Below is the most recent story from The Anonymous Us Project- from a donor-conceived woman.
I was conceived because of convenience.
Unlike a lot of women who use sperm donors, my mom didn’t struggle with fertility and she didn’t hear her “biological clock” ticking. She was only 25 when she decided to conceive me by sperm donation. She had given birth to my older sister when she was a teenager and after years of dealing with my sister’s deadbeat dad, custody battles, and child support problems, she decided that she wanted to use sperm donation simply because she didn’t want to deal with the problems that came with her child having a father in the picture. After getting a settlement from a lawsuit, she decided to go ahead with sperm donation.
I wasn’t the only kid in my neighborhood raised by a single parent but I was still different from the kids whose parents were divorced or one of their parents had passed on. I didn’t have any stories about my father. I didn’t even have a name. Around the fourth or fifth grade, I started making up stories about my father, whom I called Henri (after the character from the PBS show Liberty’s Kids). In high school, my story was more detailed. Henri was from Paris, France and the reason he wasn’t in my life was because of citizenship issues and the cost of the travel. I went so far as to write myself fake letters and take French to keep my story up.
This lie kept me going for a while. After I turned 18, I began searching for my father but I had no luck. The most they would do was send a letter to his last known address, which hadn’t been updated in over a decade. Depressed at my lack of success, I sought relationships, some sexual and some nonsexual, with older men in an attempt to create a father figure in my life. I eventually sought therapy, which helped a lot, but there’s not any support group that I’ve ever seen for children born of egg/sperm donation. Mostly, I was told how “thankful” I should be that my mother “chose to give me life” and that “G-d had a plan for me.”
I feel the void of my father more so than ever as an adult. I had no father to walk me down the aisle at my wedding. My son had no grandfather present at his birth or his brit shalom (and he most likely won’t have one at his bar mitzvah). Father’s Day hits me hard. I’ve lost more than one job in my life simply because I couldn’t drag myself out of bed on that day. I don’t celebrate my birthday at all. I resent my mother a lot and we don’t speak to each other. My mom did a great job of raising me — I ate homemade dinners every night, I went to Disneyland every summer, and most importantly, I knew I was loved — but I can’t help but resent her. I feel her actions were selfish. Emotionally, it’s very hard for me to accept that I was conceived out of convenience and not love. That the only reason I’m on this earth is because some random guy jacked off into a cup while looking at a Playboy.
Categories: Fatherhood, Motherhood, My Daddy's Name is Donor, Reproductive Technologies, The Future of Parenthood
I feel very sorry for the woman who wrote this but if she doesn’t even celebrate her own birthday because she’s mad at her mother for using a sperm donor that sounds like chronic untreated or ineffectively treated depression. It may be mild enough to have escaped notice, or it might be clinical. In any case there’s a genetic basis to depression so she may have had similar depression levels even if she’d grown up in a stable two parent home.
A related theory: maybe straight women who’ve suffered with recalcitrant depression are likelier to find themselves partnerless when they want to have babies and are thus likelier to use sperm banks. And they pass on their genetic predisposition toward depression onto their donor conceived kids.
Now, if you are raising a child whom you reasonably believe, based on your mental health history and that of your close relatives, has a high chance of developing depression or some other mental illness you should do everything you can to assure that the kid has a stable home life with married biological parents. Obviously that is often impossible. I’ve known more than one woman who had a slightly questionable mental health history, in herself or her relatives, but nonetheless insisted against all advice on breeding with a sexy jerk whom no one in their right mind would consider good dad material. This leaves a mother in a very sticky situation. Raising the kid w/o the father may engender feelings of abandonment, but raising the kid with a chronically unemployable, chronically unfaithful bio father will cause even more problems to the child.
Bless this woman for naming her own pain. I hope she gets to a place where she doesn’t shut off the mother she has, because of the father she doesn’t have.
There’s actually a good book about this called “The Right To Know One’s Origins” by Juliet Guichon from the University of Calgary. I highly recommend it.
http://www.medicine.ucalgary.ca/book-human-reproduction-Pratten-Guichon-2013
@hello- I don’t think it’s fair to tell someone that their problems aren’t really caused by what they say they are. She knows what makes her sad or causes her pain.
She was abandoned by her father and her mother wanted it that way. Its so uncomplicated and straightforward.
It blows me away that people think that its only abandonment if your there for the kid first and then bail. Its bailing if a kid exists and your not there.
“Emotionally, it’s very hard for me to accept that I was conceived out of convenience and not love.”
