"Open adoption" -- which was a new and upending concept just a few decades ago -- is now the norm within the US. Of the estimated 14,000 to 18,000 domestic infant adoptions each year, 55 percent are completely "open", meaning there is ongoing and direct contact between the birth family and the adoptive family, according to a report released this week by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute .
Another 40 percent are "mediated", meaning non-identifying letters and photos are exchanged using an adoption agency or an attorney as a go-between. Only the remaining five percent, therefore, are "closed" adoptions, where the birthmother surrenders all future contact.
This represents an evolution in adoption circles "From Secrecy and Stigma to Knowledge and Connections," as the report's title suggests. New thinking in the realms of genetics, psychology, sociology, and law all came to the conclusion that everyone is better off -- the child, the birth parents, the adoptive parents -- when there are fewer secrets.
But change is a haphazard, inconsistent thing, and near-assumption in the whole of the adoption world that children have a right to know where they came from has not gained the same toehold in the other processes by which children find parents. Most states still have laws that protect the identity of sperm donors from offspring who want to find them. Egg donors too are generally anonymous.
Should they be?
Elizabeth Marquardt thinks not. A fellow at the Center for Marriage and Families at the Institute for American Values, a controversial think tank centered around the idea that families with a mother and a father are best for children and society, Marquardt's specialty is the study of assisted reproduction, specifically the effects of egg and sperm donation on the children who are conceived.
One much talked about report of hers was "My Daddy's Name is Donor: A New Study of Young Adults Conceived Through Sperm Donation" which concludes:
...on average, young adults conceived through sperm donation are hurting more, are more confused, and feel more isolated from their families. They fare worse than their peers raised by biological parents on important outcomes such as depression, delinquency and substance abuse. Nearly two-thirds agree, "My sperm donor is half of who I am."
And just last month, Marquardt wrote an article in the Atlantic, titled "Do Mothers Matter", which turned her lens on the children conceived using egg donors and womb surrogates. Wouldn't they have the same questions and rights as adoptees, or children conceived with donated sperm? she asked. Or, more bluntly: aren't parents who go through the process of hiring an egg and/or womb donor essentially "helping themselves to other people's children?" If full disclosure is expected for a child who was adopted after conception, why is that not the norm for children who are, in effect, conceived with the intention that they will be "adopted?" Add in the reality, Marquardt points out, that many children conceived using gamete donors are born to single or same sex parents, and you find yourself wrestling with the additional question of whether it is right to conceive a child who will never have a mother (when donor eggs are used) or a father (donor sperm.)
A swath of parenting bloggers decisively disagreed with the idea that these donors have any of the rights or responsibilities of parents. "To imply that a biological mother is somehow more important than the mother or father who is actually changing your diapers, reading you bedtime stories, and offering you unconditional love is absolutely ridiculous," writes April Peveteaux over at The Stir.
Agreed blogger Sierra, on Babble:
I find Marquardt's framing of this issue as one of children "conceived never to know their mothers" patently offensive. If I chose to donate eggs or carry a surrogate pregnancy, I wouldn't be the mother of that child. The child's parents would be the people who raised and nurtured her, who got up in the night to care for her when she had a nightmare and struggled with her homework night after night. It's not the birth that makes me a mom, and it certainly isn't the ability to produce a healthy egg. It's everything that comes after.
But isn't that the same argument in favor of closed adoption for all these years? That it is not the genetics, but the actual parenting, that makes a parent? And haven't the decades taught us that it is, in fact, a mixture of both? Yes, adoptive parents are the child's parents. But biological parents are not secrets to be buried, but building blocks to be embraced.
It should follow then, that the next new norm would be open donation, in the paradigm of open adoption. The technology makes this seem new, but it is really a lesson that's already been learned. More knowledge, more understanding, more communication...these things don't weaken the ties between parent and child. They strengthen those bonds instead.
Most civilized nations have banned anonymous gamete donation; only the US continues to regard genetics as a business model with ample supply and demand dictating the morality or lack therof. It is time that we consider the children produced by assisted reproduction not as property manufactured to fulfill adult needs for parenting, but as human beings who have the same rights to know their origins as every other person.
If that strikes some here as being unsensitive to their unresolved need to have offspring, consider that to those of us who were denied knowledge of who we are and where we fit into the fabric of humanity consider it insensitive to hide our origins.
I personally know several adopted adults who are products of rape; they bear no shame and share the desire to know the truth and resent those who tried to hide it.
Are kids conceived via egg donation going to have questions? Of course they will. It’s human nature. Some are going to care about this more than others.
Personally, I feel strongly that how a child is conceived has nothing to do with how they are going to “turn out” or grow up as adults. It’s what happens after they are born.
So let me ask you Elizabeth, after reading all of this, and being a mother yourself, do you really think kids conceived via egg donation or embryo donation are going to miss their egg donor or to take it a step further their genetic parent?
Marna Gatlin
Founder, Parents Via Egg Donation
Adoption is an institution that finds homes for children who were unlucky enough to have to be separated from their real families.
"Donation" (for money?) is a market to provide children for adults who want them.
That is wrong. That is immoral. That is a form of human trafficking where people are bought/sold and traded.
I say this as one of them.
Just because we're nice and love you to your face doesn't mean we're not profoundly hurt by what you did.
Donor offspring eventually come to understand the scientific definition of parent as being the source, cause or origin of something else. They also come to understand that in general we are responsible for dealing with the outcome of things that we cause and they will come to understand that most people take responsibility for raising the offspring they create or they relinquish their responsibility in a court approved transfer of parental rights. They will come to understand that court process as a way of protecting the the parents and adoptive parents from coercion and the child from being bought into or out of their genetic family. It will be difficult to understand why their genetic parent was not also made to follow this protective process. It will be difficult to understand how their genetic parent would want to help a total stranger by giving them their genetic child when they probably would not give a stranger the keys to their car for an hour and would give more care and consideration to finding their neighbor's child a baby sitter than they did finding a caregiver for 18 years of their offspring's life.
