Genetic Genealogy Results

In an effort to compensate for the lack of heritage and knowledge of my genetic father that was forcibly imposed on myself by being donor conceived I undertook a genetic genealogy test from Family Tree DNA. While there are numerous companies offering such services, FTDNA was settled on due to having the largest database, a factor of great importance when trying to create a match with a potential distant relative. Once the testing kit arrived in the letter box it was a simple matter of collecting some buccal cells (cheek cells from the inside of you mouth) via a scraping, then sending it back to the testing company and waiting for the results.
The genetic genealogy test in regards to paternity works by following the Y-chromosome through the generations, as such, finding more information on your genetic donor father and your heritage through that part of your family tree is only possible for male offspring. Unfortunately female offspring are unable to do this. However, if they are a product of donated eggs they (as well as male offspring) could potentially follow the maternal side of their family tree through mitochondrial DNA testing which follows the maternal line. Both tests implement the premise that both the Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA are highly conserved and do not change when passed onto the next generation. Small changes do occur occasionally due to mutations and is the reason why we can then see who is closely related to each other through their DNA and why most people are related to each other if we go back far enough in history.
I purchased the Y-DNA 37 markers test from the option of 12, 37 and 67 markers on the recommendation of FTDNA with the theory being that 12 markers are not specific enough to verify a relation whereas 67 were supposedly too specific and that a certain degree of ambiguity is desirable when a person has no knowledge of their heritage or a genetically inherited family name (eg. adoptees and donor conceived).
These markers are assigned DYS (DNA Y-chromosome segment) numbers and a numerical value is returned based on which mutation has been detected in the test by looking for Y-STRs (short tandem repeats). It is these numbers which are used to match yourself with others that are related. From my results, FTDNA matched me perfectly to 4 other individuals at the 12 marker level, and to 2 others at a genetic distance of 2 at the 25 marker level. The genetic distance is a measure of how many markers are different and by what degree they are different. This was within the FTDNA database, however, it is possible to put you values into a wider database such as Y-SEARCH which allows people who have been tested by other companies to put their values online and to search for matches. The advantage of a database such as this is that it can be considerably larger and it allows you to conduct more thorough searches by changing the parameters to which matches are made which is not possible on the FTDNA site and subsequently, people that can be related could be excluded from being shown to you through the FTDNA results. Putting my marker values in Y-SEARCH allowed me to match to several individuals at more than 30 markers with a relatively small genetic distance. While it may at one level be beneficial to keep some level of ambiguity in your testing for those of unknown paternity. It can also create other problems in that by not being specific enough to confirm a close relation. From 37 marker results it is possible that someone that may appear close is actually quite distant at the 67 marker level, and conversely someone who may not initially appear as the main person of interest at 37 markers may be considerably close at the 67 marker level.
In addition to the marker values and possible matches that are obtained through such testing, a haplogroup can be assigned to your results. This haplogroup basically describes a part of the population that originates from a common ancestor through the use of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). As such depending on what haplogroup may be assigned to you, the region from which your paternal line comes from can be pinpointed or narrowed down. For example my haplogroup is most closely associated with the British Isles and Western Europe. This haplogroup can be defined to a greater level through Deep Clade testing which then has the possibility of further refining your ancestral origins to a region within these areas. My haplogroup assignment is also supported by the greatest number of matches I had of certain markers which define recent common ancestor origins to the areas of England, Scotland, Ireland and Germany.
So how do these results affect my knowledge of my heritage and my quest to find my genetic father?
In several ways;
First the matches that I have been able to make provide a basis to conduct further research. For those in the databases that have selected to allow their contact details to be accessible, they can be contacted and research can be conducted on their family history to see if there is a possibility of a closer link.
Secondly, the surnames (and their derivatives) that can come back as matches can be used by donor offspring to cross-reference with in my case names of medical and science graduates which comprised the donor pool at that time as possible avenues of enquiry.
Thirdly, any haplogroup assignment could also help narrow down the name pool of potential donors from the aforementioned donor pool based on certain family names originating from certain areas of the world.
The use of such testing has been used successfully previously with one donor offspring in the USA finding their genetic father by matching up with a close relative. There are also other companies which conduct health analysis of DNA. These tests analyse a person’s potential susceptibility to certain illnesses based on genetic links with these diseases.
The thing that must be noted is that any genetic genealogy result obtained is dependent on a close or distant relation also having undergone testing. While currently the greatest population of people undergoing such testing live in the USA, the British Isles and Western Europe, with more and more people being tested everyday, for those that may not get closer to discovering their heritage or even their paternity initially, eventually they may get there given time.
While I cannot show here the results of any matches as enquiries are ongoing, they have not excluded any of the information and lines of enquiry that I had obtained through other means before undergoing genetic testing. In regard to further genetic testing I may in the near future increase the number of markers to narrow down some of the potential matches if the line of enquiry deems that it would be of benefit. A further refinement of the haplogroup assignment by Deep Clade testing may also assist in this and will be assessed on its necessity as required. A full DNA “health” analysis is something that I will undertake to fill in the gaps of a family health history that I am missing. While genetic genealogy testing and DNA health analysis may not give to me the genetic father that has been missing in my life, it has the potential to provide for not just myself but also to my children a picture of our heritage (the origin of my paternity by region) but also a family health history which will be just as important to them as me.

Cheryl Miller Replies to my Rebuttal

This is my contribution to a back and forth dialogue on her article as a reply to her response:

I would like to see if Cheryl has any data (hard evidence) to support her assumption. I provided published data while she has made an assertion based on anecdotal evidence and a media beat-up of a story.

If appropriate measures are taken such as truthful, as opposed to fraudulent birth certificates then it will become impossible for recipient parents to hide their child's conception. This issue is far more complex than just accessing your genetic father or mother's identifying information. The ability to cause harm to a child should not be institutionalised to cater for would be parents. The child's welfare should always be of paramount concern. If in providing for the child's welfare we then thereby alienate potential donors (even though the data presented does not support this), then that is better than creating more harm.

The "whim" that I alluded to is the urge to have one parent being biologically related to the child. If this matters then it should matter to both parents, not just one, and conversely both genetic links should matter to the child. If a biological connection is disposable as is currently imposed on donor offspring then any connection should not matter to the parents also. There are countless children in need of adoption, but that in itself comes with it's own Pandora's box, not unlike the one we have opened here.

Here is Cheryl Miller's response to my rebuttal:

I agree with Damian Adams that the reasons for gamete donor shortages in Europe and Australia are complex. While bans on anonymity have played a role, so have laws limiting or prohibiting compensation to gamete donors (which many donor-conceived activists support) and donors’ growing fears that clinics cannot guarantee their anonymity. (Many donors were spooked when New Scientist reported in 2005 that a 15-year-old boy had found his anonymous sperm donor through a genealogy website.) Nonetheless, countries that permit donor anonymity—such as the U.S. and Spain—have not experienced shortages and are major destinations for fertility patients seeking a donor.

These would-be parents’ desire for children is hardly a “whim.” Donor offspring are right to fight for greater openness, but openness should not be their only goal. Indeed, as I noted in my article, the right to information does not necessarily lead to greater openness. A mandated registry might win offspring the right to know their donor’s identity, but if it means future parents are less willing to disclose their children’s status, it won’t be much of a victory.

The Problem with Retrospective Access

The issue of retrospective access to identifying information was discussed in the South Australian parliament recently. It was recognised at the parliamentary level that the donation of gametes was a good thing underlined by altruism. Yet these same politicians expressed concerns about what damage a donor conceived offspring's presence or knowledge of would cause the donor's (vendor's) existing family.

It made me wonder then why would you be worried about something showing up in your life if it was such a great gift that was composed completely of altruistic actions and beliefs. If the donor/vendor and or his family do not want the "return" of this marvelous gift then it can be interpreted that any number of these people view the act with either shame or with a negative slant.

The story propagated by the clinics and the media is that the donors (vendors) provide their gametes to an infertile couple to bring them great joy and to relieve their heartache. Surely it would give the donating progenitor the "warm fuzzies" to know that their unwanted child had grown up in a loving home because they were so dearly wanted by someone else. Yet the consensus within parliament is that this could adversely impact on this person and or their family.