Most children are conceived out of passion, hence the need for marriage, remember?
It’s not up to me to question this person’s pain but at some point, this seems to be someone who is nurturing their situation for the pain, to the point that it’s impacting her life negatively. She’s imagining her situation is awful, because she imagines everyone else’s situation is so good. I’m sure there are any number of adults who, in retrospect, would have preferred to grow up without one of their biological parents, or aware of the blood ties.
Wouldn’t Svetlana Stalin be better off thinking her dad was some anonymous sperm donor?
Kevin,
It is dismissive to tell someone experiencing pain that they are ‘nurturing’ it or ‘imagining’ it to be especially awful.
I don’t know how to approach the hypothetical you set up about knowing one’s origin, but having that be a negative and traumatic experience vs. never knowing one’s origin. I imagine, to paraphrase Tolstoy, that each experience is uniquely unhappy.
For me personally – never knowing where I came from, or who my father was, would be extremely painful and difficult to deal with (my own family’s particular emphasis on knowing our past and relating to it makes even imagining it difficult), so much so that I think I’d prefer to know, even if he was a monster or the circumstances surrounding my origin were messed up in some awful way. Knowing the truth, even a hard truth, seems better than being forced to live in ignorance.
I’d be interested to hear a counselor or psychologist comment on how knowing the particulars of a traumatic event vs. being victimized through not knowing differ as far as the stress and anxiety they can create – and how they advise those struggling with either sort of pain to
With respect to Ms. Stalin, it is rare father who is directly responsible for the deaths of 100 million people…and I can’t imagine what sort of burden that is to carry around. It isn’t my place to speculate on whether she’d be better off just not knowing.
Matthew, I’m not denying this woman is in pain, and she deserves help, if she’s willing to get it. But at some point, she’s torturing herself and at that point, I’m no longer sympathetic. She’s part of that big club called “kids who had unsatisfying childhoods or imperfect (or worse) parents.”
I just don’t see a special place in a world for adults raised without knowledge of who one of their parents is. There are kids raised by both biological parents who have been physically and psychologically abused, and live their lives wounded by that experience.
It’s not a contest over who endured the most suffering but at some point, it is an assumption that you’d be better off knowing who your father is. You might be better off not knowing. That said, I can certainly support legal rights to know who both your biological parents are, if you weren’t raised by them, and it’s possible to know.
Kevin I really have to disagree with you here:
“I just don’t see a special place in a world for adults raised without knowledge of who one of their parents is. There are kids raised by both biological parents who have been physically and psychologically abused, and live their lives wounded by that experience.”
People raised with just one parent do suffer from it. We have all kinds of statistics showing that. This young woman didn’t just not know who her biological father was, she had no father in her life.
It’s certainly true that survivors of abuse would have rather never met the abuser and dealt with the pain of not knowing the person. In general, I don’t believe in trying to rank people’s problems. But the more important thing here is that that isn’t really a choice in this case. I mean if you are involved with an abusive guy, dump him by all means. It will be better for your child. But for most kids the choice isn’t abusive versus no one.
It really bothers me when people shrug off someone’s pain and don’t want to hear about it. People need to be able to talk about what they’ve gone through whether it’s bullying and discrimination for being gay or wishing you had a father and pretending that you did.
Kevin, let’s say that some people have worse problems than being donor conceived. That makes being donor conceived ok?
Saying that donor conception is not as bad as being the daughter of a mass murderer or an abuser is very faint praise.
You’d make a more effective case if you’d point to folks who are donor conceived and don’t find it particularly troubling or traumatic.
My opinion is that certainly not all donor conceived are doomed to misery, but that there is a strong potential to cause pain and baggage, and all who proceed need consider that seriously.
“People raised with just one parent do suffer from it.”
Maybe some do, but I’m sure others don’t. Our president seems to have done okay, even if he feels a sense of loss.
“This young woman didn’t just not know who her biological father was, she had no father in her life.”
There are plenty of people who have no father in their lives, even though there is an adult male in the house, who may even have been their biological father.
“It really bothers me when people shrug off someone’s pain”
Me too. That’s why I’m not doing it. But I am calling out someone who seems to be wallowing in her perceived pain, based on something that didn’t happen to her (having a father) versus something that did happen to her (say, being raped or physically beaten by her father). This is someone whose mother so wanted a child, and under the best circumstances, that she was willing to go it alone. I feel like this woman is like the only child, complaining about how lonely it was as a child, that she can’t relate to men because she didn’t have any brothers, etc.
