My Daddy’s Name is Donor is now available as an ebook!
Archives: Reproductive Technologies
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Elizabeth Marquardt 01.26.2012 10:37 AM
Categories: My Daddy's Name is Donor, Reproductive Technologies, The Future of Parenthood
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Three Parent Reproduction
Elizabeth Marquardt 01.25.2012 7:40 PM
The controversial technique known as “three-parent IVF” came a step closer yesterday after the Department of Health asked the fertility regulator to conduct a public consultation into its acceptability.
For more, see One Parent or Five.
Categories: Reproductive Technologies, The Future of Parenthood
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Co-Parenting Pre-Conception Arrangements
Elizabeth Marquardt 01.25.2012 5:29 PM
I wrote about them here and here.
A FamilyScholars reader sends me two recent examples in the news, apparently spurred by yet another ridiculous new “family building” website:
…In comes co-parenting. It’s a concept where unmarried adults who decide that marriage isn’t for them, or whose biological clock is winding down, decide they want to have a child, married or not. Two mature adults can decide that they want to have a child, become loving parents, and never even live together. …A start-up company has actually moved to capitalize on this concept. Modamily, a New York based firm, has developed a social network for potential parents to find a mate without the pressure of relationships or marriage. The site reminds me of Match.com, but with a completely different focus. You can even choose which method of conception you are open to (natural or artificial).
…Simply put, co-parenting is the practice of raising a child together without all the messy romantic stuff. Two adults, both hankering to be parents, join forces to have and raise a baby. But they don’t get married. And they don’t love each other, at least not like that. According to Modamily, a website for people looking to create co-parenting arrangements, co-parenting is, “the shared raising of a child between two loving, committed, and financially secure adults.” Modamily claims that the set-up helps to solve the problem of quickie-clock-ticker marriages and resulting divorces.
If you want to learn more about Modamily google them yourself.
Categories: Childbearing, Children of Divorce, Reproductive Technologies, The Future of Parenthood
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Where is my family?
Elizabeth Marquardt 01.23.2012 12:04 AM
Tonight I was watching Anonymous Father’s Day. Fellow bloggers and readers, please watch it soon and share your thoughts here and tell your friends about it.
I have so many thoughts but one in particular I wanted to share, right now, was in reaction to Stephanie Blessing when she said that with anonymous conception you “don’t know where half your family is.”
That phrase leapt out at me. I have often heard donor conceived persons speak of the loss of not knowing who their father is, or not know who half of their family is. But Stephanie’s use of the word “where” struck me especially deeply. It made me think of the aftermath of wars and natural disasters when the Red Cross and international aid organizations arrive to help. I’m no disaster relief expert but my understanding is that after attending to the most subsistence level needs of the survivors — food, clean water, shelter, medical care — one of the immediate next steps is to help survivors reunite with their families. When a wave has swept away your town or rebels have set fire to your village and you find that, somehow, you are among the living, it appears as a human being one of your very next questions is… Where is my father? Where is my mother? Where is my husband, my wife, my sister, my brother, my child? Where is my family?
We are embodied social beings. Our bodies come from and connect to one another. We cannot feel soothed and settled until we know where our families are.
Categories: Fatherhood, Reproductive Technologies
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Dr. Oz on Childbearing after 40
Elizabeth Marquardt 01.21.2012 12:08 AM
Jennifer Lahl debated a fertility doctor, and FamilyScholars bloggers Alana S., Amy Ziettlow, and I were there. The episode airs Friday, January 27th. Check local listings for times (and the producer tells us that if the show airs twice daily in your area then the new episode will be the second one).
Categories: Childbearing, Motherhood, Reproductive Technologies
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Anonymous Father’s Day
Elizabeth Marquardt 01.20.2012 11:50 PM
A powerful new documentary by Jennifer Lahl and the team that made Eggsploitation. The new documentary features interviews with many voices familiar to readers here at FamilyScholars, including Alana S., Stephanie Blessing, and me.
Are you in the NYC area? Go see it on January 29th at the Soho Digital Art Gallery. Screening times and information here. More screenings to follow at the same location that week, and more to come around the country.
You can also order the DVD.
Congratulations, Jennifer!
Categories: Fatherhood, My Daddy's Name is Donor, Reproductive Technologies, The Future of Parenthood
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The Other Side of the Debate
Elizabeth Marquardt 01.16.2012 4:34 PM
I’ve felt for quite some time that donor conceived persons should be leaders in the reproductive technology debates and in the family debates more broadly.
