Note: Over the last week I have posted the recommendations we offered in the report to leaders in the law, health policy and practice, parents and would-be parents, and leaders in the media and popular culture. All nineteen recommendations are found on pp. 77-81 of the report.

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Many findings arising from our study reported in My Daddy’s Name is Donor came as surprises to me. One surprise was how many adults conceived through sperm donation said they were raised in a religious tradition and how many of them identify with a religion today.

Here is how we put it in the report:

We asked all survey respondents “What religion if any were you raised in?” and “What is your religious preference today?” Thirty-six percent of donor offspring [in our survey, adults ages 18-45] said they were raised Catholic, compared to 22 percent from adoptive families and 28 percent raised by their biological parents. (By contrast, persons from adoptive or biological families – and especially those from adoptive families – were far more likely to say they had been raised in a Protestant denomination.) This finding is especially striking given that Catholic teaching opposes the use of donor insemination.

As adults, donor offspring are also much more likely to say they are Catholic today. About a third of donor offspring – 32 percent – say Catholicism is their religious preference today. By contrast, their Catholic-raised peers from adoptive families or raised by their biological parents appear more often to have left the Catholic church.[i] As adults, 15 percent of those from adoptive families and 19 percent of those raised by their biological parents say that Catholicism is their religion today.

Finally, about a third – 32 percent – of donor offspring say that they are Protestant today, and nearly one-quarter of all three groups say their religious preference today is “none.” (Six percent of donor offspring say they are Jewish.) So while a minority of donor offspring do embrace a secular belief system, the majority of them are religious and they are over-represented in the Catholic church.

My co-author Karen Clark (who is not Catholic, nor am I) was interviewed about our study, last week, by Nancy O’Brien of the Catholic News Service. Karen posted a link to the article earlier, but there are aspects of the interview to which I want in particular to draw attention:

…Karen Clark, a co-investigator for the study with Elizabeth Marquardt and Norval D. Glenn, said it is important for Catholics to be aware that “the donor-conceived are within your congregations, probably hiding within the Catholic community because of the shame associated with” sperm donation.

…[Clark] herself was conceived from a sperm donation — a fact she did not know until she was 18 and the father who raised her had died.

“I grew up in a family where it was hidden, shameful … and I don’t want to see (others) experience that kind of stigma and shame,” she told Catholic News Service in a June 9 telephone interview. “At the same time, I don’t want to normalize the process of creating an intentional disconnect” between children and their biological parents, she added.

In addition to its effects on the well-being of the children conceived, Clark said sperm donation creates societal problems because it “commodifies human life” and confuses family relationships.

“We all have room in our hearts and in our families for all kinds of people in all kinds of capacities,” she said. “My (biological) father cannot replace my dad, but my dad can’t replace my father either.”

…She said she did not think that “we are getting enough voices out there of children who are hurting — they’re getting lost in the debate.”

I would suggest that a challenge for the churches in this regard is how to support children and adults who were conceived using these technologies – as well as the parents who used these technologies to have children – without norming and mainstreaming the use of technologies which, I argue, pose risks to these young people, especially in the largely unregulated environment in which they have been and currently are practiced.

Over the last week I have posted the recommendations we offered in the report to leaders in the law, health policy and practice, parents and would-be parents, and leaders in the media and popular culture. (All nineteen recommendations are found on pp. 77-81 of the report.) Tonight I would like to share the recommendation we offered to religious leaders.

To religious leaders:

Donor offspring are in the pews. What do you have to say to them?

Some faith traditions have addressed the complexities of artificial reproductive technologies in the modern world. Most have not. Those religious traditions that reject, ignore, accept, or welcome these practices must grapple with emerging evidence about their impact on children and the broader culture. One intriguing finding from our study is that significant numbers of donor offspring were raised in faith traditions and identify with faith traditions today. They are in the churches and some of them are hurting. What do the churches have to say?

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[i]  There were 156 persons raised by biological parents who were raised Catholic, 33 percent of them no longer identify as Catholic. There were 122 adopted persons who were raised Catholic, 46 percent of them no longer identify as Catholic. There were 174 sperm donor conceived persons who were raised Catholic, 22 percent of them no longer identify as Catholic.

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

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