“You’d make a more effective case if you’d point to folks who are donor conceived and don’t find it particularly troubling or traumatic.”
I would but I can’t get a hold of any, because they’re too busy enjoying life, and not calling attention to themselves. The only “case” I’m making is that this woman seems obsessed with this issue that may be genuine cause for reflection, but is not an excuse to self-pity. There are any number of worse circumstances for a child to endure, frankly.
It’s worth repeating: “Data” is not the plural of “anecdote.”
I know we hear examples of people who are unhappy about being conceived by sperm donation. But, then again, we tend to hear from unhappy people. They have grievances to air.
Two questions come to my mind when someone airs a grievance: 1) Is it representative? 2) Can it be redressed?
The second one is easy here: no it can’t. We can’t go back in time and undo her mother’s decision.
Since it can’t be undone, it’s reasonable to question whether it should be prevented. And that brings me to the first question. Is it representative? I am not a sociologist, so I have certainly not done a study on whether children conceived through donated sperm are generally happy or unhappy about it. I do know that without digging, we’re unlikely to find the happy ones.
Before we reflexively jump and say, “look at this unhappy person; sperm donation is bad,” we need to know more.
@Kevin – “‘People raised with just one parent do suffer from it.’ (me)
Maybe some do, but I’m sure others don’t. Our president seems to have done okay, even if he feels a sense of loss.” (you)
There is a difference between whether or not you suffered as a child and whether or not you do okay in life. In fact, if all victims of abuse did even better than other children, it would still be immensely wrong to abuse children.
“There are plenty of people who have no father in their lives, even though there is an adult male in the house, who may even have been their biological father.”
So? Don’t complain that you had no father because you could have had a father who neglected you?
“’It really bothers me when people shrug off someone’s pain’” – me again
Me too. That’s why I’m not doing it. But I am calling out someone who seems to be wallowing in her perceived pain, based on something that didn’t happen to her (having a father) versus something that did happen to her (say, being raped or physically beaten by her father).”
As far as I can see, you are callously suggesting that her pain doesn’t matter and she should just hurry up and get over it because someone else had it worse.
It’s like tell someone who lost a limb that they should shut up and stop crying because there are people who lose both limbs. And besides, Oscar Pistorius won an Olympic medal so why does it matter if someone loses a couple of legs? They could have had legs infected with leprosy or gangrene.
@John D – I don’t think this follows at all.
“Since it can’t be undone, it’s reasonable to question whether it should be prevented.”
I mean if it could be undone for her, it wouldn’t need to be prevented. And if something bad happens to someone that can’t be undone, that says nothing about whether or not we should allow it to happen to someone else. For example, Gabby Giffords is probably never going to be back to normal.
Really, most traumatic things that happen to people can’t be undone, but we definitely want to prevent them from happening to someone else in the future.
“And that brings me to the first question. Is it representative? I am not a sociologist, so I have certainly not done a study on whether children conceived through donated sperm are generally happy or unhappy about it. I do know that without digging, we’re unlikely to find the happy ones.
Before we reflexively jump and say, “look at this unhappy person; sperm donation is bad,” we need to know more.”
This is an important question, although I tend to react differently to it.
If I were a woman considering sperm donation, I would be very concerned to hear that even one young woman had felt this way. If someone did a study and found that 20% of the time, children raised without a father resent their mothers for having made that decision, I would still be concerned.
We definitely need more studies of this, although I hope we will be looking for more than just what percentage of kids are upset.
Right now I just want to be sure that we really listen to these kids voices and don’t write off what they are saying because we don’t want to hear it.
“As far as I can see, you are callously suggesting that her pain doesn’t matter and she should just hurry up and get over it because someone else had it worse.”
How broken up should someone feel about a person whose son was born (horrors!) without a grandfather present. Father’s Day is hard for HER? What about the fathers who don’t even hear from any of their kids, for whatever dysfunctional reasons? Father’s Day is supposed to be for fathers, not for kids to ponder whether they have good fathers or not. She’s awfully focused on her own needs, it seems to me. She’s not a very sympathetic victim, in my opinion. She couldn’t get out of bed on Father’s Day, and she lost her job because of it? Seriously??
This woman feels bad, like something is missing. Boo hoo. There are kids who grew up sexually abused and/or beaten (and have the scars to prove it). Bullied to the point of suicide (yet another story of it on CNN today). In foster homes since infancy and about to age out of the system at the ripe old age of 18 with no means of support, and expected to live on their own. And the list goes on. I know too many adults whose childhoods were horrific to spare much sympathy for this woman.
