Children of Sperm Donors Want to Know More.

In the UK, project Donorlink is uniting the children of sperm donors with their fathers, insofar as that is possible. I cite this here not for any personal problem that I have with sperm donorship, but for the insight that it gives into the needs of the children so produced and for the sense of responsibility of one donor father. The article provides no words from any mother.

Will Calder, is a donor father who "had witnessed the pain of infertility experienced by some family friends." doesn't want to actually meet any of his children "because his partner has reservations - but he wants to help any young people who need information about their biological father." He says: "This is not about what I want out of the game."

Louise Jameson is a child of a sperm donor now in her early 30s. When she found out: "All of a sudden who I thought I was, I wasn't. I cried a lot. It was just completely and utterly destabilising."

"I had a deep conviction that it was simply not right to create people, to hold information about the origins of those people and withhold that information from them. It was basically immoral,"

On acquiring a photograph of her now dead father: "I felt shame just come off me - and I never knew that I felt ashamed. It was literally like something physical leaving me. I just felt I was holding my head up higher."

Some of these women working their way through catalogs of donors might want to think about these sorts of consequences, especially if they plan on bringing up the child alone. In fact, anyone keeping their children in the dark about their father might want to think about it, assuming that their motivations aren't entirely selfish.


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