So in the same breath parliament has stated that gamete donation is an altruistic gift that also has something intrinsically wrong with it.

Who Am I - A New Documentary

A new documentary called "Who Am I" is currently being researched by the people at Juggernaut Media. They are currently calling for interested donor conceived offspring from around the world that may be interested in telling their story. The difference between this documentary and all of the previous ones associated with DC is that this one is to be presented from the perspective of the conceived people themselves. This is very exciting and will make for ground breaking television in this field. The following is an advertisement calling for interest in this project:

WHO AM I?

How do you define identity? What role, if any, has genetics played in shaping the person you are today?

We’re SEEKING DONOR OFFSPRING to participate in an international high end documentary series on Assisted Reproductive Technology and the link between biological and genetic history and identity. What makes this documentary series unique is that it is told through the eyes of the offspring conceived through ART; your EYES.
We want to hear your stories; your perspectives; your insights into the impact of the technology that helped bring you into this world and your vision for the future.

WHO ARE WE?

Please allow us to introduce ourselves:
Tammi Michelle Faraday is a Television, Feature Film & Documentary Producer, Investigative journalist, Human Rights Lobbyist, Television Presenter, Broadcaster, and one time Senior Associate of an international law firm. Tammi recently returned to Australia after being based in London for two years working as a producer on critically acclaimed and award winning feature films and feature length documentaries for the BBC (UK), WGBH (United States), SBS (Australia) and Channel 2 (Israel). These include: "The Insurgency” (a BBC/WGBH feature length documentary about the Iraqi insurgency); “The Nuclear Wal-Mart" (a BBC Panorama investigation about the private international nuclear network); “Yitzchak Rabin - Case Unclosed" (a groundbreaking documentary on the late Prime Minister of Israel); “Rape on Trial" (a BBC Panorama investigation about rape and the criminal justice system in the UK) and the multi award winning feature film in Australia, “Wil".
In 2008 Tammi launched her international film production, media and communications company - Juggernaut Media Management.
Ros Tatarka is an established producer with an extensive track record primarily in television production. In her early career Ros worked on some of Australia’s most iconic television dramas including Prisoner, Neighbours and A Country Practice. She later went on to Associate Produce the mini-series Snowy and the first nine telemovies of the successful Halifaxfp franchise. As Producer her credits include the first series of Something In the Air, and the telemovie and first series of Good Guys Bad Guys, for which she won an AFI Award.
Ros was most recently engaged as the General Manager, Industry Development and Investment at the State Government Agency, Film Victoria. In this role, Ros headed up the business unit responsible for stimulating and supporting growth and excellence in the Victorian screen industry.
In 2008 Ros returned to the independent sector and through her production company, CreatEve Pty Ltd, is developing a slate of projects including feature film, television drama, documentary and new media.

For further information please contact Tammi Faraday on + 61 (0)401 952 962 or boss@juggernautmedia.com.au or Ros Tatarka on either +61 (0)411 567 556 or rtatarka@optusnet.com.au

Record Keeping - A Supposition

Normally I try and keep suppositions and conjecture out of this blog, however, recent conversations with politicians who were enquiring in regard to the record keeping of the time here in South Australia has led me to the point where we have to suppose what the intent was.

What do we know as fact? That record keeping and making in the early seventies in the hospitals were excellent. Everything that could be recorded was recorded and the records were kept. This is clinical best practice that allows for medicine to be practiced with the greatest care on the day and also in the future as we are to track down causation and effect events to improve subsequent treatment. An example of this is the post-natal treatment records for most children and mothers of the day which are large enough to fill their own small book. In regard to donor conception records, the only documents that have been provided are those contained on small pieces of paper with a paucity of information and the volume of which wouldn’t even be enough to fill up your back pocket.

What we don’t know. Are these poor DC treatment records the only records in existence? The clinics and practitioners of the time have been constantly changing their story in regard to these records, they were destroyed, they are lost, records weren’t kept or we do not have anything to link the treatment records to the donor records. Numerous doctors that I have spoken to who have been involved in the hospitals at the time find it hard to believe that either poor records were kept or that they have been destroyed as it does not follow the practice of the day. For argument’s sake we will assume that the clinics are being honest to an extent and that these small pieces of paper are the only records that have ever existed (provided that they haven’t been destroyed or lost) and that they are unable to link these to any donor records that may or may not exist. Why would the clinic go strictly against best clinical practices in not creating and keeping appropriate detailed records? It goes directly against everything doctors and nurses are taught from day one of their training.

While these clinics were operating in a hospital environment and in a clinical setting, the early seventies represent donor conception in its infancy here in SA and we could perhaps assume that they were operating more as a research facility undertaking experiments in medical and social science. As a scientist myself, I know for a fact that any research that is conducted now and in the past must be appropriately documented so that experiments can be verified and repeated as required. So what we have is a scenario in which the documentation that was being made within donor conception falling outside the accepted norm within either the medical or scientific fields. For something that was so important and supposedly ground breaking it is mind boggling to think that inappropriate documentation occurred.

If these practitioners and clinics were so lazy as to not create appropriate documentation then it is difficult to see how they could have gotten into those positions in the first place or how they were then able to carry on in the field for such a long time thereafter all the while receiving accolades after accolades. This is where we fall into the realm of conjecture. If we do not wish to follow the practices of the day and do not want to be able to go back over what was done, how, when and why to improve things in the future, we either have to be completely incompetent or we have to be hiding something. As mentioned previously, these practitioners and clinics either already were or they went on to be very successful, so they are definitely not incompetent. Is it possible to assume that it was intentionally done, to reinforce anonymity? That if there are incomplete or poor records then there is no way that the identity of the donor/vendor can ever be found out. And if they were worried about anonymity then they knew that it may become an issue for offspring in the future who would then seek out this information.

Whose Your Daddy? - a rebuttal.

The following post is a rebuttal and letter to the author Cheryl Miller in regard to her article:
Whose Your Daddy?

It has subsequently been published by ReasonOnline here.

I am certainly not against anyone having differing views to myself. After all that is what society is all about. However, when the whole premise of the arguement is based on error riddled information the value of such a perspective is lost. And unfortunately for those who do not know any better they would believe that the premise is based on fact, which it is not, and is a shame.

Dear Cheryl

The following letter contains factual information that is contrary to the erroneous claims made by yourself in your article “Whose Your Daddy?”

While many adult donor-conceived people are upset at the lack of forethought given to their emotions and thoughts on the issue in regard to the subject matter, the purpose of this letter is not to delve into these issues which some people may classify as debatable, but to correct the erroneous claims in a scholarly manner.

“In Europe and Australia, national governments created mandatory, centralized registries that activists succeeded in opening to the public, eliminating the possibility of anonymous donation. The result: Donors ceased to come forward in adequate numbers, and the waiting lists for sperm and ova have grown very long.”

Clinics will often parade these lines out in a scaremongering propaganda campaign to garner sympathy and to attract more donors but it is rarely based on fact. Numbers of donors for the vast majority of places around the world had been dropping for many years prior to any suggestion of the removal of anonymity and the creation of any registry. This is not a new phenomenon, however, the clinics would like us to believe that this is the case. A prime example is South Australia which is one of the only places in the world to actually have legislation that guarantees anonymity. This legislation was initially enacted in 1988, yet the numbers of donors have steadily decreased. This is the exact antithesis of your claim. If your claim as the removal of anonymity as being the major source of donor shortage then surely South Australia would have more than enough donors. Victoria, another state in Australia which has the most progressive legislation in the world on donor conception had an increase in donors the year after they banned anonymous donations and set-up a centralized register. Two clinics in the UK since starting an active recruitment campaign shortened their waiting period effectively to zero (an increase in donor numbers). The others that complained of shortages never took part in active recruitment. In New Zealand, their donor numbers also increased after anonymous donations were voluntarily withdrawn by the NZ clinics.
As you can see there are numerous examples that show that removal of anonymity and the establishment of registers does not necessarily equate to a reduction in donor numbers.
The reduction of donor numbers can equally be explained by the attitudes of men in that time as opposed to any restrictions placed on them.