From what I can tell, this woman grew up in the uninterrupted care of her biological mother and the continuous companionship of a half-sister, in an environment with regular meals and who knows what other relatives in the background. Free of neglect or abuse. That’s way more than some kids get. There’s a lot of kids who would be thrilled to have been raised by one loving biological parent.
Where are the manifestations of suffering? Her claim is that not having a father has left her unfulfilled, basically. Not, incapable of maintaining a steady relationship, or guilty of perpetuating physical abuse on her own kids since that’s what she experienced in her own childhood, or plagued by chronic panic attacks that even medication can’t attenuate. She just feels unwhole.
Yeah, like half of the adults I know.
And she has no interest, that we can tell, in making herself whole, regardless of the hand she’s been dealt. It’s a pity.
I’m sure there are any number of adults who, in retrospect, would have preferred to grow up without one of their biological parents, or aware of the blood ties.
What a vicious, thoughtless thing to say. Do you also tell women grieving over a miscarriage “Hey, I’m sure there are any number of women who, in retrospect, wish they’d lost a child before he was born”? If a friend of yours lost his wife in a tragic accident, would you comfort him by saying lots of guys would be secretly relieved if it happened to them?
And your “boo hoo” is even nastier. Race-to-the-bottom shaming could (and does) happen to any of the examples that you, personally, cite as “sympathetic”. Sexually abused? Boo hoo, there are kids who are growing up alone because their dad killed their mom and then shot himself. Grew up in an emotionally abusive home with narcissistic parents? Boo hoo, you got regular meals. Your emotional pain is only worthy if we deem it to be.
If you actually knew anyone who had grown up in an abusive household, you would know that this kind of ‘it could be worse’ is a mentality that abusers make sure survivors grow up with, as a way to excuse and minimize abuse. Yes, I suffered [awful things], but they weren’t [worse things other people suffered] so I wouldn’t call that ‘abuse’, right?
It’s certainly worth discussing how this anonymous woman could think differently about her situation, or to question to what degree her feelings should translate into policy. That’s a far cry from deciding that somebody missing a father isn’t allowed to feel that way.
1) The AnonymousUs site provides an opportunity for those involved in DC (and adoption) to comment about their experiences and beliefs. It is a safe place. She does not say why she writes. I read it as a social critique and not merely a personal statement or complaint. She is pointing to a specific social practice about which she has direct experience.
2) Data vs. anecdote: this idea should be teased out considerably more, and how it is applied and why. A human being pointing out that a social practice causes a harm that is directly known by the person is a kind of statement that deserves more than social science in reply. The impersonalness of a research program, the delays, the specific protocols and limitations, can be seen and may in fact really be a stall. There is no intention to change practice. No intention to listen to what human experiences are saying.
She is not the only person who has said something like this! The case earlier was a story about incest which got reduced to a likely make-up job: a conclusion based on supposition and no data or actual knowledge of the case.
Social actions already imply a degree of consent and agreement on the part of society. The individual who speaks out and who has been directly affected is at a much lower point of power. It is always open to being derided as merely anecdotal. I see this ploy used often in discussion of DC and adoption practices – before social energy gets behind any real changes in practices, more data needs to be gotten.
If you want more data, look at what other donor conceived persons have said. There is a difference between personal testimony and self-centered complaint. Ultimately, testimony points to practices or actions by others that should be morally considered, but are getting a pass. There remains general social acceptance of the idea that bio-cultural and heritage knowledge is not a basic right when applied to donor conception and adoption practices. It is mostly lip service when we hear the contrary.
In the interest of civility I should probably stop commenting on this article but I do wish I could be understood.
I don’t doubt this woman is suffering but when I then look for manifestations of that suffering, and read that once a year she can’t get out of bed, I’m not convinced that her suffering is particularly burdensome. No one should endure suffering who can be helped and if the story were that therapists were turning her away and not helping her, then I’d be livid. But I don’t think that’s the case.
This story is a tragedy only if you’re already on board with anonymous donor parenting being a dreadful thing. I might fall into that category someday but I’m not there yet. If the evidence that it’s a bad thing is that someone can’t get out of bed one day per year, I’m not likely to add anonymous donor parenting to my list entitled “bad stuff that no kid should have to go through.” Anonymous donor parenting is probably not yet one of those things that people generally recognize as a “bad thing.” So, many of us don’t have it as a foregone conclusion that it is, and are still looking at the evidence. I compared her circumstances to what other kids have gone through, not to deny her the right to grieve but to serve as a reference and a coping skill. Get outside your own circumstances to see where others are; “if they can deal with that, then I can deal with this!” type thing.
