Donor #150

I watched the PBS documentary tilted, Independent Lens, Donor 150 last night and obviously for me, it was a nail bitter.  Absolutely wonderful and a must see for anyone struggling with the issue of fatherhood and its role in this modern world we live in.

If you haven't heard or seen the film, the premise is the story of half-siblings of the same anonymous sperm donor finding each other through the online Donor Sibling Registry, and than later the story is picked up by the New York Times uniting even more half-siblings.

I will do my best not to spoil the film for you, although I cannot share my perspective without at least hinting at some of the outcomes from the documentary.  So you may want to bookmark this page and come back after you have watched the show.

One of my favorite moments of the film is when one of the founders of the online search registry makes the observation that the sperm banks only care about 3 things; making money, collecting donations, and keeping the donors anonymous.  There is absolutely no regard to the welfare of the children in regards to this industry.  She also comments about the need to remove the secrecy of this industry as that SECRECY IMPLIES SHAME.  

Obviously as a child who grew up without knowing anything about my paternal heritage I cringe at the idea of anonymous sperm donation.  Why we have laws that prevent selling our spare parts such as kidneys for income and yet allow half a soul's DNA to be sold as a commodity is absolutely maddening.  Not that I want to see poor people risk their lives selling their kidneys to the rich, but only to contrast the ludicrous nature of our laws.

There was something else very interesting about this show and it was the expectations these children had of who their paternal father might be.  They speculated a doctor, or artist or some other accomplished individual and of course this assumption makes sense.  It is after all the genius of the marketing of the sperm banks and it has permeated our pop culture via movies and TV shows as long as I can remember.

I on the other hand had very low expectations for my father.  I expected the kind of guy who knocks up a girl and leaves town to be a drug addict, a drunk or just out-and-out bum.  I guess that is marketing too.  My father is anything but those stereotypes, instead he is a clean-cut devout LDS man.  He doesn't drink nor smoke and pays his tithe regularly. He raised a dozen or so children and took them to regularly Sunday school class and taught them the importance of family and fatherhood.  He wasn't supposed to be the guy that abandoned his child and hid from state requested paternity testing.

So the kids of sperm donors expect doctors and children of illegitimate fathers expect drug addicts each for their respective fathers.  But when you pull back at the layers of these two fatherless homes, it really makes more sense that a guy with limited financial means would be the far more likely sperm donor.  And also that the guy pretending to be perfect the far more likely suspect of illegitimacy.  

So that brings me to the other part of the equation here which is the role of the mothers in this anonymity.  Somewhere we got lost in our pursuit of women equality.  Somewhere when society said, "Women can do anything a man can do" that they rolled into that tag line that women could somehow be a father too.  By accommodating anonymous sperm donation, we as a society reduced the role of fatherhood into nothing more than a contribution in a little cup.  Now we wake up to a world facing an epidemic of fatherless homes and wonder why?

Now I will be the first in line to burn my bra for equal pay, but just as I would never want my role of motherhood reduced to the gestation period of birthing a baby, we have to stop behaving as a society as if dad's don't matter.  I suggest we start by recognizing that a child has a right to their DNA records and heritage.

I'd like to amend this post, after reading comments on this blog about the same topic, I agree that the phrase Sperm Donor should be changed to the word Sperm Seller.  It's just another marketing gimmick by the Sperm Banks. 

bearing said...
Ann, why do you persist in calling him a "donor" and in writing that he "donated" his sperm?
By all meaningful definitions he is a seller of sperm. The term "donor" is deliberately used by promoters of this practice to deflect attention from the fact that it's a lucrative business, not a charity, that they run.
Surely you value precision more than obscureness here.
2/14/07, 2:28 PM