“Since 1995 offspring have been able to find siblings through the U.K. DonorLink, a voluntary registry funded by the Department of Health.”

UK DonorLink was not in operation in 1995, it only came online in 2004.

“A recent U.K. government report found that the number of insemination treatments fell by about 30 percent in 2006, despite a small increase in sperm donors.”

The number of donor insemination treatments fell so drastically for couples due to the prominence of ICSI treatment. The lack of available donor samples is currently due to the newer trend of single-mothers-by-choice and lesbian groups.

“Many Europeans thought that by mandating a registry and banning donor anonymity they had solved the problem of offspring not having information about their biological parents. They soon found, though, that parents were getting around the ban by simply not telling their children about the circumstances of their conception.”

This is not new. This was THE practice for the majority of donor conception practices around the world until only recently. It has always been a practice that has been shrouded in secrecy and deception, patients were actively counselled not to tell the children.

“The program, started in 1983 by The Sperm Bank of California (TSBC), releases a donor’s identity to his offspring when the child turns 18. Scheib, along with the sperm bank staff, expected that most offspring would want to meet their donors, but few of the eligible offspring have chosen to.”

That would be obvious as the vast majority do not even know that they are even donor conceived. Your own article even states that in Sweden only 10% of offspring were told. Here in Australia a study showed that only 30% intended to tell – fewer ever do. A study by Golombok (1996) undertaken in the UK, Netherlands, Spain and Italy of 111 families using ART, 75% said they had no plans on telling. In New Zealand, 30% had told of 181 parents (Adair 1999), although many more said they intended to tell. In the UK 39% had or intended to tell while 61% did not. (Lycett 2005). In another study 85% of DI parents and 69% of OD parents, there was the belief that there was no need for the child to know (Murray 2000.) So the trend is definately not to inform the children and therefore it makes it difficult to seek answers to questions that you do not know exist. This paragraph of your article is misleading as it makes the assumption that the majority of offspring do not want identifying information. It is completely false as the research conducted by Mahlstedt et al to be published in Sterility and Fertility (accepted) shows that 87% of adult donor offspring wish to know the identity of their father, while 62% wanted to at least meet him once and 26% wanted to establish a relationship with him. So for the vast majority, paternal kinship is a very vital and important component of their lives that cannot be ameliorated by a simple medical file.
Your article leads the reader on a journey whereby the conclusion that infertile couples are being denied the chance to procure a child through a financial transaction is being hampered by the rights and desires of the offspring already created in this manner. Yet the data that you have used to support this claim, that of donor numbers dropping due to the removal of anonymity and the creation of registers (which for the vast majority there are no centralized registers accessible to offspring as yet, unless you are a Great Britain or Victorian and then only if you are born after a certain date) is not supported in fact. This claim is misleading and erroneous at best.

edited post: Someone asked about the study conducted in Australia, it apparently was conducted in the 80's at Prince Henry's Hospital treatment centre which then became Monash IVF. As I have been unable to locate it online as evidence I have included other studies that can be traced as further evidence of the trend not to tell all around the world.

Reconcilliation with the Term "Donor"

For some time now whenever I see the term sperm donor it sends the hackles on my back up, that is it creates a very uneasy feeling. It is the term that society is familiar with when referring to those children born through donor conception via the use of another man's sperm.
However the term donor is far from the truth. It in no way represents actuality, and the cold hard facts are that he sold his sperm, he did not donate. To donate is to give freely without receiving anything in return. Yet if we are to peel back all the warm fuzzy connotations in regard to sperm donation we are able to see it for what it actually is. It is a transaction whereby sperm is procured from a man and money is exchanged. It makes no difference if this renumeration is for time or expenses occured in providing their sperm. Money has changed hands making it a financial transaction, thus making the biological father a sperm vendor.
No matter how pretty we dress up the facade, donor conceived children were sold.
The facade of altruism and being wanted so much by our parents has no bearing on the loss that can be felt within DC children. Whether that loss be minute or large, resulting from a lack of medical history or the severing of kinship and subsequent loss of identity, it is a form of loss. Any form of loss is a form of suffering and suffering is never the goal of altruism.
While it is impossible to change the terminology that society uses to describe these artificial reproductive techniques, I will always be the son of a sperm vendor.

Amendments to the Reproductive Technology Act (SA)

The state government here in South Australia has recently tabled some amendments to the Reproductive Technology Act 1988. After checking over the amendments it was plain to see that the welfare of donor offpsring still wasn't being looked after. I contacted a newspaper about this problem who ran a story (a bit diferent to the perspective I was trying to push - but that seems to happen). During my interview he managed to push me into writing to every state politician about the amendments, as this appeared in print as such I couldn't be seen to be a liar, so I spent some considerable time writing to all 65 members.
The letter does not address all of the amendments just those that affect current donor offspring.

Dear ...................................,

I am writing to you in regards to the tabled amendments to the Reproductive Technology (Clinical Practices) Act 1988 and in particular the effect that the amendments and existing legislation have on donor conceived offspring.

I am a donor conceived adult, the product of artificial insemination conducted at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in South Australia in 1973. I work as a medical researcher at the Women’s & Children’s Health Research Institute, I am married with a 5 year old daughter called Brydee and a 2 year old son called Angus.

The existing legislation states; “The welfare of any child to be born in consequence of an artificial fertilisation procedure must be treated as of paramount importance, and accepted as a fundamental principle.” While the amendments reiterate this; “The proposed bill will amend the Reproductive Technology (Clinical Practices) Act 1988 by ensuring that the 'best interests of the child' are of fundamental importance in the application of the act and in the provision of assisted reproductive treatment. However, neither the existing legislation nor the amendments achieve this goal. Instead the rights of the child are put secondary to the interests of others, thereby creating a class of second rate citizens that are being discriminated against based on their mode of conception. This discrimination also contravenes the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child.

Of particular relevance is Article 8 which is as follows:
Article 8.1; State Parties undertake to respect the right of the child to preserve his or her identity, including nationality, name and family relations as recognized by law without unlawful interference.

To which I stipulate that without knowing who my donor is, I do NOT know my identity, I do NOT know my nationality from a historical perspective, I do NOT know what my name should have been (as this is usually obtained from your father) and I was NOT consulted as to whether or not I would like to have access to these basic human rights – they were taken away from me.
It was decided before my conception which biological bond should remain important to me and which one is disposable. The whole precept of donor conception as opposed to adoption is that it is widely acknowledged the importance for one of the parents to be biologically related to the child. By removing the child’s right to know who the other parent is, is hypocritical in nature.

Article 8.2; Where a child is deprived of some or all of the elements of his or her identity, State Parties shall provide appropriate assistance and protection, with a view to speedily re-establishing his or her identity.

It is obvious that the state of South Australia in almost 40 years of widely practiced donor conception has done very little in fulfilling this article of the convention. I have been trying to establish my true identity for well over 16 years without any assistance by the state government and am no closer to achieving it.

Of particular concern in regard to our current legislation is that it acknowledges that the welfare of the child is paramount, but it also acknowledges that a donor can remain anonymous. These are two situations that are mutually exclusive. It is widely reported in internationally recognized publications that the best interests of the child are served by knowing who their donor is.

To know where one comes from is a basic human right and can sometimes be tantamount to the emotional welfare of the person involved. This basic human right has widely been acknowledged and given to those children that have been adopted. It has been shown that the ability to access this information is of utmost importance to the welfare of the child. Legislation allowing adopted children access to this information, while preventing those of the “Donated Generation” from doing the same is discrimination, pure and simple. These rights, as granted to adoptees was made retrospective even though relinquishing parents were promised anonymity. Which is exactly the same situation as found within donor conception. It is unfair and unjust to treat one group of individuals one way and another group differently. A precedent has also been set within the Reproductive Technology Act 1988, wherein clauses within it were made retrospective in regard to anonymity when for people like me there were no legislated guarantees when I was conceived. It is also precedented within the Family Relationships Act 1975 wherein the infertile husband of the wife receiving treatment was deemed within the law to be the father of the child and was also made retrospective. Both these examples show how I personally (and many others) have been disadvantaged by retrospective legislation in regard to our basic human right to know who our father is. So it would be incongruous to stipulate that retrospective access should not be given to the donated generation.