I shouldn’t presume to know why this woman’s story was posted here but if it is to serve as some kind of advocacy, I, for one, did not come away particularly convinced either way. If this article is supposed to make the case that anonymous donor parenting is bad (and should be regulated, outlawed, criminalized, whatever), it didn’t really work for me.
I do think that her mother might have failed her in not getting her therapy as a child. We don’t have enough information on that, or for that matter, other aspects of this situation. Regardless of why, if your kid is suffering, making up fictional characters past a certain age, basically creating a parallel or even fraudulent life story, it might be worth addressing that.
Thanks mythago and Mark Deibel.
well put, mythago.
I’d like to add that the possibility of a donor conceived child suffering from being donor conceived is only one thing that’s bad about it. Even if studies showed that DC children were equally happy in general, and even if no children ever complained, it’d still be bad because it would cause eugenic pressure that would make having natural children seem risky and unloving in comparison. 3PR would still harm relationships by giving men a way to avoid responsibility, it would still be unethical. And there is certainly no right to do it, and that confusion undermines marriage, which is the right to have children, causing more single people, more divorce… But the fact that people do suffer from it, even occasionally, and for their whole lives in a profoundly dispiriting way, should be persuasive that we need to end intentional unmarried conception, aka 3pr.
@Kevin, no, one does not have to think anonymous donation is horrible to think that your comments were extremely out of line. This is a young woman who grew up feeling the absence of a father or of a history in her life and was deeply affected by it. Questioning the conclusions to be drawn from her account (should anonymous donation be used? should her mother have anticipated these issues? could she have dealt with her emotional pain differently?) is very different than insulting and belittling her emotions, and especially different than the jaw-droppingly vile tactic of saying “I bet lots of people wish they had YOUR problem!” and bringing in a comparison to Stalin.
“This is a young woman who grew up feeling the absence of a father or of a history in her life and was deeply affected by it.”
So deeply that one day a year she can’t get out of bed. I know people with migraines who have trouble getting out of bed on a weekly basis, due to their headaches. Once a year would be a blessing from Heaven for them!
What’s the point of posting this article if we aren’t supposed to think about it, analyze it, make some observations? Are we just supposed to say, “Oh this poor woman, this is horrible!”? It’s horrible, because she’s suffering, I get that. But she volunteered to describe the manifestations of that suffering, like not being able to get out of bed once a year. If this was supposed to be a “feel bad” article, a sobfest, I wish the poster would include instructions to commenters in that regard.
Maybe it’s about perspective. What left an impression with me is how positive her family life was, with nurturing and routine, safety and security. Her father, who is a man who does not want to be a part of her life, and who may have even required no contact or obligations as a condition of supplying his genetic material, is not in her life. Sounds to me like that’s a good thing! Would she be better off knowing who and where he is, and that he wants nothing to do with her? My heart can’t break anymore for daughters rejected by the fathers after a nasty divorce; it’s just too common an occurrence and I can’t risk not being able to get out of bed.
We can all agree she claims she’s suffering. But I am not obligated to accept her explanation for her suffering. She claims it’s because she doesn’t know who her father is. Maybe she’s actually angry at her mother, not her absent father, for agreeing to create and raise her without a father. Perhaps she’s angry at feeling “different” from other kids. Perhaps she’s angry that her father isn’t interested in her, or if he is, doesn’t get in contact with her.
The story can’t be just “this woman is suffering” because that’s, like, nearly everybody’s story! So we have to know why she’s suffering, and whether her self-diagnosis (of the doctor’s or therapist’s diagnosis) makes sense, and what she’s doing about her suffering. And I think it matters how her life is affected, the manifestations, like the PTSD-stricken war vet who is gripped with fear and runs for cover whenever he hears a loud noise. Stuff like that actually impacts your life. A day in bed once a year or not getting walked down the aisle does not.
I believe that one factor not mentioned in this person’s account is that her mother’s “convenience” must also be seen through the lens of how her mother’s “marriage value” must have decreased in the eyes of those willing to consider her as a marriage prospect. Single mothers have it hard in the dating and relationship scene, because they come as a package deal–any man who fancies them is that much likelier to balk when presented with the fact that he will have to assume responsibility for a child not of his blood (in effect subjecting himself to the human equivalent of “brood parasitism”).