A Child, however, is better served by an And paradigm, the opportunity to integrate all her parts into her identity. Else the parents -- by adoption or by donation -- split the baby. A person whose identity has two parts, that of biology and that of biography, should not have to have pieces of herself hidden because of Either/Or thinking.
"More knowledge, more understanding, more communication...these things don't weaken the ties between parent and child. They strengthen those bonds instead." Hear, hear.
(I am a mom to two via open adoption and the author of the upcoming book, The Open-Hearted Way to Open Adoption.)
Lori Lavender Luz
You raise some very interesting points. As you may be aware, in Canada, the British Columbia Court of Appeal heard a case brought by Ms. Olivia Pratten about the right, if any, of donor-conceived people to know identifying information about the donor.
Canadian and American views regarding assisted reproductive technologies differ in many ways, one of which is as follows: in Canada, there is no such thing as embryo adoption, only embryo donation. While open donor agreements do exist and perhaps should exist, I do not equivocate gamete or embryo donation with adoption. Adoption may be our closest experience thusfar to gamete or embryo, but recipients of gamete donors are not "helping themselves to other people's children" as alleged by Marquardt; rather, gamete donors are helping parents conceive their children.
Sara R. Cohen
Fertility Law Canada at Raviele Vaccaro LLP
www.fertilitylawcanada.com
twitter @fertilitylaw
facebook www.facebook.com/FertilityLawCanada
Marna Gatlin
Founder, Parents Via Egg Donation
I would love to learn more about PVED.
Sara R. Cohen
Fertility Law Canada at Raviele Vaccaro LLP
I have a question. Do you think we will see gamete donation really move toward an adoption module? I hope your barometer is right because as I said I help parents find their kids given up through gamete donation and vice versa I know that the people I'm currently helping would be thrilled if the doctor that handled the procedures would just be good sports and let them see their files and get each other's names.
Do you think it should be or is going to be a requirement in order to participate as either a donor or a consumer? Or do you think it should be more of a voluntary thing left up to the people purchasing the gametes the way openness is left up to the people who want to adopt. It is really common to have open adoptions now but it is not legally enforceable I think the parents are really at the mercy of the adoptive parents as they do secure full parental authority when the adoption is finalized
If parenthood does not turn on reproduction but rather on the daily grind of nurturing, then why would you say an infertile female and/or a sterile male "conceive their children" together? Did you mean to say healthy individuals conceive children with donors? It just struck me as an odd statement because if they could conceive children together, they would not need someone else to give up rights to their offspring in order to become parents; they'd just make their own offspring and call it a day.
If the people we call donors have no claim to parenthood for lack of nurturing, shouldn't the people we call parents have no claim to conception for lack of reproduction?
Thank you for your comment. I don't mind when people disagree with me - I think these are important conversations we are having, and I'm glad we are having them!
I used the term "conceive their children" because with gamete donation, the intended parents are arranging for the egg to be fertilized with the sperm whereas with embryo donation, this fertilization process has already occurred prior to the involvement of the intended parents. However, my point wasn't about conception really - I wouldn't take issue if you instead used the term "have their children" instead.
In Ontario, the jurisdiction in which I reside, we do not have legislation that requires gamete donors to give up their rights to children born from their donated gametes. Gamete donors often do give up their rights and obligations by contract, but alternatively, there are situations where Ontario courts have found that children concieved by donor offspring can have more than 2 parents where two intended parents and a donor have been involved in the child's life and act as a parent.
I don't believe in one size fits all families.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/sperm-donors-24-children-told-fatal-illness-medical/story?id=14115344#.T2yZkXggq-x
One thing I was disappointed to read was that there's research suggesting that donors tend to be forgotten after they've provided their gift. As a recipient of donor eggs, I can confidently say that I will think of my donor and her generosity often, even if I don't have a child as a result of the donation.
Warmly,
Marna Gatlin
Founder
Parents Via Egg Donation
I fiercely disagree with anyone -- and yes, the Center is among them -- who would take data like this and conclude that donation should not be permitted because it allows the creation of families with same sex or single parents. That , in my opinion, is an illogical misinterpretation and misuse of the data. A logical conclusion, though, would be that children have the right to know their own story. Because the piece of Marquandt's argument -- that children conceived with donors often (though not always) wonder, and feel unmoored by not knowing -- is hardly unique to her. Most studies of children of donors find the same thing.
That said, your question makes me see that I should have gone into this more in the post itself. Thank you.
"on average, young adults conceived through sperm donation are hurting more, are more confused, and feel more isolated from their families. They fare worse than their peers raised by biological parents on important outcomes such as depression, delinquency and substance abuse. Nearly two-thirds agree, "My sperm donor is half of who I am."
Rather than simply stating the facts about what they found, this language puts a very direct value judgement on what these children and what are feeling (they are "hurting more"; they are "doing worse than their peers"); there is nothing objective about the language used here -- it is purely subjective. And to reiterate this starkly conservative framing -- from researchers, as you point out, that have a very keen interest in limiting the rights of same sex and single parents -- is truly destructive. The Right does well enough spreading their awful frames around the world; they really don't need our help doing it.
That said, I do believe that all children have the right to know their origins, whether adopted, or conceived through sperm or egg donation. So I'm totally in your corner on the central point here -- I just wish you'd not tried to validate the Institute for American Values in making it.