At this post, commenter “T” responds to donor offspring Tom by writing:

I’m a gay man who has had a child, with my partner of 8 years, through surrogacy and egg donation. The egg donor and surrogate will be known to our son.

One way that I explain to people our experience with the artificial reproduction process is that it is the opposite of being ‘knocked-up’. We were very involved in the planning and conception and the growth and birth of our child. Our child’s conception and birth was considered, thought about, planned for, dreamed about, fantasized about. He was most definitely wanted. He is loved and treasured.

We did not have sex to have our child. We did not have wedded, heterosexual, within marriage, we-want-to-have-a-child-sex. We did not have wedded, passionate, spur-of-the-moment at the wrong time of the month (or the wrong time of our life) sex. We did not have wedded, spur-of-the-moment, right time of the month sex. We did not have any of these types heterosexual sex as unmarried heterosexuals.

But so many children are born to heterosexual couples via each of these eight scenarios. So many. Many more, around the world are born in wider range of unloving scenarios.

I can’t help you address your own feelings. I do not expect that you (or my child) will feel grateful for the gift of life because you were conceived a certain way. If you did feel grateful about all the circumstances in your life, I would say you are quite unusual. As is the case with many people, I’m not always sure what I believe and I have to remind myself to humbly respect others’ points of view.

I do believe you should speak your displeasure, your discomfort and your concerns. And I will encourage my child, to best of my ability, to do the same. I think you (and my child) have the right to feelings.

But, your feelings are not necessarily other people’s feelings. They may be the feelings, incarnate, of a class of individuals that have been given voice in the survey recently published by your colleagues. They may be feelings that when well-expressed, are a way of promoting a well-balanced debate about how a society should recognize or ‘allow’ families to form.

But, please remember one thing: your experience is one of many. In a debate about whether the intention and context of the conception of a child is relevant to the lived, real life of other persons, consider the many ways children are conceived, the many scenarios given for heterosexual conception above. My guess: not all of the children conceived in those situations are feeling love, their parent’s love, in a measurably better way than you are.

I appreciate T’s tone here, and appreciate that he says he’ll encourage his son to speak about his displeasure, discomforts, concerns.

I just want to note that one way of looking at the My Daddy’s Name is Donor study is as a study of three groups: The first completely one hundred percent wanted and intended — that is, the donor offspring. The other two groups made up of a lot of unintended pregnancies — that is, the adopted and those raised by their biological parents.

Which group is faring the worst? The 100 percent wanted, planned, intended group. The donor offspring, overall, even with controls, are twice as likely to have struggled with substance abuse and delinquency, and 1.5 times as likely to have strugged with depression, compared to those raised by their biological parents (and these differences are significant). The adopted generally fall in between except with regard to depression in which case they were higher than both the donor conceived and the raised-by-biological.

No one is saying, T, that “all” of those raised by biological parents are doing great. But when you look at these populations, measured by our study, you find that, contrary to today’s conventional wisdom, being wanted isn’t enough. What the child is born into — who the child is raised by — matters.

Categories: Marriage, My Daddy's Name is Donor, Reproductive Technologies

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