Due to NH&MRC guidelines and RTAC regulations, the current children born as a result of donations are able to access identifying information (upon maturity) about their donors. This in effects creates a disparity between offspring of various ages. My ability to know the identity of my father is being discriminated against because of my age. Age is a clearly defined anti-discriminatory clause in our legislation, yet it is allowed to happen to thousands of donor offspring.
The current situation for donor conceived people in regard to their birth certificates is that both the infertile and their fertile partner appear as both the biological parents. A birth certificate has always been used as a factual and truthful document showing the lineage of a person. For a donor conceived person that is clearly not the case, the document is untruthful and fraudulent. As the state assists with the process of donor conception and accepts the details as written, it is being complicit in creating fraud. There are numerous models that would facilitate all parties and show the conception status of the person.

More and more current research also shows that many of our traits and characteristics are not the product of the environment in which the child grows, but is a result of genetic inheritance (40% of our behaviour is inherited, Malouff J., University of New England, 2008). As a result, the knowledge of ones genetic background is paramount in finding out “who” we really are. Being able to access ones family health history has numerous health benefits to the individual as well as the state. This knowledge will equip offspring with the opportunity to prevent or ameliorate genetically inherited diseases such as chronic heart failure and diabetes which cost the state millions of dollars each year in treatment and hospitalization. As it is the states hospitals and health professionals are under increasing stress, by allowing donor offspring the chance of perhaps finding out their family health history will only help reduce this burden on the health system from both a physical and mental health perspective.

In a recent study presented at the American Society of Reproductive Medicine Conference, November 8-12 2008, in San Francisco by Patricia P. Mahlstedt, Ed.D., Kathleen LaBounty, B.A., William T. Kennedy, Ed.D., it was shown that of 85 adult donor conceived offspring interviewed worldwide that 87% believed that they should know the identity of their donor (accepted for publication in Sterility and Fertility in early 2009). In another study (yet to be published/presented, results transmitted to myself by one of the authors through personal communication), of 109 adult DC offspring 85% stated that they should know the identity of their donor. These studies show us quite clearly that offspring view the knowledge of their donor’s identity as being extremely important to them.

The tabled amendments also call for the disbanding of the South Australian Council for Reproductive Technologies which in my mind would be a mistake. With the exception of not including an expert that represents the best interests of all children born through these technologies, the council contains experts in all other fields of reproductive technology. By disbanding this council and putting these issues in the hands of a Health Advisory Council which would contain people that are more akin to jacks of all trades, masters of none, will severely hamper future progress.

For myself, the issues associated with being donor conceived only became cemented once I had children of my own. It was only when I was holding my babies in my arms, feeling those deep emotions that parents feel when their children are born that I was able to truly appreciate the importance of genetic kinship and in effect what was deprived of myself. That reality is as emotionally crushing today as it was years ago.

Thousands of donor offspring are being treated as second class citizens with inferior rights to everyone else. We do not asked to be treated differently or special, we just wish to be treated the same as everyone else, as human beings with dignity. As without these rights we have no dignity but are just lab rats in an experiment in social science.

I implore all parliamentary members to table their own amendments to ensure that donor offspring are treated with the compassion we deserve.

Yours Faithfully,
Damian Adams
“My daughter wants to know who her grandfather is and it breaks my heart that I cannot give him to her. The effects of anonymity and donor conception will not stop with me but will continue into future generations just as it does for adoptees.”

Distress Over "Anti-DC" Comments

I have seen numerous comments recently that are mainly from recipient parents that are distressed over the statements of dissatisfaction and feelings of pain that some offspring have. In particular there seems to be a common theme of concern that their DC children will also feel this way and may also harbour some sort of ill feelings towards them.
As a father I can certainly sympathise with this in that no caring parent would deliberately do anything that would cause their child harm and that the child would then bear a “grudge” or the like against their parent. I think every parent would naturally harbour these fears.
I for one certainly do not have ill feelings towards my parents for their course of action even though it has caused considerable pain. I love them very much. I do not blame them for it even though I wish that was not the method to which I was conceived (I do not wish to go into the argument of then not existing here).
My negative statements towards donor conception is not born out a perverse desire to upset wanna-be and existing recipient parents. They are quite simply there to make people think more deeply about the subject and to look at it through different perspectives.
For myself personally it would have been far easier emotionally if I had stayed happy and grateful about being DC. It was a much more difficult, painful and emotionally taxing journey to come to my position and conclusions. The “epiphany” that I had about DC when my daughter was born was by no means a happy moment but an extremely distressing one.
I know that not everyone will agree with me and it would be a pretty boring world if they all did. There are many offspring that are happy with their conception, and that is great for them, but for every child that has some sort of problem (loss of identity, medical history, kinship separation etc) we are adding to a generation of suffering to which as a society we are not learning from.
In some ways I wish I could go back and be happy and ignorant once again, but to do so would require me to discard everything that I know and love about what it is to be human.

Interview for the New Atlantis

The following link is for the interview I did for Cheryl Miller of the New Atlantis (A Journal of Technology and Society).

Part One:
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/blog/conceptions/questions-for-damian-adams-donor-conceived-adult

Part Two:
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/blog/conceptions/questions-for-damian-adams-donor-conceived-adult-2

Donated Generation - The Article

Absolutely fantastic comprehensive article on DC practices, ethics and outcomes by Cheryl Miller of the Phillips Foundation.

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/donated-generation

If only more articles were so well written then perhaps we would see greater progress in recognizing the rights of offspring.

Website for Offspring Seeking Their Genetic Fathers

http://www.searchingformyspermdonorfather.org/
This website was set up in an attempt to assist any donor offspring in locating their donor father. Each offspring has their own subpage with details about themselves so that anyone who is a donor or someone who has info that may be of interest can determine if there is a possible match and have means of contacting these individuals.
(Please bear in mind that any offspring may not necessarily look like their donor father)

Changing the Paradigm

Currently in our society it would appear as though the needs and desires of the adults are always trumping the rights of the children. When I speak to people they all confirm that the rights of children should be paramount, but yet when we look at our society and in particular the practice of fertility treatment then it is anything but.
We need a shift in the current paradigm where we stop focussing on heartbreak of the infertile, however tragic that is and focus on the welfare of the child that is to be created in this manner. This is not to make light of infertility, but an attempt to protect the rights of the most vulnerable, the child.
How can we defend ourselves by saying that the child will be wanted and loved when unconditional love means that as a parent or would be parent we will do everything in our power to ensure that our children are not emotionally or physically hurt by our own actions. Donor conception can almost be seen to have parallels with Munchausens by proxy, whereby we want the attention and love that a child can give us but to get that we have to create a situation that has the potential to cause long term trauma to that child. This is not to suggest that the would be parent wishes to intentionally hurt the child, it may however be a by-product of the situation that is forced upon that child.
If we afford the protection children deserve than the rest will look after itself, because nothing else really matters.

Should Recipient Parents Undergo Adoption Proceedings?

This is a very complicated question in that some people may not view donated gametes in the same light as a donated embryo. In any context however, one or both of the recipient parents is not the biological parent of the resultant child. So what does that make them? A social parent is a term often used but it is term that does not convey the exact nature of the relationship. In the majority of instances the infertile person or couple will raise the child as if it were genetically their own. They in effect have adopted the child as their own, so why shouldn’t they follow proper adoption proceedings?
A child that has been conceived and carried in the womb of one woman under normal circumstances and then relinquished and raised by another woman or couple is adopted. So why should it be any different if the child was carried to term in the raising mothers womb in the case of donated embryos? Does incubation entitle her to claim that the child is hers even though it does not contain any of her DNA? Certainly the foetus will form a strong bond with the incubating mother, however, that does not affect what is at the core of the child and makes it unique, its genes.
Would gamete and embryo adoption prevent recipient parents from deceiving the DC child about its origins? Possibly not seeing that not all adoptees are told about their status either, but perhaps it may make them think twice about keeping it a secret.
With DC children currently suffering worse human rights than adoptees in regard to knowing their biological parents and heritage (particularly in the majority of states in Australia), by not making recipient parents undergo adoption proceedings the child has had its basic human rights infringed upon simply based on their mode of conception. Forcing the recipient parent or parents to follow adoption proceedings would more accurately acknowledge the true relationship between the recipients and the child while also providing the child with their inalienable human rights. After all it is the child whose welfare should be paramount and over-ride any desires or wishes that any adult has as they by far are the most vulnerable in this situation. This is not to say that adoptions as a whole should occur, as no child should be separated from their family except in extreme circumstances. Yet when we look at the exact relationships within a family that has utilised DC and how these children are currently viewed by the law and the rights afforded to them, then adoption of the gamete or embryo is a more accurate reflection of the situation.

