What do We Tell the Children?

Resumen

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I. Changes in Adoption Policies: From Secrecy to Openness . II. From Adoption to Art: What Do we Know about Art's. A. The Adoption Analogy: Does It Work?. B. What Do We Know About Gamete-Donor Children? What Is in Their Best Interests? . III. Practical Challenges to a Truly Open System-Parents Don't Like to Tell . A. Abolishing Anonymity: What Effect on Sperm Supply?. IV. Solutions: What Role for the Legal System? . Conclusion.

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Extracto

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What do We Tell the Children?

Many thanks go to Chris Sove for his diligent research assistance, and to the Thomas Jefferson School of Law for financial support. As always, my daughter Aviva spurs me to think more and harder about the nature of family in the post-ART era.

Assisted reproductive technologies (ART) now offer multiple pathways to parenthood for infertile heterosexuals, gay and lesbian couples, and singletons of varying sexual preferences. Adoption once provided the only recourse for family-seeking individuals who were biologically unable or socially ill-positioned to conceive children. Today, donor insemination, egg donation, and surrogacy offer alternative routes to family life, creating biological linkages that adoption bypasses. For this reason (and others), the number of ART families is growing.1

For some, the explosion of ART-inspired families is cause for celebration; for others, it signals the subversion of important social values.2But regardless of whether one embraces or reviles the trend, the proliferation of nontraditional baby-making poses a multitude of questions. One of the most vexing involves the ethics of disclosure. What do we tell the children? What are they ethically or legally entitled to know? How might disclosure affect other ART participants? And who is to make these difficult decisions-the parents or the state?

In my house, the question of disclosure arose early. I am unmarried, and my daughter's biological father is known to me by a number only. His twenty-page profile (housed in a file reserved for "special" things) protects his desire for anonymity, yet is full of intriguing facts: a recent college graduate at the time of donation, he summered as an animal trainer, double majored in theoretical math and comparative literature, and professed a liking for spicy food and pistachios. When questioned about goals, he said that he was opposed to multi-tasking as a state of being, preferring instead to do whatever he is doing "all the way" and then "relax all the way." I like to imagine him as tall and lithe and a bit abstract, making his way at his own pace, as my daughter seems to do-already very much her own person in her own abstract, determinedly unique way.

For her first two years, her dadless state provoked no queries. Was not a mom-and a doting nanny-bounty enough? But, within a week of starting preschool, afternoon pick-up presented a steadily growing gaggle of two- and three-year-olds pointing to my daughter and asking, "Why doesn't she have a dad?" And so, maneuvering within the Disney-inspired imaginations of the toddler-set, I sought to craft an explanation of a generous stranger who gave my daughter and me a gift we can never repay.

For singletons and gay couples, the stark facts of biology render the question of disclosure moot. Inevitably, a child will ask, "Where did the sperm or egg came from?" and there is little incentive to lie. For married heterosexual couples the issue is more complex. Continued stigma surrounding infertility, concerns about a child's "identity confusion,"3 and worries that disclosure will impair bonding between the nonbiologically linked parent and offspring lead many couples to keep the use of donor gametes secret.4 This secret-keeping reinforces existing policies of anonymous donation that signal to adoptive parents and donors alike that the act of donation is a "one-shot deal" establishing no enduring bonds or connections. It views ART participants as atomistic market actors whose interactions should be carefully monitored to ensure limited involvement beyond the mechanical mixing of gametes.

Today, a growing grassroots movement is questioning this operational premise. The children of sperm and egg donation have begun agitating for more open policies regarding donor identity, just as adoptees began pushing for more open adoption policies in the late 1970s.5 Countries in Europe and provinces in both Australia and New Zealand have moved toward open-donation policies6 and many contend that the United States should follow suit.7 Arguing that information about origin is every child's legal and moral right, these groups are urging a shift from anonymous to mandatory open donation.8

Central to this claim is the assumption that existing policies disadvantage ART's "children of choice."9 Advocates for open donation purport to speak on behalf of donor-gamete children and cloak their call for legal reform in the rhetoric of the children's "best interests."10 However, before following international trends toward open donation in third-party assisted reproduction, it is important to examine current data on ART children in both open and closed donation settings. Policy makers should look closely at the data on donor offspring for clues as to how these children are doing. And, before decisions affecting generatio...

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