Are
You My Sperm Donor? Few Clinics Will Say
January 20, 2006
The New York Times
By AMY HARMON
As soon as she gave birth to healthy triplets, Raquel Villalba knew she
wanted them to meet the woman whose donated eggs had made it possible.
The donor, Marilyn Drake, was just as eager to meet the babies.
But the fertility clinic did not think it was a good idea. Ms. Drake
had grown "overly maternal," the counselor warned Ms. Villalba. Ms.
Drake, in turn, was told that Ms. Villalba would blame her if anything
went wrong with the triplets, so it was best to stay away.
Largely unregulated, fertility clinics have long operated under the
assumption that preserving anonymity is best for all parties. But as
the stigma of infertility fades, the secrecy of the process is coming
under attack, both from parents like Ms. Villalba and from the growing
number of adults who owe their lives to donors.
"I don't understand why these clinics are being so difficult," said Ms.
Villalba, who finally prevailed on the clinic to let her contact Ms.
Drake.
Critics say the industry's preference for anonymity allows it to escape
accountability. How would anyone know if a sperm donor advertised as a
Ph.D. who does not smoke is really a chain smoker with a high-school
diploma, for instance? Or how many offspring a donor might have? With
neither party in a position to verify the number, there may be little
incentive for sperm banks to impose limits on their best sellers -
whose offspring might number more than 100 - leaving children at risk
of unwitting incest.
Many also complain that they are at the mercy of the fertility industry
for important information - for instance, that a donor developed
diabetes in later life - that might signal health risks. And some
critics are pondering the larger question of whether anybody, having
already decided that one's children will never know where they came
from, has the right to bring them into the world. Many children born
from donors are haunted by questions of identity, for which they blame
companies that require anonymity as a condition of buying their sperm
and eggs.
With ever more exotic reproductive technologies looming, like cloning
and the engineering of traits like eye color and intelligence, some
advocates for more regulation say there is a growing urgency to protect
these children from what they call "genetic bewilderment." Guaranteeing
children access to their genetic heritage, they say, could be the
cornerstone of an industry ethics code.
"We need to get it right for donor conception," said Rebecca Hamilton,
a law student at Harvard who created a documentary about searching for
her donor father in New Zealand, "and use it as the basis for the
million weird and wacky decisions coming our way."
The documentary helped rally support for a law there prohibiting
anonymous donation. Several European countries have already begun to
ban anonymous donation of genetic material. Britain, for instance,
began requiring fertility clinics last April to register donor
information, including names, in a database that offspring can view
when they reach 18.
But those regulations have resulted in a steep decline in donors, which
has made sperm banks and fertility clinics here more determined to
oppose mandatory identity disclosure.
"If that was required, it would devastate the industry," said William
W. Jaeger, vice president of the Fairfax Genetics & I.V.F.
Institute in Virginia, one of the nation's largest fertility clinics,
which routinely turns down offspring who ask if their donor might be
open to contact. "The agreement we have is that the donor is forever
anonymous."
Unlike adoption, which requires judicial action to create a
relationship between the adoptive parent and child, parenthood via
assisted reproductive technology is mediated entirely by the private
agencies that supply the genetic material.
While the Food and Drug Administration requires donor agencies to
screen for several communicable diseases, including H.I.V. and
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, it has allowed the fertility industry to set
its own rules regarding just about everything else. About 40,000
children are born each year through donor eggs and sperm, according to
rough industry estimates.
Some fertility experts say they advocate anonymity to protect both
donors and customers from being caught up in the murky issues of
custody and liability. They point out that there is little established
case law on the subject and that states interpret parental rights
differently.
But critics say such policies are as much a shield for the booming
fertility industry, which might suffer from high-profile legal battles
or scandals like one case in the early 1990's when a fertility doctor
in Virginia was found to have fathered as many as 75 children by
inseminating patients with his own sperm.
Pressure from a growing customer base of lesbian couples and single
women, who have to explain the absence of a father to their children,
has led many sperm banks to begin charging more for sperm from donors
who agree to be contacted by adult offspring.
