Is sperm donation unfair on the children?

[Allopinionswelcome1]

I'm really interested in people's opinions on this generally, as I'm 38 and considering the sperm donor route, but I'm also really keen to do the right thing and not screw up my kid!

There is a bit of research showing that children of sperm donors can be upset and confused by their origins, which used to worry me. However this research is usually on adults who were born 20-40 years ago, when it was considered shameful and was often hushed up, they sometimes 'found out' when they were teenagers (sometimes mid-argument), or if they were told early on were treated like freak among classmates. They also will never be able to find out who their donors are or whether they have any half siblings, because sperm donation used to be anonymous.

These days those things aren't so much of an issue.
a) it's not particularly unusual (there are two in my nephew's class).
b) You get to know more about donors and their extended family than I've ever known about any guy I dated (e.g. that their maternal grandmother started wearing reading glasses aged 46). You get essays and personality tests, and adult pics and child pics and art they have created, and voice recordings...
c) The child can find out about their donor at 18, and can meet half siblings earlier than that through the donor sibling registry - so there's not so much of the mystery growing up.

In terms of family, I have 3 sisters living walking distance away, who have 4 kids between them and hopefully more on the way, and we see each other at least twice a week. My mum is in the same town and is always over at our houses. So they would have a big family, 3 lovely role models in my BILs and loads and loads of love.

So I'm wondering whether there is still a view that sperm donation is unfair on the child, and if so why?

This is a genuinely open question - I'm not particularly interested in defending a particular point of view, just to hear what the different views are.

QueenofmyPrinces

Not having a man in your life isn’t the end of life!

I raised my dd1 with no father about.
I have two lesbians in my family that had sperm donation and had a very much loved and happy boy who goes for nothing.

The attitude to single parents on here is awful

QueenofmyPrinces

So by your reasoning lesbians shouldn’t have children if they don’t want to have sex with men?

Haworthia - couldn't agree more.

The number one issue cited by the children of sperm donors was being lied to (none of ones who remember being told recall it as a positive experience). Another was not knowing their genetic origins - one talked about scanning the crowd looking for their features in strangers' faces, which felt really sad. These are issues that were experienced just as much by people with a father figure in their lives.

Interestingly, not having the father figure around was barely mentioned by kids of single or lesbian parents, although it does seem to be the thing people without experience say they would be concerned about.

What I do find interesting (and crazy) is how the donor route is still seen as more taboo than making a reckless/irresponsible relationship choice or having a one-night stand.

Allopinions, there was a programme on Radio 4’s iPM yesterday about a man who has recently tracked down his sperm donor ‘father’ - there is an interview with the donor next week. It was quite sad, and the man seemed relieved to have finally found a reason why he didn’t seem to ‘fit’ with the family who brought him up. Might be worth a listen

The only reason a man donates sperm is to make money. What sort of a man is that?

Feel similarly about egg donation.

Er, in the UK, you don't get paid, except for expenses

Abroad maybe, but not the UK

So by your reasoning lesbians shouldn’t have children if they don’t want to have sex with men?

People can do what they like, if lesbians want to have a child together then brilliant, I’m not here to say they shouldn’t. But I stand by my belief that I think children who are denied a father and grow up without one are missing out on something very important.

I'd recommend the DCN as a useful source of information and advice - their workshops also come highly recommended

OP If your children are guaranteed loads and loads of love from family and from you, they know early on they have a father who is a sperm donor and can see what he and his family are like, then I can't see the problem. I heard the R4 IPM programme with the 40 year old who was sad he felt he never resembled anyone (bar his mother) in the family, but that's as you say from before the days when he would have had the information that's now provided.

My only concern learning that ?40%? of sperm chosen by UK women is from Denmark, would be ascertaining no interbreeding in the future.

Good luck.

My grand daughter looks very very similar to her mom, who looks like her mother, and a trio of cousins who all look similar.
I often worried about how different her experience would be if she didn’t look like either of her parents.
In this case the donors sperm was so effective at conceiving that he is no longer able to donate. My dil and sil still have 3 vials should they want to try for a full sibling.

I think it's really morally dubious. When DH and I were having ICSII some of the doctors really trued to hard sell it to me as the only way to get pregnant. In the end I practically shouted, 'There's no way I'm having a baby by a man I might not even like enough to go for coffee with, let alone sleep with.' They looked shocked, as though they;d never considered this POV but to me it's central.

Donor sperm from a known, liked, respected donor is worlds apart from anonymous donor sperm.

If I were a child and discovered my mother had never even met my father, had no idea if she liked or respected him or found him physically repulsive, socially obnoxious, morally dodgy, I'd feel odd about it.

At least these days children are allowed to track down the donor fathers. That's a step in the right direction.

I think sperm donation is more kind on everyone then dads that do a runner and don't are but I'm probably just biter

My Dad died when I was 6 and I have really struggled with it, especially through my teenage years. How would my life be different if he was still alive (in my head it would always be 100 times better)? Resentment when my friends Dad's would do "Dad things" like take them camping in their garden, teach them how to drive (or do anything with them really). I really was very bitter about it.

As a child I think I would spend my life before I met him (if I met him) wondering who he was...did I just walk by him in the street? Is he the bus driver/postman etc.