Selfish Parenting???

I can’t help but think that when I read about the reasons why people choose to keep a child’s conception secret that they are being selfish. The secret is there purely to serve their own interests and are an attempt to avoid any conflict or strain while implementing a false façade of a traditional nuclear family.

After spending a relatively short period of time parenting myself, I have come to the conclusion that the whole concept of parenting is that it has absolutely nothing to do with the parent themselves and everything to do with the child. The needs and welfare of the child are paramount and those of the parent are subservient or even non-existent. This is the way it should be and is the quintessential model of true parental love. Yet it appears that in many ways that under donor conception practices and typically those keeping “the secret” that this model is turned upside down and that the needs of the parent is now above those of the child. Perhaps the intense drive to procreate and the emotional rollercoaster of infertility un-balances the scales and resets a parent’s ability to determine whose needs are paramount as the focus has been on their need for so long.

Deception of ones origin is never in the best interests of the child. The damage that can be done down the track when “the secret” is inadvertently or accidentally revealed may never be undone. Yet is just keeping “the secret the only part of selfish parenting”?

The question then would follow is: “Are people that choose to have a child via donor conception being selfish because of the possible implications for that child?”

Is the deprivation of a child’s identity, heritage and kinship with their genetic father/mother, siblings etc ever in the best interests of the child? By putting the desire to “have” a child above the welfare of the child we are once again tipping the scales towards selfish parenting. After all you never “have” a child, they are not objects to be owned, as parents we are merely guardians of another soul.

Is Love All That Matters?

Many people state when utilising donor conception or adoption that love is all that matters. In a very simple world it would in some ways be nice if it was. But the world, our lives, our relationships and our families are anything but simple.
If love is all that matters, then why are divorce rates so high? These couples were so in love with each other that they got married but they then developed irreconcilable differences and they can quite often end up being very bitter towards each other. It is a sad and simple fact that not all love is permanent. What is permanent however, are biological/genetic connections. These can never fade or be erased. You are either related to someone through blood and genes or you are not. This is where the phrase blood is thicker than water originally stems from. Biological relations who sometimes experience difficulties will come together in times of need, where non-biological ones would not. It has formed the basis of our culture and our humanity for thousands of years, yet donor conception attempts to degrade this foundation by eroding the physical and emotional connections between a donor father/mother and their offspring.
Adults will do anything for their own children including giving up their own lives but they very rarely would do the same for another couples child. Why? It is the preservation of the next generation, the continuation of your genes and the keeping of the family unit. Donor conception blurs the edges of the otherwise definable family unit. No longer are the raising parents always the biological ones, who on the other hand are lurking in the shadows. Perhaps never to be seen or heard, yet forever present. Can love help smooth out these blotches in the family unit? Sometimes it can but if the relationships within this unit become strained for whatever reason, the foundation can be eroded even further. This has adverse consequences for both the child and non-biological parent.
When we see that numerous donor offspring are experiencing emotional pain from kinship loss, incomplete identity and family health histories who are also from families that are still intact with all parties that love each other we have to question whether Love Is All That Matters.

Donor Conception and Counselling

This area gives me a great deal of concern. All people wanting to undertake a donor conception program are usually required to undertake at least one counselling session. All fine and good. The problem is that the counselling session is provided by the clinic with their own counsellors. There is a complete conflict of interest here as the counsellors have a vested interest and are not impartial to the whole process. Their very job is dependent on the clinics getting enough patients to pay their salary. So it is not in either their own or the clinics best interest to turn prospective patients away as being unsuitable or to provide them with every bit of information on the subject which may persuade them to change their minds about pursuing that course of action. Their best interest is obviously to have as many photos of happy couples holding their new bundle of joy up on their clinic walls.
This may seem to be a cynical view but when you consider that counsellors are rarely if ever seen at donor conception conferences that involve stories or reports of offspring and their experiences, they do not inform the prospective parents that there is a possibility the child may be unhappy with their conception, and they do not offer follow up sessions 1, 5 or 10 years down the track to determine how things are doing then this cynical view is pretty close to the truth. It would be assumed that they too would have learnt from the experiences of the adopted generation but they have failed to listen. They claim to always have the best interests of the child at heart but obviously the heart has failed to communicate this belief to the brain.
If donor conception is to continue then surely independent counsellors should be employed by the governement rather than the clinics, ones that are educated on all the issues surrounding DC while providing more than one session in the early stages and also be following up in the years to come.

The Catch 22 of Being Happy With My Opposition to DC

As I mentioned previously, I used to be happy, almost proud of my mode of conception and supported its use until I had children of my own. Once I had come to the realisation that what it in fact did do to me and also my own children, I started a downward spiral.
The problem is once you have realised the terrible pain and loss that yourself and your own children have and are suffering it makes it difficult to be happy about your conception. Simply because the more distress it causes you the more you think about it and the more you think about it the more pain it produces. Hence the catch 22 and the never ending cycle.
Sometimes I wish I was still back in my happy little conception world where I was oblivious to the problems and loss it had caused. To be naïve about it and continue on life’s little path not paying much attention to it at all. But I know I can never go back there.
It would be nice to follow a more Buddhist philosophy with regards to suffering in this context, in that I should not feed the fire that causes the burning. As in some way the suffering can be seen as being self-induced due to the emotions I put into it even though I am in a situation not of my own choice. However, to do so would be to also extinguish the concept of family and kinship which is so central to our whole society and our own humanity.

Response to Donor Egg Story

This is a letter that I wrote in response to a donor egg story and which was published in the Dec/Jan issue of Adelaide's Child.

Jacqueline Tomlins in her story Life Cycles on egg donation fails to mention any effects that being donor conceived has on the child and how their rights are being infringed upon. Being a donor conceived person myself it is always frustrating when reading these stories, however heart felt they may be that they never take in the perspective of the person that really matters, that is the child.

Her story mentions that donors are required to remain anonymous and that the legal issues are governed by the South Australian Council for ReproductiveTechnologies. The SACRT is only an advisory council, the legal issues are actually governed by the Reproductive Technologies Act. The SACRT has however recognised the problem associated with anonymous donations and has strongly recommended that anonymous donations cease. This is also in line with theNational Health and Medical Research Council's stand on the issue. Our own legislation does allow for anonymity yet it also states the the welfare of the child is paramount. These two factors are mutually exclusive.

In addition the practice of donor conception contravenes the UN Conventions of the Rights of the Child to which Australia is a signatory. Article 7 states that a child has the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents. Given that less than 30% of children are even told about their conception (Monash report) and the fact that in SA, offspring are not entitled to identifying information about their donor, many will never know who their genetic father/mother really is. Article 8 states that the child has a right to his or her identity, including nationality, name and family relations. All of these are stripped from a child as a process of donor conception.

The main premise of using donor conception over adoption is that both the infertile couple and the clinics all recognise the importance of at least one of them being genetically related to their child. This is a double standard in that the other genetic connection is now viewed as being disposable. It is both morally and ethically wrong to choose on behalf of the child which biological connection will remain and which will be thrown away as they are equally both important. Not only does it remove a biological father/mother from the child it also removes any siblings. The adverse effects of adoptionon the welfare of the child has been recognised for decades with the identity and loss of biological connection issues experienced by them being mirrored inthose of the donated generation.

