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DNA and Online Search Finds Birth Parent
stuyman writes "NewScientist is reporting that anonymous sperm donation is not so anonymous anymore. An enterprising 15 year old tracked down his biological father, an anonymous sperm donor, using an online genealogy service and an online information service."
This would be quite creepy if the (father) had never actually formally donated sperm. (ie. someone has picked up a condom or tissue, and impregnated themselves with the sperm.)
Not necessarily. I'm adopted and I haven't had much luck using my birth parents' names. I'm now going to have to ponder whether I want to do somemthing like this, or whether I should. I don't know yet because I have no idea whether they would want to be contacted. (They were high-school students, though, so they may wonder what happened to the baby they gave up because they couldn't raise her... so I have a chance that they'd be interested).
i am a soviet space shuttle
18 years, 18 years,
She got one of yo kids got you for 18 years
I can just picture someone tracking down an anonymous sperm donor and trying to get child support out of them. Or is this subject covered in the contract you sign at the clinic?
What I'm noticing here is that these records have had to be held since around 1980... which suggests that it never really was that anonymous. I mean, back in 1990 you could still get DNA testing done (for a price).
I'll subscribe to Slashdot when I see a month without a dupe, a typo, or an article the "editors" didn't read.
And you know this how exactly?
I hear this bullshit from people all of the time. One of my friend's insists I'm a "rare case." My parents, my only set of parents before you come up with some stupid term for the people who had to fuck to make me, are unable to have children.
Outside of having weird questions (How do I know my medical history? How do I know my ancestry? Eventually I guess you give up and realize you don't know those things, and neither does anybody else), I'm no different than anyone else.
What I wonder about this situation is why does the kid want to know? I don't understand the urge to meet the particular people who have donated their genes to your parents. If I did meet my genetic "parents," if they must so be called, they would be no different from any other random SOB off the street. What this kid needs to learn to appreciate is that he has loving parents who he wasn't forced onto because of a drunken accident.
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jonathan barket
Dear Parents,
I just wanted to let you know that I am alive and doing well. If you've wondered about my fate, you needn't any longer.
If you want to meet with me, send a reply letter to PO Box XXXXX. If not, I understand.
With gratitude,
Your child, born DD/MM/YYYY
If you're not sure whether they'd appreciate the contact or if it would cause them undue anxiety, keep the initial contact as neutral and impersonal as possible... I think.
(If) you had given up a child for adoption and that child was now an adult, how would you want them to contact you? Would you at all?
Meh, too deep for me.
Another way to look at it is donors are helping someone who would otherwise not have their own child to love through a theraputic process that allows the reciever to conceive. Whether or not you agree with the ethical/legal concensus achieved so far is a different argument. Onwards, if the child feels a need to contact me in the first place because its a human and being human it may feel some qualitative feeling of comfort in meeting the next person up in it's lineage that goes back in an unbroken chain to algae give or take a billionish years ago. Your right, I would be a donor not a parent - but if the child wanted to see me I wouldn't be so callous as to not give it an audience.
Shh.
In these child support cases, the only thing concerning the judge is the interest of the child. Crime means nothing. So, the guy is doomed to lose in family court.
He should try a civil suit for damages though. Punitive damages would be neat. Every month he pays her, and every month she pays him. If triple damages are awarded, he could make out pretty well.
Just for revenge, criminal charges of fraud would be fun too. That's yet another court.
First something quite like original Babel fish, then these singing mice, and now tracking down anonymous fathers. Well, what Arthur Dent donated was just his DNA, but similiarity is striking, isn't it?
I don't totally agree with this, but by the same token I don't think it should go completly the other way eigther.
It should be possible for the 'birth parents' to deny thier identies being given without consent however.
My aunt gave birth to three children in her life, but gave the second one up for adoption. No one knew except (maybe, not a clear detail here) her best friend who she stayed with the last 5 months of the pregnancy and she claimed the child had been still-born.
Fast forward almost thirty years and she has hunted down her biological relatives. Unfortunately this was two years after my aunt had died of cancer.
She visited her two 'brothers' and met a few of her 'aunts' and 'cousins' and that's about it other than the occasional letter to her brothers(actually 1/2 brothers, even to each other).
Generally it was minor splash in peoples lives, but no big deal other than the sadness that she didn't find us before my aunt passed away.
How such a thing goese down really depends on the people involved. If they've all got a fairly healthy grip on themselves and thier lives it's likely to be o.k., if not drama may ensue.
In general I think the 'birth' parent should have say over thier own anonymity, as should the adoptee for that matter. Though I wouldn't take issue if certain medical data was made available to the adoptee, as long as it was done VERY carefully.
Mycroft
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