News in Brief: Hard Economic Times=More Egg and Sperm Donors

We all know the economy is rotten.   One consequence seems to be that that more people are interested in become sperm and egg donors.   This spike is reported pretty widely on the web, including here.

It does make some sense.   People need money.  They might be willing to do things to get money now that they were not willing to do a year ago.   It could be sell old family heirlooms or it could be donate sperm or eggs.    (Please note, I’m not saying this is a good thing, just that it is a logical consequence.)  Someone who wouldn’t have sold sperm or eggs a year ago might consider doing so now.

I want to tie this story back to a post from a couple of days ago.   In that earlier post I allowed as how you could probably increase the supply of sperm donors willing to agree to a particular condition (in this case, that their identities would be released to any resulting child when the child turned eighteen) by offering to pay the sperm donors more.

If, as is reported, the number of people willing to donate sperm and eggs is now rising, I think that supports my earlier supposition.   The market for sperm and eggs (or for sperm and egg donors) does seem to respond to simple economic rules.    Paying a higher price will bring a larger number of donors.

News in Brief: Fourteen Children, II

I’m picking up from yesterday’s thought.

Someone said more or less what I was thinking about yesterday.   It’s in an AP story that has showed up in a lot of papers, but not always with the quote I care about.   Here’s a version that does have it.   And here, to make it easy, is the quote (which is attributed to Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania):

“To say all you need is cash and the will to have more kids should not be a sufficient standard to access services,” he said. “It is insufficient for adoption. It isn’t sufficient to be a foster parent. Why would it be sufficient to run down to the fertility clinic to get embryos transplanted or super-ovulated?”

He’s speaking in part in response to the assertion that since the mother isn’t/won’t be on welfare, there’s no issue with her having all these kids.    But beyond that, he’s asking an interesting question.

Should we screen who gets to be a parent via IVF?   If it makes sense to screen who gets to be an adoptive parent or a foster parent (and it surely does), then why would you draw a line at IVF (or ART more generally)?

And even beyond that (and not this is not Professor Caplan), why don’t we screen people generally before they have kids?   It’s unthinkable, right?  (Perhaps also unworkable, but that’s another thing.)

Why is it unthinkable?  That’s an important question because I think that it is by working back from that unquestionable  “no” that we get to the “no qualifications for ART.

News in brief: Fourteen Children Under Eight

I’m sure many of you read or heard about the woman in California who recently gave birth to octuplets.   It turns out she already had six children under the age of 8.   So now she has 14 children, all under the age of 8.   It does sort of catch your attention.  But what to think about it or, in my case, say about it?

After some thought, this is what strikes me.  In all the furor over this (and it really has attracted a lot of attention) I find myself struggling not to be (too) judgmental.   Whatever we may think about other people’s choices to have or not have children, I think we do generally recognize they are just that–other people’s choices.   There may be criticism to level at the doctor(s) who apparently (if the LA Times is right about this) implanted eight embryos.   But this was the mother’s choice.

Of course, this “choice” is only an option if you can afford it.   IVF (if that is what it was) or even less sophisticated fertility treatment is quite expensive.   So one can choose to use all the wonderful reproductive technology we have developed freely if, of course, you have the money (or perhaps a very fine insurance policy.)   

A Bit More About Sperm Donors

Here are a few additional thoughts to add to yesterday’s post. Some are things that struck me about the article that spurred me to write in the first place.

The article notes, as I have earlier, that it appears that when you require the identity of a sperm donor to be made available to a resulting child, even if that is 18 years in the future, you cause the number of men willing to be sperm donors to shrink dramatically.   The case in point is the UK.   Apparently the United Kingdom is experiencing a severe sperm donor shortage. It is attributed to a change in law requiring the identification of donors.

I’d like to ponder this for a few moments.   There are sperm banks in the US that offer donors who agree to be contacted when the child is 18.  I don’t know whether these banks have trouble getting a reasonable number of donors to agree to that condition, but it would be interesting to find out.  

Sperm donors and the power of naming

I return here to a question I’ve discussed before:  Should sperm donors be fathers?   Or should we call them fathers?   (These really are two different questions.) While various answers are possible, my answer, as I think I’ve said before, is no.