Tomlins states "the biggest stumbling block for women is how they see the resulting child". This child is no different from any of their own children in that the factors that make up this child, it's DNA, is the same. The only difference is the emotional and monetary input that goes into raising the child. This DNA will govern how the child will look, many of it's interests and in many cases how it behaves. While it was previously thought that much ofa person's personallity was environamentally driven it is being discovered that more and more of it is in fact genetically derived. This is no more apparent than in those identical twins that have been separated at birth that have grown up still leading rather identical lives and interests. Many donor offspring once being reunited with their donor have finally been able to place certain looks and character traits that is not evident in their raising family directly to their donor. To be able to do so provides the offspring with a greater sense of completeness as they otherwise only have half the picture of who they are.

Tomlins states " that it is quite common for donors to meet the baby". This is clearly incorrect as the Monash study shows that only 30% of offspring are aware of their conception. The rest have been deceived about their origins, yet many once they discover later on in their lives about their conception they will often remark about how they didn't seem to fit properly. Out of this 30%,an even smaller amount will ever meet their donor. For those born in the 60s,70s and early 80s the numbers are even lower with many offspring unable to access any records (even non-identifying) as they have been either destroyed or just not kept.

In her statement that "Their children have a special story, they say, a story of which they are proud", Tomlins is only referring to point in which the child is only a child. As they grow older their views may change, some will, some won't. The point is that as a juvenile you are too busy being a child to be concerned with identity issues and family relations. These don't surface until teenage years and in some instances not until adulthood. For me personally it did not change until I was 28 and had children of my own. Until that time I was a supporter of donor anonymity and also reasonably proud of myorigins. Now it is completely the opposite. Through my own childrens eyes I have been able to recognise the unbreakable bond that flesh and blood gives us. No matter what may ever happen between my wife and myself, or whatever mayhappen to me, I will always be my children's father. Nothing can ever change that. As soon as I thought about how it would break my heart that my children might ever grow up not knowing who I am, was I able to relate that to my own situation of being donor conceived. I was able to fully understand how the severance of my biological connection with my father had deprived me of family relations, it has left me with only knowing half of who I am, and has given me a different family name than the one I otherwise should have. It has also deprived me of a family heritage and family health history. I cannot answer health surveys or questions from doctors acurrately which can adversely affect my health. I was also unable to answer all of the questions in our recent national census.

I still love both of my parents as much as I ever could, and the death of my father when I was 10 was the single most devastating loss of my life. Yet this love does not fill the void both myself and many other donor offspring experience as a direct result of being donor cenceived. While I can understand how heart wrenching infertility is now that I have children of my own, what many recicpients need to also understand is that they are making very serious decisions on behalf of this child that will grow up into an adult with feelings of their own. Their emotional pain of infertility may be passed on into emotional pain for their child.

The most important thing we hold dear in our society, is that of our family.Yet due to donor conception practices and the laws of SA, I like thousands of others will never know who my own flesh and blood is.

How do I tell MY children??????

That I am donor conceived and have two fathers?
That the man I do not know who I am descended from will never be known to them. That they will never know their "grandfather" and other members of his and therefore their family.

It is hard enough explaining to adults that the man I call dad is not my father, but trying to explain it to a 3 year old is another kettle of fish. Now 3 year olds are generally pretty smart and have already worked out a lot of things in the world.
She knows that Mummy's Mummy is Grandma and Mummy's Daddy is Poppa. She also knows that Daddy's Mummy is Nanna, and although we've never said it she knows that the man associated with Nanna who she calls Pa is not Daddy's Daddy. As she has specifically asked me who and where my Daddy is.

First it breaks my heart that the man who raised me passed away when I was 10 and that I cannot take her to meet him. I have not even begun to try and explain life and death yet. All she knows is that the man in the photo is my Daddy. But this will not last long as she is in the period of "why?" in her life - everything is "why?".

She is also very switched on in regards to inheritance. She has the same hair and skin as Daddy but the same eyes as Mummy. It wont take her long before she realises that Daddy does not look anything like the man in the photo and that he also does not have the same hair, skin and eyes as Nanna. She will want answers to questions. Then I will have to try and explain why I have two Daddy's, both of whom she will never be able to know. This will also not fit into her picture of the family unit, after all she sees that all of her friends have one Daddy and one Mummy - so how can her Daddy have two? She wants her grandfather, but I cannot give her one. Sure I can give her the man who raised me through the way he raised me and the values he instilled in me but she has no tangible link to him as they are not biologically related.

My children will not be able to fill out family trees at school or know from which country they are descended from. They will not know what inheritable diseases affect their father's side. Even their name does not match the blood they have.

It is bad enough that this has happened to me but seeing that it already affects my own children breaks my heart even further.

How We Tell The Offspring

The way children are currently told ties in with existential debt and the need for feeling grateful about being alive and conceived in this manner.

The current trend in informing offspring of their conception origins is that the child is made to feel as though this was a special thing, that they as a result are special, that the mum and dad went to extraordinary lengths to have them and that some person gave them an enormous gift.

While some of these factors are true, by presenting it in this fashion it already imposes a mode of thought on behalf of the child. The mode that they should be happy or proud about their origins and that they already are indebted. They are now burdened with an existential debt and are required to feel grateful. Because as the proponents of DC and in particlular those that support anonymity state that to not approve of your own conception and not express gratitude is to deny your own existence. This is one of the worst examples of the ends justifying the means I've ever seen.

By informing children this way, it does not allow them to fully explore their own thoughts and feelings on the matter. They do not have to feel happy about the way they were conceived at all and the fact that they may never know their blood relations and find out who they are themselves.

They have had someone decide on their behalf before they were even conceived which biological connection will be important to them and which one can be simply disposed of. It is a perfectly natural human emotion to be angry or upset over this.

Yet they are not allowed to explore these emotions because it may be upsetting to mum and dad while at the same time contradicting the notion of them having to be grateful.

Certainly it is far better to inform the offspring of their origins and allow them to explore their own emotions on the situation and support them in every way. It does not mean that they do not love their parents any less.

It also does not necessarily mean that all offspring will feel this way, some may still be very happy with their conception. It just means that we should not be conditioning the children to believe that there is only one way in which they should feel.

I used to feel grateful for my existence and even proud of being donor conceived. But now that my own children have opened my eyes, my mind and my heart to what was missing from my own life was I able to truly see what my origins had deprived me. Nothing can fix the sorrow I feel for my own loss and the loss experienced by other donor conceived children.

The Role of Fathers?

While reading a newspaper article about single women who sort out fertility treatment (access to donor sperm) I started to think about the role that fathers play in the raising of the child and how that role is viewed in todays society.

It would appear for these women at least that the role of a father doesn't mean much at all. I was and I'm sure many other fathers (and perhaps even mothers) would be dismayed at the notion that a father is now redundant and we have no value to add to raising a child. I would argue that we have an equal role to play in raising a child. This is not from a providing masculinity or testosterone behaviour and imprinting perspective but just from purely a genetic connectedness standpoint. Every child should be raised by both genetic parents. While many other parents, single, divorced, same sex etc can and do make good parents, the fact remains and research data also shows that children raised by both genetic parents in a traditional non-conflicting marriage provides the best outcomes for the children.

So what role do fathers play? With many relationships I'm sure that what each person brings is unique and is different to the couple next door and the couple down the street. There can and never will be a specific set of criteria encompassing abilities or jobs to do. As a father and someone who is also donor conceived I'm not entirely sure as to what my role is or the role of the social fathers I had were. It seems to be an intangible factor that just by being with and raised by your flesh and blood (both) produces better outcomes, and I'm sure it is a better outcome for the father too. That is the joy of being a major part of your own child's life. There is the theory that a biological father would put more effort into looking after their own gene pool than would a social or step-father type arrangement. While there is certainly some element of truth to the selfish gene theory I can't help but think that there is something more to it than just that. Particularly from the emotional state of the child, to which there would appear to be a comforting reassurance from seeing themselves in their father not just in looks but behaviour and interests that are just not there in a non-biological father relationship. And while there appears to be no set role for a father except to just be there and love and care for their child, qualities which social fathers can also possess, the fact remains that in the best interests of the child it is of paramount importance that this is done by their biological father.

