The following message was posted on the Donor Sibling Registry Yahoo Group. This type of attitude from a sperm bank will prohibit all parties from sharing important genetic and medical information with each other. Who’s best interests are they serving? Certainly not the families and donors who wish to connect. As long as there is DNA testing, the sperm banks can not be promising anonymity to sperm donors. It is simply a thing of the past. Cryos says that it is “immoral” to search for one’s donor. I think it is “immoral” to keep genetic relatives from making mutual consent contact.
Hallo!
Today I read a horrible article about Cryos International. The manager Mr Ole Schou in Denmark has now stopped to inform the donors at Cryos what donor numbers they have. The reason is the DSR. He wants to make it impossible for donors to connect with their biological children.
The article that I have tried to translate (I am not danish myself…) is about a 14 year old danish girl who wants to find her
father.
Regards Asta
Original articles/program in danish newspaper/television;
http://www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk/artikel/300338:Etik–Paa-jagt-efter-donor-137
http://www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk/artikel/300300:Etik–Donorboern-leder-efter-soeskende-og-faedre
rough translation:
On the U.S. site Donor Sibling Registry more than 20,000 people
currently is seeking the man who donated seed for their children or
their biological father. In the typical situation, there are parents
who have had a child with donor semen and are now looking for other
children who have received semen from the same donor, and thus are
genetically half siblings. Others are adults, donor children, who are
looking for their donor father – and part of these inquires come from
Denmark.
– It is a very unfortunate development and an international community
problem. That means we have to take our precautions and make
anonymous donations even more anonymous, “said Ole Schou, who is
director of the world’s largest sperm bank, Cryos in Aarhus.
On the U.S. site users usually uses donor number to seek the donor or
any half sibling. Therefore, Cryos now has stopped to inform donors
about their numbers – so if they are sought
, they do not know they are the one who people look for.
– It is a pity, because the trend now is that recipients would like
to have as many details on appearance, background and training as
possible, but now we are instead forced to go the other way and make
things more foggy, “said Ole Schou.
One of those who seek her father is 14-year-old Ina Rosdal from
Skagen. Her father was a Cryos donor, and she has only his donor
number.
– I find it strange that we donor children are completely without
rights, as opposed to adopted children, who can trace their
biological parents. I find it sad that the law is such that the
ability to trace my genetic property is taken away from me, she says,
she wants to know what her biological father looks like, and what he
is interested in.
Search Services that are working to trace relatives, typically put up
for adoption, predicts that the future awaits big challenges when
donor children in large numbers will seek their genetic fathers. In
Netdetektiverne (Net detectives) has already received the first
inquiry – and had to give up.
– We tried in every way, but there was nothing to do. Some cases can
not be solved. I think there will be more who need to see a picture
of their father or hear about his temperament. But the possibility is
the cut off, says project leader Kim Henrik Larsen.
Michael Loft Nielsen believes that as well. He is president
of “Association of donor children and parents.” (Denmark)
– One can imagine that there will be more cases in a few years, where
some children will seek their donor fathers, he said.
But the children – and especially their social parents – should stay
away from this, “said Ole Schou from Cryos.
– It is immoral that women who at the time, has agreed to an
anonymous donor, begins to advertise for him. What the children are
concerned, you need to tell them that it is a disability they must
live with. The conditions under which they are here.
Each year around 400 Danish children are born to the world as a
result of sperm from an anonymous donor.