Kudos to the UK-based BioNews for providing two separate reviews today of a new book, Precious Babies, on fertility technologies, with one of them by a donor conceived person, Rachel Pepa.
As an informal guide to having children after fertility problems, Precious Babies has much to recommend it. There is, however, an omission which, as a donor conceived (DC) person, I found particularly troublesome – the book is entirely devoid of DC voices.
Quotes from parents and ‘experts’ are scattered throughout but the words of DC people are nowhere to be found. This lack of representation is even reflected in the title, with its emphasis squarely on babies.
Babies cannot speak. They rely on their parents to make decisions for them. However, early infancy is only a fraction of our lives. Babies will grow to become adults with their own independent thoughts and feelings about the method of their conception.
Many DC people are fed up of forever being seen as children; it is patronising and disempowering. The author shows a belated willingness to include the viewpoints of people conceived by assisted conception – towards the end of the book there are interviews with seven young people conceived via IVF – but this only makes the lack of dialogue with DC people all the more apparent.
The section of Precious Babies that concerns DC people – the chapter on donor families – is irrepressibly upbeat. Donor families are, we are told, closer than most other families. There are DC adults who are angry and find the method of their conception difficult to accept, but that is because they found out about their origins, often by accident, later in life. The author is clearly keen to present a positive picture of life after donor conception but her argument is disingenuous – the academic literature actually suggests a far more complex reality. more
Categories: Reproductive Technologies, The Future of Parenthood
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‘Reclaiming Dignity in a Culture of Commodification’
Elizabeth Marquardt 01.14.2012 9:34 PM
…is the topic of the next conference at the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity. FamilyScholars blogger Stephanie Blessing and I presented at their conference last summer. Check it out.
Human dignity, once a cornerstone for bioethics, is increasingly obscured by a contemporary culture of commodification. Myopic fixation on sexuality, fertility, and reproduction reduces the female body to a resource for medical exploitation and reproductive tourism. Procreation is being engulfed by the reproductive imperative and the child of choice. Without neglecting the ongoing emphases on beginning- and end-of-life issues, our task must include attention to prenatal discrimination, the neglect of the girl child, worldwide disparities in women’s healthcare and maternal mortality, and the objectification and exploitation of the female body. Responsible Christian bioethics embraces her dignity as essential to her community and foundational to our common humanity. Join us as we explore important ethical considerations surrounding developments in reproductive practices and global women’s health through the lens of reclaiming dignity in a culture of commodification.
Categories: Faith and Families, Motherhood, Reproductive Technologies, The Future of Parenthood
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How Many Mothers?
Elizabeth Marquardt 01.05.2012 11:30 AM
I agree, both women are biological parents — and not only that they had and raised the child together, so they are both rightfully legal parents.
Of course, the child has a third biological parent as well, the man the mothers and the court refers to as the sperm donor. A story by Susan Donaldson James at ABC News:
Tina’s biological daughter turned 8 this week, but she has not seen the girl since Dec. 22, 2008, because of a custody fight with her former lesbian partner. The partner is unrelated to the child, but gave birth to her.
“I thought I’d have her back on her birthday,” said Tina, a law enforcement officer, whose name was never on the birth certificate and who has been denied parenting rights under Florida state law.
For 11 years, the Brevard County couple forged a committed relationship, living together, sharing their finances and raising a daughter. Tina’s egg was fertilized with donor sperm and implanted in her partner’s womb.
But when their romance fell apart when the child was 2, the Florida courts had to decide, who is the legal parent, the biological mother or the birth mother who carried the child for nine months in her womb?
A trial court summarily sided with Tina’s ex-partner, citing Florida statute. “The judge said, ‘It breaks my heart, but this is the law,’” according to the birth mother’s lawyer, Robert J. Wheelock of Orlando.
But on Dec. 23, a state appeals court rejected the law as antiquated and recognized both women as legal parents.
Categories: Fatherhood, Motherhood, Reproductive Technologies, The Future of Parenthood
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Bollywood takes on sperm donation
Elizabeth Marquardt 12.17.2011 11:38 AM
Sperm donation is another issue that was avoided by filmmakers till now. In Onir’s episodic film, I Am, one of the segments has Purab Kohli playing a young boy who makes a living as a sperm donor. The story shows how a single woman played by Nandita Das approaches the donor.