Imagine a married couple who cannot conceive ordinarily because the man does not produce sperm.  They procure sperm from a donor and have a child.  They raise the child.   They are the child’s parents.  The donor is not the father.

This is not to say that the child should not learn of the donor’s existence.   This is not to say that the donor’s identity should be hidden.  Rather, if the donor is to be acknowledged and identified he should be acknowledged and identified for what he is–a donor.   In particular, I object to him being labelled “the biological father.”  A biological father is, after all, a father.  

News in Brief: Is there an “anti-same-sex parenting” movement?

I’ve blogged in the past about various attempts, via legislation or initiative process, to prevent lesbians and gay men, either singly or in pairs, from becoming parents.   I wanted to do add a brief thought on that topic.

First  I really probably should more specifically say this is about efforts to prevent lesbians and gay men from becoming adoptive/foster parents.   A lesbian who becomes pregnant and gives birth will be a mother (unless she happens to be in a surrogate in  a state that does not recognize surrogates as mothers, I suppose).  I’m not aware of any efforts to declare her to be not a mother simply because she is a lesbian.

Similarly, where fatherhood is determined by genetic linkage, a gay man whose genetic material is used to create a child will be a father, just as any other man would be.   This is what is sometimes meant by “natural father.”  

Twins, half-sisters or something else again?

I’m cleaning out my in-box and have come across a bunch of things I flagged to comment on.   On the theory that it is better late than never, I’ll just choose one and get started.

I have my doubts about this story–there is something about the source that does not inspire confidence.    But there’s two reasons to discuss it whether it is true or not.   One is that as I have been reading news reports about unusual family configurations over the last few years, I have come to think that nothing is too odd to be true.   The range of human diversity is truly amazing.  So it may not be true today, but it could be true tomorrow.   The second is that even if this story is not true, it’s a nice little hypo to think about.  Very challenging for me, given some of the lines I’ve drawn in the past.

So here’s the story in a nutshell.   A heterosexual couple wants to have children but is having trouble conceiving.   They employ a gestational surrogate–in this case a close friend.   The doctor involved creates six pre-embryos from the sperm and eggs of the intending parents–the married couple.   Some are implanted in the surrogate.   Some are implanted in the wife/intending parent.  Both women become pregnant and, within hours, give birth to baby girls.

News in Brief: Ohio Challenges for Lesbian Co-parents

You may recall a few years ago a large number of states enacted constitutional amendments prohibiting recognition of marriage between same-sex couples?   (This was in response to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision that said restricting marriage to different-sex couples only was unconstitutional.)  Ohio was one of the states that amended its constitution, and it did so in a rather sweeping fashion.

You might wonder what that has to do with parentage and parenting, my typical topics.  Well you might ask.  

News in Brief: What it means to be a parent

Here is a sad story that graphically illustrates the importance of being recognized as a parent.   I don’t generally write about this–though it is where I began this blog, fourteen months ago.   Generally, I take it as a given that being a legal parent is important.

The parents in this story believed in healing by prayer.   As parents, they are generally entitled to make medical decisions for their children.  When their 11 year old daughter became ill, they turned to prayer for healing instead of a doctor.   Because we are respectful of a legal parent’s rights, they are entitled to do that—up to a point.  This is a case that (should I add “it is alleged”?) went past that point.

The daughter had juvenile diabetes.  While this is a serious condition, it is treatable.   It does, however, require medical intervention followed by medical management.    Untreated, juvenile diabetes can be (and in this case was) fatal.   The young girl–11 years old–died. 

Portable Parenthood

The subject of birth certificates, which I discussed in my last two posts, raises questions of the portability of parenthood.

Most people probably never give this a thought–if you are a parent where you live, how could you not be a parent if you go on vacation to a neighboring state?    But it’s quite clear that this is a real possibility.  And while for many people it might seem a theoretical possiblity, it is much more than that for lesbian mothers and gay fathers, among others.    Here’s the deal.

I’ve noted repeatedly that the rules on legal parenthood vary from state to state.    I don’t think this assertion is open to question.   To take one example, in Washington a sperm donor is, by operation of law, not a father.   In Massachusetts, a sperm donor is a father (unless the sperm is provided to a married woman who acts with the consent of her spouse).   And in Kansas, a sperm donor may be a father if there is a written (not oral) agreement declaring that he is.