Her mother’s distrust of men was understandable. What I find hard to understand is why she would subject herself to single motherhood another time. Surely she bore witness first-hand to the troubles she had to undergo raising her first daughter alone, and the troubles her first daughter underwent with a father who wanted nothing to do with her; why did she bring another person who could neither give consent to, nor understand, such a situation?
I also believe that it’s unfair to trivialize this woman’s trauma. Everyone has a different level of susceptibility to mental trauma. And while we can say that such trauma may have an irrational basis, it doesn’t erase it anymore than she can erase the years of not knowing her father. Hers is the pain brought on by the nagging possibility that her very existence was bought and paid for, acquired with no more emotional involvement or forethought than a woman might acquire a “nice pair of shoes on sale.” She feels a nagging void every time she sees a happy, complete, family, devoid as she is for contact with half of the reason for her existence (who admittedly made his “contribution” with slightly more forethought than spitting out the pit of a fruit on the ground, not caring if it eventually grows). She likely doesn’t feel better every time she’s told to be “thankful” because she feels that “what you easily obtain, you don’t care much about and/or can easily throw away.” Except that she’s the thing that was “obtained.”
Yet another regrettable case of how a parent’s choices continue to taint the lives of their children . . .
(I remember seeing a magazine article recently how single men are jumping into 3PR too, using surrogate gestation and egg donation. Is this blog going to cover that more extensively in the future?)
Kevin I am not big on people throwing pity parties either but I have to call illogical bull puckey on your comparison of this woman to someone that wishes they were not an only child. People don’t have a right to have their parents make them brothers and sisters to play with, they do however have the right, while minors, not to be abandoned and shunned by their biological parents.
People have a duty to raise their own minor offspring to adulthood – clearly millions of paternity suits turn on nothing more than positive dna tests and the loophole that allowed her father an exemption from taking care of her was unfair to her. She deserved to be treated fairly and equally, but the law excludes her because of her father’s behavior she does not qualify for accurate medical records and does not deserve both parents support like every other minor in America.
I’m pissed off Kevin to hear you say that this woman needs psychological counseling! She does not need a freaking counselor she needs a lawyer a team of good ones so she can do what Olivia Pratten is doing in Canada. This woman is upset because she got a raw deal and is not afforded the same legal protections as other people and she’s been sequestered from half her family by her mother shunned by her father and told to freaking work it out in group by you……
You should go work your issues out in a class on justice, maybe equal rights, civil rights, human rights take your pick.
What is with all ya’ll and the psychology stuff. Do another darn study, seek counseling blah blah blah. There is a difference between feeling sorry for yourself over something that is just your lot in life and not agreeing to be a door mat when you’re legitimately wronged – it’s OK for her to speak up for herself. She needs justice not prozac
Do people who are donor-conceived have lower average subjective life-satisfaction (happiness) compared to those who aren’t?
@Will – Maybe you should check out Elizabeth’s Marquant’s study called My Daddy’s Name is Donor. http://www.familyscholars.org/assets/Donor_FINAL.pdf
Here’s some disturbing stats from pg 7 -9: 45% agree their conception bothers them; 1.5x more likely to report mental health problems; 2x more likely to report substance abuse
It is also immoral to deny a child to know the identity of their mom or dad especially when there’s no legal recourse. Here’s what Judge Elaine Adair wrote in her decision in the Olivia Pratten case who was a former blogger here (although the case is now under appeal): “I conclude, based on the whole of the evidence, that assisted reproduction using an anonymous gamete donor is harmful to the child, and it is not in the best interests of donor offspring…”
*Correction Addendum: “Elizabeth Marquardt” versus “Elizabeth’s Marquant”
@FifthSeason writes “I also believe that it’s unfair to trivialize this woman’s trauma.”
Exactly. There’s a term for it but I can’t recall where I read it. Instead, people insist she should be ‘grateful’ for being given the opportunity to life. Olivia Pratten writes about it in her blog here….
http://familyscholars.org/2010/06/09/the-but-you-never-would-have-been-born-argument/
Can a lawyer start up a class action suit against everybody responsible for their pain and suffering? They can point out that illegitimacy and separation from their mother or father was done to them intentionally, in case anyone argues that there is no guarantee against pain and suffering. There is a guarantee against purposefully and intentionally causing pain and suffering by depriving people of a basic human declared in the UN Declaration of Rights. What people have been doing, they do not have a right to do.
@Manny – Bravo! You sound like Margaret Somerville who said something similar…