It would appear for some women at least (those that wish to embark on single parenthood) that men are merely sperm manufacturing plants. They are deliberately denying this child a relationship with their biological father that will adversely affect the child's wellbeing. The biological urge to procreate seems to override any concerns these would be mothers have for the emotional and physical health of their child which is a baffling scenario. Whether they are ignorant of or just ignore this fact is irrelevant.

The rights of the most vulnerable party, in this case the child, should always override those of the parents. In the instance of children, they have an inalienable right to know their biological father and mother. Yet many would be parents would like to believe they have a right to "have" children. I would strongly argue that no one has a right to have children. We are not some pet that you can bring home from a pet-shop and then "own". No one should use children to fulfill their own desires at the expense of the child. To be able to have children in your life is a privilege. Unfortunately it is not one that everyone can enjoy.

I have something intangible that I provide my children that no other man or woman can or will be able to provide. It is something that was also denied to me.
The role of a biological father cannot be replaced.

Father's Day?

For once it would be nice to be able to celebrate this day with my genetic father.

Father's Day is a lovely day if you know who your father is.

What does it mean to be "Donated"?

What does it mean to be "Donated"?

And more specifically how does this term affect how we view ourselves and the
practice of donating gametes?

I have heard numerous donors (both egg and sperm) equate it to donating blood. I find this quite disturbing in that a human life, a person who carries this person's blood and genes into the next generation can just be "donated" away. Providing eggs and sperm is so dissimilar to donating blood that these donors must have a need to convince themselves of this arguement so that they can reconcile the concept that a child who is no different from any of their other children from a biological origin perspective can be given away without another thought. It is also quite demeaning that we as human beings are subject to the conceptualisation of being equated to consumable body parts such as blood.

I also feel like these donations are being viewed as a charitable cause. We are not a charitable donation that can just be given away to some "needy" person/couple, like the taxable monetary gift that many people make that also makes them feel good about themselves as caring human beings. There are strings attached and when these strings get severed (the biological connections), we don't function psychologically as well anymore.

A donation is a gift, it is a giving away. We have been given away by one or more of our biological parents. To be not wanted by ones' flesh and blood, our kin, and given away is painfull. I'm scarred.

The mirror in their eyes.

Every time I look into the eyes of my children I see the reflection of myself. Not literally, but as a reflection of my genes (looks), behaviour and personality. In each of them there is some of me. Half of who they are comes directly from who I am.

Sometimes a child will look more like one parent over the other, or may act more like one parent, or may be a more even mix of the two. For my own two children they have both definately received a lot of my features (poor souls). They both look remarkably similar to each other at the same age and to myself at that time. From this it would be easy to draw a conclusion that I would look not too dissimilar to my donor, as while I do have certain features from my mother there are a lot of differences acquired from my donor which would appear to have been passed down to my own children. I am able to draw some comfort from this assumption, yet it really does not help in anyway in dealing with the issues I have with identity, heritage and genetic connections. While my son is too young to draw behavioural cues from, my wife often says "she is so your daughter" when referring to something my daughter has done or said. This gives me great joy in the connection that we both have but it also provides me with great sorrow because I am unable to see the same thing between myself and my genetic father quite simply because I do not know him. The reflection of my donor in me is hidden by this severed connection, unlike the reflection of myself in my daughter.

I have a reflection into the future but no reflection into the past.

Would I ever donate?

Would I ever donate?

Quite simply - NO!
Although I must admit that during a time before my views changed dramatically (eg the birth of my first child), I did seriously consider it. I don't know why, but maybe I thought I could help other couples who were infertile in an altruistic fashion. I am so glad I never followed through with this.
The reasons are numerous.
Even if I had stated that I wished to be a known contactable donor, there is no guarantee that the child would even be told about their origins by his/her raising parents. While this is in itself fundamentally wrong, it also takes away the right of the child to know their genetic relations. I believe that every child has a right to know who their father is and this is a concept that is also supported by the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child. Even if this child was told of their conception, was aware who I was and did have contact with me, I would not be able to help feeling as though it was a child that I had adopted out and that it was a child that I had lost. I think now being a father that this would break my heart.
By taking away their genetic father, it removes their sense of "place". Donated children frequently remark on how they seem to not quite fit in the family picture.
I could not deprive this child and my own children the right to know who their siblings are. Not only that but they all should have the right to grow up together, not separated. They are brothers and sisters, not cousins or some other more distant relation.
Not only should all children know who their genetic parents are, but I also believe (being a father myself) that all parents should know, love and nurture all of the children that are unmistakeningly connected to them. Adopting out your gametes deprives not only the child but yourself.
I do not want to perpetuate and support an industry and a practice that intentionally removes the childs genetic relations, family health history and heritage.
Finally, I do not want others to have to experience what I have, and am currently going through.

Gratitude and Anger?????

Gratitude and Anger?????

I've read numerous communications between those of the Donated Generation and those that would appear to be proponents of donated gametes (whether that be recipients, donors, wanna be eithers or just people with an opinion). Many of the arguements against donor conceived people and their quest for the truth about their origins and family history seem to be focussed on the offspring having to be grateful for their existence and that their anger over the removal of their biological ties is ill conceived and that it only causes harm to their parents and other couples seeking to have a family of their own.
For myself being a scientist I have tried to take a scientific look at all the arguements for and against donor conception from a non-biased perspective even though this would appear impossible given that I am one. Given the fact that I used to support donor anonymity until I had my own children may perhaps show that I have been able to look at both sides fully.
The notion that we are ungratefull for our existence is a bizarre notion in that even though donor conception is the reason we are how we are, it should have no bearing on our ability to have thoughts and feelings on the circumstances and results of the practice. It is an easy arguement to make for those who do not wish to think too deeply about all the issues involved. These people are asking us to accept a life debt for our existence when no-one else is burdened with such a debt. So don't say we are ungratefull as this should never enter into it.
The anger that we often express is rarely directed at certain individuals but rather the practice and the outcomes which were clearly overlooked in the pursuit of altruism and the desire or need to have offspring. While I can clearly understand the desire to have ones own children being a father myself, many seem to believe that it is a right of which it should never be. If donors or recipients do not like what many of us are expressing then perhaps they should look at what they are doing more closely. If there are increasing numbers of people saying that there is something wrong with the practice then perhaps maybe there IS something wrong with the practice. I apolgise if this steps on peoples dreams of altruism and family bliss, but don't let your own perspective blind you to the perspective of those that should really know - the offspring. We are not doing this for some sort of perverted fun but because we have had our basic human rights violated.
I grew up in a loving family. I have no grudge against my parents. I can understand why they did it, even though I'm extremely dissatisfied with what has been deprived of my personna and that of my own children. My mother (my father is deceased) understands why I am searching for my donor and my quest for the truth, and is fully supportive of it. I loved the father that raised me just as much as I could have loved my genetic father, but this love and relaitionship has absolutely no impact on the desire to find out who my donor is.
It would appear that those that state we are ungratefull for our existence are unable to come up with any logical arguement for why donor conception practices should continually deny a person (not just a child) their true identity, family connections and heritage.

What's in a name?

What's in a name?

Family names have been used in society for well over a thousand years and has been used to designate who we are, who we are related to, where you were from and in some instances it designated your vocation or place in that society. For the vast majority of societies this has been paternally driven.

For myself, my surname is Adams. But this is not who I really am. Especially when you consider that the father that raised me changed his name from Helbig to Adams as a child when his mother remarried. So from this instance there is already a change from a geographical naming perspective from a lineage descended from Germany to that of one descended from Britain. This is irrespective of the fact that my father was definately of German blood and not British. So in effect this name change does not designate who he truly was.

I am not an Adams, nor am I a Helbig. I am not related to either of these families in any way other than what is written on my birth certificate. I do not have Adams or Helbig blood running through my veins, I have another man's, another family's blood inheritance. I have a genetic link to some faceless and nameless individual.
I do not look like my father or any member of his family in any shape or form, I do not even act like any of them. Even though I carry their name, it is only in name, as from all other perspectives it is as if I was adopted by this family. In some ways it almost seems fraudulent to even call myself an Adams. Perhaps the importance I place on family names is more important being a male, as traditionally (but not always), when a woman married a man she accepted his family name.

