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As identification of donors has become easier, many DI children have stepped up the search for their missing fathers. In response, countries like Australia, New Zealand, and the UK have federally mandated that records, including donors’ names and contact information, be released to their children when they reach age 18. Though intended to improve accountability, the initiative has resulted in a huge decline in donors from these nations.

Critics of the anonymity code have applauded the move, arguing that full disclosure will ease the identity crises that DI children face throughout their lives. Their stories resemble the searches routinely conducted by adopted children, but unlike the adopted, DI children can’t use any federal laws to help them find their biological parents. In America, since few legal edicts exist that deal specifically with donor insemination, fertility clinics and banks take complete control of the process. According to their detractors, fertility clinics wield this power irresponsibly, putting profits ahead of the best interests of the children they help to create.

The public notion that infertility is a personal ailment to be overcome with a medical procedure like DI ignores the complexities that arise whenever life is created and destroyed. Custody and liability disputes concerning DI children can become sticky problems when banks claim they are protecting the donors from unnecessary litigation. For the clinics, of course, fertility is a business. With demand on the rise, clinics must keep their shelves stocked, and U.S. sperm banks have vigorously opposed the kinds of mandatory information-release policies that have troubled their foreign counterparts. Instead, clinics have implemented free market alternatives, like paying donors more if they allow for the release of their personal and contact information.

But even if legislation requires sperm banks to release information to DI children, how can the law assure accountability? For instance, how can a sperm recipient be certain that her donor was indeed a healthy young M.D. and not a middle-aged high school dropout with diabetes?

The controversy could even be boiled down to simpler motives. Banks would rather not submit information because it involves less bookkeeping, while DI recipients would prefer to not know the identities of the donors in order to preserve the parent-child bond. Perhaps clinics are trying to avoid becoming the mediator in a confusing push-pull conflict between desperate mothers, evasive donors, and probing children.

In the United States, at least, a good case can be made that greater governmental regulation is necessary. Laws requiring clinics to release parent information would certainly reduce the number of sperm donors, but that is inevitable. The trend towards personal information and stricter supervision is a stronger case than any legal liability cases concerning 18-year olds. It is important that the transition from bank level policies to State or Federal standards for information release be smooth, but immediate. If policies are not relaxed under the current model, individuals like our 15-year old will be forced to find donors on their own, leading to potentially embarrassing and distressing situations. In the end, economics may be on the banks’ side. Rising demand in the market will force prices higher, and an acceptable compromise price may be reached between donors and parents.

Regardless, the human aspect of the procedure cannot be ignored. It would be unfair to both parent and child if we were to allow a private institution to erect a wall between an individual and a piece of his or her identity. After all, it seems only natural that donor- insemination children would like to locate their biological parents and understand their heritage. We owe these children answers to their childhood questions.