forgoe having a biological connection and opted for screened genes?

i need some coffee…sorry if this rambled.

Here is the second paragraph in my post #

“And no, I don’t particulary think the above statement is a good or fair practice. Just because Sperm Donor A is a lawyer doesn’t mean that a child conceived with that sperm will also be a lawyer or doctor. In fact, given normal health and a supportive environment a child that is born from the donation of a ditch digger could also be a lawyer or doctor. I am a firm believer that reproduction is in its simplest terms “a genetic crap-shoot”. “

Again: isn’t it then eugenics when any woman actually selects a man to be the father of her children? Wouldn’t it be better for her to go fuck guys she doesn’t know, randomly, and get pregnant that way, to avoid “eugenics”?

“And no, I don’t particulary think the above statement is a good or fair practice.”

In fact, I pretty much agree with you about sperm banks, children, and that using a sperm bank isn’t eugenics, unless there is actualy DNA screening done.

I went on in that second paragraph to state that conception of a child by whatever means a single parent or couple may choose, the whole thing is still a genetic crap-shoot. That “feel good” description they give you is useless when it comes to predicting actual physical or mental traits of the offspring. We haven’t gotten to Gattica level technology yet.

Gimme a break. Those descriptions are there for the feel-good factor. If someone is a surfer, they might feel better about getting donor sperm from another surfer. Doesn’t mean their kid’ll be able to catch a wave. I think most people are well aware that their child is likely to share some parental characteristics, but not others—and that it’s ok.

This is an intimate process. It’s human nature to want to know a little something about the donor. I don’t know, but I’d hazard a guess that donors who post a profile get chosen more often than those who don’t. Hell, people who received an organ from someone else’s body often want to know something about that donor! It’s just human nature. You seem to have very little faith in the choices that people using donor sperm would make. Why? I’m not in the market for any, but if I were, nearsightedness or a family history of cancer or alcoholism wouldn’t scare me off—that description fits my profile, too! And that’s really the only “choices” folks who use the sperm bank are making—they’re looking for donors who resemble them. Just like they look for partners who resemble them (not necessarily physically, either). And that’s not “eugenics”.

I can’t be sure but I would assume the “eugenics” argument would be alleviated if the potential client could only be allowed to randomly receive their sperm. This practice might result in quite a few mixed race families, but it would also preserve many individual’s ideas of “random” genetics.

And no, I don’t particulary think the above statement is a good or fair practice. Just because Sperm Donor A is a lawyer doesn’t mean that a child conceived with that sperm will also be a lawyer or doctor. In fact, given normal health and a supportive environment a child that is born from the donation of a ditch digger could also be a lawyer or doctor. I am a firm believer that reproduction is in its simplest terms “a genetic crap-shoot”.

Any heterosexual person who chooses a mate on the grounds that “s/he would make wonderful babies” is also practicing eugenics, by your definition. Do you favor random couplings?

I googled “sperm bank”, and surfed through information on several sites. Donors come in all shapes, sizes, races, colors, hair textures, religions, family backgrounds, interests, personalities—-sperm donors pretty much resemble the population at large. What you won’t find from a sperm bank are sperm samples from those who have HIV, hepatitis B or C, or certain other incurable diseases that are passed by direct blood or semen contact—that’s because of laws governing all tissue banks. Go surf through donor profiles (they are quite detailed in medical history on both sides of the family). You’ll find donors with family histories of cancer, heart disease, alcoholism, mental illness, severe nearsightedness, you name it. That is NOT what eugenics was/is all about. You need to do some remedial reading on the subject.

To use the term “eugenics” is to describe merely having a donor description (y’know, kinda like the typical introductory “first-date” info) is beneath contempt.

How about the connection between anonymous donor conception and eugenics? La Luba is right that heterosexual couples that go to sperm banks are also practicing eugenics. The problem is more and more heterosexual couples are doing it that way, often the woman will do it on her own, when she is single, and then look for a man to be a partner. She does this more to avoid the entanglements of a second parent than for eugenic reasons, but by going to a reputable sperm bank, she is letting the bank do the eugenics. Maybe we need a law that says sperm banks cannot discriminate based on genetics, they have to let any guy be a donor and just send if off without any screening or identification about the genetic characteristics of the donor.

And I think you shouldn’t have any topics officially off limits, and I think your readers ought to object to any topics being off limits, especially when it is a controversial contention, and one that you tend to be insulated from thinking about by the mass media. Censoring a topic is not the right approach. You guys are smart enough to handle this topic and any other, and either explain why this isn’t crypto-eugenics, or why it is OK, or why it has nothing to do with homosexuality or same-sex marriage. I just think you guys should not remain ignorant of the issue, you should know about it and deal with it…

I don’t know where you come from or what your background is, but my background is such that there is a lot of community support for enabling behavior, and little to no community support for those who don’t wish to run a gauntlet of the typical abusive behavior patterns—-in other words, not leaving until you have “proven yourself” to be a worthy human being by tolerating the intolerable for a number of years. No one really expect you to stay if you are getting the shit knocked out of you to the point where you have to go to the hospital, no. But they do expect you to take punches/kicks/slaps that don’t send you to the hospital. No broken bones? Then no problem. “You’re not going to throw a whole marriage away just because he hit you, are you?”

It’s ugly. And emotional abuse, like name-calling, or passive-aggressive conversations (like taking the children aside and saying–within or without earshot of you—”did I ever tell you what a worthless piece of shit your mother is?”) is expected to be put up with. Because after all, he didn’t hit you. Thing is, as a parent, you are constantly modeling behavior for your children, whether you are conscious of that or not. And I hold that it is very damaging to children to be in the midst of that situation. It certainly was for me. I am a single parent because I don’t want that for my daughter, and I don’t have to “prove” myself to anyone by sticking around for years to try and fix the unfixable. And by refusing to engage in enabling behavior, I am bucking the societal norms, and have gained a certain reputation as a “cold, heartless bitch”. So be it. My daughter is not having the upbringing I did, under any circumstances.

RonF, I’m also aware of the faster trajectory certain drugs have—that was the case for my daughter’s father, also. And yep—cut and run is the best, nay, only tactic for that. But see, this is not an abstract question for me, or other single mothers.

Why would children of donor-inseminated single mothers be “damaged” by fatherlessness, but children of widows not be? Where are the articles predicting doom and gloom for the children of widows? Why aren’t widows sternly being told of the bleak outlook for their children if they don’t hurry up and get remarried already? Do I need to mention again that single fathers miraculously escape these types of critique, and that they are universally lauded for being dedicated to their children if they aren’t coupled?

I’m calling bullshit. Not only are there no studies showing that donor-inseminated children are likely to “do worse”, there aren’t any of those studies despite the pervasive culture of lowered expectations for children of single-parent homes. These children are ok despite growing up having to battle the self-fulfilling prophecy that they won’t be.

Donor does not equal father and rarely, very rarely, wants anything remotely approaching parental rights.

Viewing the right of the woman to have a child as somehow being in opposition to the child’s right to know his genetic origin is bizarre. If the woman had no right to have the child the child wouldn’t be here and his or her biological heritage would be a complete non-issue.

ut why should the “freedom” of a woman to have a child more important than the rights of a child or the rights of the father?

This might be a more interesting question if there were any evidence that there was a conflict between any of the above in this situation. The men involved volunteer to donate their sperm. They donate, get paid, and walk away happily. And anecdotal quotes aside, the actual evidence as presented in peer reviewed journals suggests that the children do as well as or better than average. So what are we so worried about?