Categories: Fatherhood, Reproductive Technologies, The Future of Parenthood
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‘Because the sexual orientation of my parents has had zero influence on the content of my character’
Elizabeth Marquardt 12.01.2011 12:34 PM
From my dear UU pastor friend’s Facebook account I see, today, this three minute video of an extraordinarily well-spoken young man, Zach Wahls, conceived via anonymous sperm donation, raised by lesbian moms, making the case for marriage equality in Iowa. He even beautifully echoes Martin Luther King in his closing words.
Categories: Fatherhood, Reproductive Technologies, The Future of Parenthood
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‘The concern of a donor for the Italian cryokids’
Elizabeth Marquardt 11.30.2011 12:10 PM
A new story at AnonymousUs.org, by an Italian sperm donor father.
Categories: Fatherhood, Reproductive Technologies, The Future of Parenthood
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‘A Letter to My Father’
Elizabeth Marquardt 11.30.2011 12:08 PM
Categories: Fatherhood, Reproductive Technologies, The Future of Parenthood
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‘Parent-Child Relationships in Children’s Literature’
Elizabeth Marquardt 11.30.2011 10:36 AM
A paper by Maria Donata Panforti, professor of comparative law at University of Modena-Reggio Emilia, Italy, in the newly-launched International Journal of the Jurisprudence of the Family.
Papers are not available free online so I’ve excerpted an interesting bit of this paper, below.
See this link for full table of contents with many other interesting papers.
…According to the reading I suggest, then, Pinnochio is born in a single-parent family; moreover, that parent is a man (Gepetto, who is a joiner). He is conceived through an unusual and unnatural technique that makes us think of assisted reproduction (he is a piece of wood carved out by his father). He is reared by Gepetto, but from time to time, and indeed in some key moments of the plot, a female character intervenes, first called the Child with turquoise hair, later on also the Fairy. Read More
Categories: Childhood, Children of Divorce, Fatherhood, Reproductive Technologies
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Pardon me, miss, but would you like my sperm?
Elizabeth Marquardt 11.29.2011 10:34 AM
Blogger Trish Bendix at “The Frisky”:
When you’re in a committed relationship, it’s inevitable you will be asked by friends, among other people, if you plan on having children. When you’re in a committed lesbian relationship, it’s inevitable you’ll be offered your friends’ sperm.
My wife and I have been married six months and I’m not sure if it’s that fact alone or the rise in popularity of lesbian pregnancies in pop culture that has given the males in our lives the idea that we will be needing a donor very, very soon.
“Give me until at least 30,” I tell them, which is more for the sake of halting the conversation than any plausible idea that I will want to give my womb away in three years anymore than I do now. But it doesn’t stop them. While at dinner with our friends Jen and Steve, a married couple, we got into the discussion of bearing children, when Steve said he would gladly give us his sperm.
There’s no real correct way to respond in these types of situations. You can say “Thank you, I’ll keep you in mind” or “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.” Or you could just be honest and say, “I haven’t really given any thought to this but, if I were, I’d probably skew younger.” But beyond the actual offer, there are so many things to consider, such as the fact that Steve has a wife who hasn’t quite counted out kids for herself. more
Categories: Fatherhood, Marriage, Reproductive Technologies, The Future of Parenthood
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Commenter ‘Anna’ on surrogacy and the law
Elizabeth Marquardt 11.17.2011 9:51 AM
At this post she offers a very interesting comment:
Elizabeth, I agree with what you say about surrogacy, but I think you can even go further. Those who express indignation at the law interfering in these arrangements are somewhat misrepresenting the situation. The fact is, surrogacy needs positive laws to support it – i.e., it needs the state to step in to enforce a contract about ownership of a human being, over and against biological kinship, in any case where the egg donor or surrogate wishes to dispute custody. In a legal vacuum, surrogacy couldn’t exist, since the contracting “parents” couldn’t count on getting a baby for their money and trouble. So advocates of this form of reproduction are not just asking the law to leave them alone; they’re asking our legal system to allow and uphold contracts about the buying and selling of human beings, something that since the end of slavery at least, our legal system has not considered acceptable.
Categories: Motherhood, Reproductive Technologies, The Future of Parenthood
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Responding to Susan Kane’s “Marquardt’s off the mark” BioNews piece
Elizabeth Marquardt 11.16.2011 3:05 PM
At the present time, in the United States, if you apply to adopt and state that you plan to lie to your children about their origins for their entire lives, you will be told to learn more about adoption and the best interests of adopted children. Indeed, from my experience of American social workers, most would consider your intention to lie to your children about their origins a form of child abuse.