We all have a genetic family tree that remains unbroken throughout the ages. Half of my genetic family tree is missing. My paternal link to my history has been forcibly removed by a medical procedure.

Perhaps I should remove my family name and just be known as Damian. This naming dilemma is compounded in my children. The effects of donor conception practices do not stop with one generation, but continue on into the next and subsequent generations.

My very brief story:

My very brief story:

I was conceived 33yrs ago at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in 1973 as a product of donated sperm making me a member of what I like to call the Donated Generation. My father who raised me passed away when I was 10, and this remains as the single most devastating event in my life. My mother remarried from which I have a “half” brother. I am currently married with two children of my own, a daughter who is 2 years and a son who is only 4 months old.

I am a medical researcher with a strong background in the biological sciences including genetics. I have also worked for and with clinicians who are involved in reproductive technologies and or the obstetrics and gynaecological fields. I feel that this career path has shaped my perspectives on the issues of donor conception.

I have always known about my conception and I consider myself very lucky to have been told from an early age. It did not change the love I had for my father and it made it easier to deal with and accept as it was always a part of my life and is not something that I all of a sudden had to come to terms with. As a child my father was my father, it did not matter that we were not biologically related. I was always too busy being a child than to stress over my origins. While I was always interested, it was never an overriding concern.

The family unit is recognized as the greatest factor in our lives. It is important to recognize that sociological and biological fathers can be two separate things. And while a family is what you make of it, there is however a basis to the phrase “blood is thicker than water”. Genetic connectedness, are ties that bind and is a factor that needs to be addressed more closely when analyzing ART.

It is this genetic connection that I have been trying to locate during a 15 year search for information. It started off as a search for non-identifying information and to obtain a family health history. At one point it would have been of great benefit to have had a family health background to help assess a condition that I had. During this time I have encountered numerous brickwalls and hurdles. The fertility units that I contacted over several years provided differing accounts on my records, with them being lost, being destroyed or of unknown location. This was very frustrating as was their answering or not answering of certain questions I posed to them. Only through contact with individuals that were conducting the practice at the time was I able to track down my mother’s treatment records. These documents contained a donor code, but no records to link this code to a donor. Apparently, donor records were not kept.

While I started off searching for non-identifying information as I at one time agreed with anonymity – I have now changed my perspective and I wish to know who this person is. This view changed after the birth of my daughter. It was a moment not too dissimilar to the moments that parents often report experiencing when they hold their child for the first time and stare into their baby’s eyes. It was an acceptance and knowledge of a biological connection. That no matter what might happen in the world, we would always be father and daughter. No one or no thing would ever be able to change this. This biological connection made me think about how I would feel if my daughter grew up not knowing who I was. This was a concept I could not bear to think about, but instead I applied it to how this notion did in fact mirror my own life. While events transpired that I do not know who my donor is, and I may never know, there will always be a biological connection that can never be broken.

I believe genetics are an important part of our identity with research showing a link between many personal traits and the parents. It also gives a link to a family history, who we are, where we are from. The nature versus nurture balance that has previously been argued is moving towards nature all the time as we realise what an important part genetic inheritance has in our lives.

For myself personally it will complete the picture of who I am. Half of myself is missing and it is difficult to put into words how this information would affect me, but it is something that I am also trying to do for my children so that they too can know who they are. It is something that has become increasingly pressing since their birth.

As a health issue it would also allow me to take precautions against any hereditary diseases such as heart disease or diabetes.

I do not wish to invade the donor's private life. I don’t need another father, another family, money or emotional support from him. These are things I already have. I would just like an opportunity to find out who I am. With the key word being opportunity, as currently I have none.

I recognize that his donation may be a secret from his own family and one that may adversely impact on his family. I do not wish to burst this bubble. Just as I have a half brother from my mother’s second marriage, I too may have half siblings from his own family or even from other donations.
It would be nice to think that all siblings should have the right to know of each others existence even if they do not wish to meet.

When ART was started they did not fully understand the psychosocial implications particularly from the perspective of the child. The donated generation can go through the exact same psychological issues of identity as do adopted children yet adopted children are catered for via legislation and are entitled to know their parents identity but donated children do not. This can be corrected by moving to an identifiable system (at least it would be there even if not required because the child may not want to know who their donor is). Measures should also be put in place to aid those already affected through the use of a voluntary register. As it is voluntary it does not infringe on anyone’s rights to privacy.

The rights of the donor is often overlooked and is something that I am also concerned about being a father myself. People’s attitudes may change with time and they may no longer wish to remain anonymous. They may be open to disclosure of more information or even contact but the current system does not facilitate this. The donor should be able to know that the child is healthy and well cared for.

And while I may find it difficult to call my donor by the word father as this is the name I give to the man who raised me. I still like to consider myself as someone’s son.

The Dark Side of Donor Conception in South Australia.

The Dark Side of Donor Conception in South Australia.

While there is often great joy for a couple suffering the pain of infertility when they are finally able to conceive a child through the use of donated gametes, it can also damage the emotional wellbeing of this child with a pain and sense of loss that will continue to linger on.
Recent media reports have focused on proposed legislative changes to assisted reproductive practices in respect to the prohibition of the use of anonymous sperm or egg donors. These reports often convey the views of the clinics providing these services, recipient parents and the donors who provide their gametes. Why do they not show the views of the child that has been created insuch a manner? Do their views not count? Are they not the ones that are the most affected? These children do not stay children for long and there arehundreds in South Australia that are well in their 20's and 30's that have had a lifetime to form their own views on how their conception has affected them. But no one has been asking them about current practices and the archaic legislation that surrounds it. Anonymous donation is still practiced in this state, yet all current literature, international law, and national and state governing bodies all recommend that anonymous donation be prohibited and that all donors should be identifiable and contactable. This is viewed as being in the best interests ofthe child from both a physical and mental health aspect. South Australia's own reproductive technology act states that the welfare of the child is paramount, but it also provides protection for a donor's anonymity. These two statements in the legislation are mutually exclusive.
Australia is a signatory on the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child which states that every child has the right to their identity,including nationality, name and family relations. These rights are currently being ignored under anonymous donation practices.
The National Health and Medical Research Council in their guidelines on reproductive technology has recommended that all donors be identifiable and that recipient parents understand the significance of the biological connection between the child and their donor.
Our own South Australian Council for Reproductive Technologies has also recommended that all donor offspring have access to identifying information on their donor.
One of the main factors that infertile couples state for using donor gametesis that they want the child to at least be genetically related to one of them. This need for a biological connection is immense and is well supported by the clinics and literature. Yet the practice of anonymous donation is hypocritical in that it totally erases the biological connection between the offspring and donor. The need for this connection is still there, the ability to access it has been destroyed. The great loss of identity, heritage, family health history, and connection to biological relations both to the donor and siblings is something that does not go away. These emotional, health and social issues that affect these offspring have often been compared to those experienced by adopted children. Certainly from one aspect, the donor offspring has been adopted by the infertile partner. The rights of adopted children to have their true identity and knowledge of their family has been recognised by law. Is this not a discrimminatory practice that is occuring against donor offspring? By treating infertility in this current manner we are transferring the pain associated with it to the next and subsequent generations.
So why do our clinics still follow practices that contradict all current recommendations and that also tramples on our international human rights obligations? Because they are protected under current outdated legislation. Their arguement that they will lose donors is based on unsupported fear, especially when this has not been the case in other countries such as New Zealand that have been following identifiable donor practices for several years. Surely then if we are to truely uphold the rights of the children, then we must only recruit those donors that are willing to be identified. If the clinics have to change their recruiting demographic and there is a drop in donor numbers, then this is a far better outcome for the child who will otherwise have to live with the burden of an unjust system and a sense of loss. When the concept of family and everything that it entails is the most dear thing that we hold to our heart, why do we deny the Donated Generation their family in its entirety? We say that blood is thicker than water, but thanks to the practice of anonymity I don't know whose blood flows through my veins.