Still, perhaps because assisted reproduction is viewed as a medical
procedure for adults, critics say the children are often forgotten.
Unlike adoptees, who have gained the right to their original birth
certificates, some donor-conceived offspring still do not know how they
came to be. One reason for the pressure on the industry now is that
more parents are telling their children about the method of their
conception.
"Fertility clinics present themselves as simply providing treatment for
people who are infertile, and they make lots of money doing it," said
Joan Hollinger, a leading scholar on adoption law at the University of
California, Berkeley. "There isn't anyone at the table assigned to
think about the needs of any resulting children."
When Eric Schwartzman and his wife were considering accepting donor
sperm in 2001, no one suggested that their children might be interested
in contacting the donor. Now, having listened to the yearning expressed
by some donor-conceived offspring, they want their young son and
daughter to have the option.
"At a minimum, they should be recording the live births and making it
public," said Mr. Schwartzman, 41, a tax lawyer in Manhattan who has
formed a committee to draft a model set of rules for sperm banks, which
might include testing for common genetic diseases, keeping health
records and providing more biographical information, rather than
charging extra for pictures of a donor or a tape recording of his
voice, as is now standard practice.
Critics of donor anonymity do not expect further regulation of the
industry's policies any time soon, but they say they hope market
pressure and public opinion will persuade the institutions to be more
open.
Ellen Glazer, a social worker who arranges meetings between egg donors
and recipients, says both parties often defer to the donor agencies for
guidance. The meetings are often supervised by the agency.
"They'll say, 'This is great, let's go out to lunch' and then they'll
look at me and say, 'Are we allowed?' Ms. Glazer said. "And I'll say,
'You two are engaging in some of the most intimate connection that two
women have, why wouldn't you want to go out to lunch?' "
Ms. Villalba, who told her triplets from the beginning that she had
needed a "helper" to have them, said she wanted them to be able ask Ms.
Drake whatever questions might arise. Ms. Drake, who has two children
of her own, says she feels like an aunt to the children.
The women said the clinic, the Pacific Fertility Center in San
Francisco, initially insisted that they correspond only through its
counselors, who censored identifying information out of their letters.
When the triplets, now 3, were infants, Ms. Villalba asked to be
contacted when Ms. Drake came to donate again, only to find that she
had returned to Southern California. Finally the clinic set up a phone
counseling session with both of them and agreed to disclose Ms. Drake's
address. A letter with pictures arrived a few days later.
The center did not return repeated calls asking for comment, but
experts say many fertility centers follow similar guidelines, under the
presumption that anonymity is the most compassionate approach for a
couple already grappling with infertility.
"We want the recipient to feel she's getting genetic material from the
donor with which she can make a baby that is very much hers," said Dr.
Brian M. Berger, director of the donor egg program at Boston I.V.F. "If
you then try to create a personal relationship between donor and
recipient, it becomes more murky. The donor has an investment which
we'd rather they didn't have."
Some fertility experts say there are more pragmatic reasons, too.
"Frankly I think it's just easier for the industry to do it
anonymously," said Hilary Hanafin, a psychologist in Los Angeles who
frequently consults with infertile couples. "If you're in total control
of the information, it's more efficient and less work."
A few sperm donor offspring have circumvented the system, finding their
biological fathers through ad-hoc Internet registries and long-shot DNA
tests, using the shards of biographical information provided by the
sperm banks or clinics. On e-mail lists like DonorMisconception and an
international group called Tangled Web, they argue that an
institutional change is required.
Even some donors who initially coveted anonymity have said they now
feel the tug of genetic bonds. They, too, have begun to petition donor
agencies to open their records.
"I have this overwhelming desire to meet my genetic offspring," said
John Allison, 46, a software engineer in Tucson who donated sperm for
easy money as a graduate student in the mid-1980's and never had
children of his own. "We'd rent a boat, we'd go fishing. I'd answer
anything they had to say."
Mr. Allison wrote to the sperm bank, Idant Laboratories in New York,
several months ago expressing his willingness to meet, but he never
received a reply.