And yet, the infertility industry considers this a perfectly reasonable stance for parents using donor gametes. I can only conclude that infertility specialists, as a rule, are not friends with psychologists. Whether this is a by-product of their busy lives or perhaps an intentional rejection of the social sciences is difficult to say. However, the result of this highly unfortunate miscommunication between people who understand cell structures and people who understand human beings is that donor-conceived people are back where adoptees were fifty years ago – confused, traumatized and angry. And rightly so: confusion, trauma, and anger are appropriate psychological responses to being lied to by those closest to you.
This is one of the most articulate portrayals I have read of this current contradiction, including, as you so well put it, the only apparent conclusion one can reach that perhaps “infertility specialists, as a rule, are not friends with psychologists.”
For one who is so well-spoken, I was disappointed by your relative inarticulateness in trying to take on –something, I cannot exactly tell what — that you did not like in the piece I wrote and/or the reports it was based upon. Read More
Categories: My Daddy's Name is Donor, Reproductive Technologies, The Future of Parenthood
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Professor Blyth responds to ‘One Parent or Five’
Elizabeth Marquardt 11.01.2011 10:19 AM
I appreciate Professor Eric Blyth taking the time to dig into the One Parent or Five report and writing a comment for BioNews.
As you’ll see if you click through and read it, he is critical of the report. He thinks a systematic critique of the concept of intentional parenthood should look different, cite different sources, and use a different method. That’s fine; if he decides to write such a piece I very much look forward to reading it.
He also believes he sees an anti-gay parenting tone in the report, whereas I feel like my discrimination is pretty equal-opportunity. I question anybody, gay or straight, coupled or not, intentionally denying their child their child’s own mother or father even before conception.
His tone overall is certainly better, a tad more friendly and engaging, than a critique he co-authored last year on the My Daddy’s Name is Donor report (which I responded to also at BioNews). So for that I am grateful.
I guess I am left with the question — Professor Blyth, aside from your gripe about how I wrote the report, and that issue about perceived bias about gay parenting, what do you think about the actual content? What I said, the arguments I made, the possible implications of redefining parenthood around the concept of “intent”? I’d be interested to hear.
Categories: Marriage, Reproductive Technologies, The Future of Parenthood
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The logic of a child – the voice of reason for adults?
rnewman 10.31.2011 2:09 PM
A couple of weeks ago I watched Style Networks “Sperm Donor” about a man who had produced over 70 kids through sperm donations. There was one conversation in the documentary that really stuck with me. It’s a dialogue between a single mom by choice and her daughter, about 6 years old I would guess. The mother says she always has been open with, and talked to her kids about how they were conceived.
This is a transcript of the talk the mother has with her daughter the day before they are going to meet the dad/sperm donor for the first time.
Mom: I wanna talk to you about going to meet Ben in Boston. Do you think that something might happen with mommy and Ben? Because he’s marrying another lady, who’s a very nice lady and he loves her a lot.
Daughter: So he’s gonna break up with you?
Mom: He’s not with me silly. Remember?
Daughter: So you already broke up?
Mom: Ok sweetie, so is he in our lives?
Daughter: No.
Mom: So how could we break up if he’s not in our lives?
Daughter: ‘Cause you’re married.
Mom: We’re not married. Why would you think that we would be married?
Daughter: Because you got the sperm!
Mom: How did mommy get the sperm?
Daughter: Google.
Mom: Google, that’s good.
Categories: Fatherhood, Marriage, Motherhood, My Daddy's Name is Donor, Reproductive Technologies
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Two Views of Deliberate (Biological) Fatherlessness via Sperm Donation
Elizabeth Marquardt 10.31.2011 12:03 PM
At AnonymousUs two new stories by donor conceived persons were posted in the wee hours of this morning (my time).
One is a poem that imagines a painful dialog “between a sperm donor and his child who don’t know who each other is.”
The second is a thoughtful piece by a donor conceived person who writes:
I have never met my donor “father”, and I have no desire to do so. I do not see this lack of contact with my biological father as something missing in my life, and I have no hurt at the fact of my creation. What does cause me hurt, however, is the idea, constantly repeated by small numbers of donor-conceived children, and in popular media representations of the issue, that there must be something wrong with your life if you do not know your biological father.
and much more.
Categories: Fatherhood, Reproductive Technologies, The Future of Parenthood
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