Being Donor-Conceived is Unique
The life of a donor-conceived person is a unique one. It tends to be isolating and most donor-conceived people have never met another person like them. Little studies have been done on what the ramifications and the life long effects of a donor-conceived person are. When Googling studies on donor-conceived people most link to studies done on adopted children. Most of the time the adoption studies can fit into what a donor-conceived person feels like but it is not quite the same. Adoption studies say that a child that is told after the age of 3 that they are adopted is a late notification, yet it is common practice to tell parents of donor-conceived children to never tell that child or anyone else.
Really the donor-conceived community is new. Donor conception really didn't take off till the late '70s and wasn't socially acceptable until the gay and lesbian community started using donor conception to conceive in the early 2000s. So really you have a whole generation or two of people that are 45 or younger that were forgotten about, that no one really thought about. Doctors gave a happy couple, or sometimes a single mother by choice, a baby After the mother became pregnant a second thought was never given about how the child that was just created would feel. Really from the late '70s to the late '90s no one even spoke about donor conception. The children that grew up knowing they were donor-conceived were far and few between. The vast majority of children that are donor-conceived and were born to heterosexual couples didn't know they were not the biological child of both of their parents until a medical situation arose, forcing the parents to "come clean" or they took a commercial DNA test and received the shock of a lifetime.
As a donor-conceived person myself I have the right to know 50% of my genetic makeup. I also have the right to know the 25% of my children's genetic makeup. The fertility industry is a $54 billion a year business that the government does not regulate. A nail salon has more regulations than the fertility industry. Because of this, the fertility industry is almost like the wild west. There is very little accountability, research on donor-conceived children, and proper education for intended parents which leaves the door wide open for fraud, mix-ups, and improper education on how to deal with a child that is donor-conceived.
I plan to first take on the fraud part of the fertility industry. To work with state lawmakers to make laws that protect the intended parents and the donor-conceived child. Currently only two states have laws against fertility fraud. It is important to me to bring attention to the fraud that has taken place for over 40 years and let people know they are not isolated incidences. Then I want to work with other donor-conceived individuals and organizations like We Are Donor Conceived to change laws on donor anonymity.
Really the donor-conceived community is new. Donor conception really didn't take off till the late '70s and wasn't socially acceptable until the gay and lesbian community started using donor conception to conceive in the early 2000s. So really you have a whole generation or two of people that are 45 or younger that were forgotten about, that no one really thought about. Doctors gave a happy couple, or sometimes a single mother by choice, a baby After the mother became pregnant a second thought was never given about how the child that was just created would feel. Really from the late '70s to the late '90s no one even spoke about donor conception. The children that grew up knowing they were donor-conceived were far and few between. The vast majority of children that are donor-conceived and were born to heterosexual couples didn't know they were not the biological child of both of their parents until a medical situation arose, forcing the parents to "come clean" or they took a commercial DNA test and received the shock of a lifetime.
As a donor-conceived person myself I have the right to know 50% of my genetic makeup. I also have the right to know the 25% of my children's genetic makeup. The fertility industry is a $54 billion a year business that the government does not regulate. A nail salon has more regulations than the fertility industry. Because of this, the fertility industry is almost like the wild west. There is very little accountability, research on donor-conceived children, and proper education for intended parents which leaves the door wide open for fraud, mix-ups, and improper education on how to deal with a child that is donor-conceived.
I plan to first take on the fraud part of the fertility industry. To work with state lawmakers to make laws that protect the intended parents and the donor-conceived child. Currently only two states have laws against fertility fraud. It is important to me to bring attention to the fraud that has taken place for over 40 years and let people know they are not isolated incidences. Then I want to work with other donor-conceived individuals and organizations like We Are Donor Conceived to change laws on donor anonymity.
Comments
Post a Comment