We have been looking into adoption, our social worker had said that they like LAC to have contact with BP right from earliest childhood because it's been proven to be better for the child. Answer questions about their family history, help them to find their identity. Also if the person is known to the child they are less likely to idealise them and fantasize about how their life would be with them in it. It can be very traumatic for a child to discover their parent in their teenage years or later in life. It isn't just as simple as giving them some facts on paper and the option to meet them if they like when they're an adult (I don't mean that to come across harshly) and thinking that's the answer.

Obviously plenty of children are brought up by single parents and are grand, but having lost my father I would never engineer a situation that deliberately deprived my children of one.

I read that statistic about the high proportion of donor sperm coming from Denmark. I had no idea why. Is it because British donor sperm is lacking or seen as lacking/inferior? Or is it because women like the idea of little blonde children?

What a very articulate post notanother and very thought provoking. I’m sorry for your loss

No haworthia it's because the law makes it easier and there's no shortage of donors.
Calm down love, nothing to get excited about.

I wasn’t getting het up stressed

I have no idea of the donor sperm system, that’s all. Thanks for clarifying.

I don't think it's unfair at all. It's all a bit rich for smug people to sneer at women who haven't been able to have a child with a hetero-normative relationship and tell them to 'just adopt' or not have kids at all.

MinaPaws

They probably looked shocked because you acting deranged ??

If your were looking at ICSI then your dh sperm would have been of poor quality - they were just trying to improve your chances.

Honestly some of you posters have never been in the situation and are judging appallingly.

I read that statistic about the high proportion of donor sperm coming from Denmark. I had no idea why. Is it because British donor sperm is lacking or seen as lacking/inferior? Or is it because women like the idea of little blonde children?

Several reasons

Primarily because since the lifting of the donor anonymity laws in 2005, the numbers of British sperm donor dripped dramatically

Guardian article: UK sperm bank has just nine registered donorss*

This article also outlines how there is a very different culture around sperm donation in Denmark:

Laura Witjens, the chief executive, says the sperm bank will launch a drive to recruit new donors later in September, inspired by the success of Denmark’s booming sperm banks which market themselves by appealing to male vanity.

“If I advertised saying ‘Men, prove your worth, show me how good you are’, then I would get hundreds of donors,” she said. “That’s the way the Danish do it. They proudly say, this is the Viking invasion, exports from Denmark are beer, lego and sperm. It’s a source of pride.”

One sperm bank in Denmark, called Cryos, provides an enormously amount of donor sperm to countries around the world

Guardian article (from 2012): Come inside: the world's biggest sperm bankk*

The world's biggest sperm bank holds 170 litres of sperm, exports to more than 70 countries, and is responsible for more than 2,000 babies a year

So for Danish sperm it's supply and demand. Demand massively outstrip supply in the UK, hence importing from licenced sperm banks overseas.

LeftRightCentre

Yes

Picking danish sperm for blonde hair babies? Ffs! How judgmental can you get!

My wife and I have a 4 year old sone who we had with donor sperm. I can honestly say he has never suffered for lack of a father. He has very special and very different relationships with both of us, and for all the people that say "I can't imagine depriving a child of a relationship with a father" I could equally say other children are deprived of a relationship with a second mother. But that's ridiculous. Children do not need to be raised in identikit heteronormative nuclear families, they just need to be raised by people who love them and nurture them.

My son has never asked why some of his friends have daddies and he doesn't. Nor does he ask why they only have one mum. He accepts that all families are different (and they really are!). We have told him that a very kind man helped us to have him because he wanted to help people who couldn't have children by themselves, by giving some of his seed to a doctor who gave it to us so we could make it. As he gets older we will explain more to him. He will have our full support if he wants to track down the donor at 18, and we would never have gone down this route if that wasn't an option. We have all the information on the donor saved for him and he will see it if and when he asks to. Nobody else other than my wife and I know any details of the donor, because that information belongs to our son. When he know it, he can tell whoever he likes, that will be his decision.

Some of the negative responses on here really sadden me. Children need love. That can come to them in lots of different ways. I can guarantee that our son misses out on nothing.

I think it's really morally dubious

There is nothing morally dubious about my little family member. So offensive

@Raglansleeve
There was a programme on Radio 4’s iPM yesterday about a man who has recently tracked down his sperm donor ‘father’ - there is an interview with the donor next week. It was quite sad, and the man seemed relieved to have finally found a reason why he didn’t seem to ‘fit’ with the family who brought him up. Might be worth a listen

Thank you, I just listened to it. It was interesting and, yes, very sad. This is exactly the story I was talking about that epitomises (bad experiences of) sperm donation in the 80s.

Firstly, his parents who raised him sounded really cold (neither of them ever said "I love you", then his dad blurted out the sperm donor story in the car with no warning when he was 18, and they never spoke of it again)

It then took ages to find out the Donor's identity, but now his curiosity is satisfied and he has some kind of relationship with the donor, he feels more fulfilled. It will be interesting to hear the donor story next week.

Children do not need to be raised in identikit heteronormative nuclear families, they just need to be raised by people who love them and nurture them

^^ this.