Half-siblings, mystery fathers

Men have been selling their sperm to make babies for decades. Close to thirty years ago I knew a woman who confided that she was a product of such a procedure. She may be around forty-five or even fifty by now. A second cousin had her only child through a sperm bank, which she considered superior to what she feared would be another bad marriage, or no-marriage which would mean no child at all.

I can easily understand how a woman would rather resort to having a baby through an "anonymous donor" rather than being childless.

The New York Times has a feature article about the issue, and the new situation wherein the children of these "procedures," a better term than "unions," are discovering each other and meeting, creating new types of family relationships.

I read through the article and was really surprised that the issue of incestuous relationships wasn't mentioned. It's the greatest danger, the most insidious byproduct of men selling their sperm without any way of tracing to whom and their biological children.

It's very possible that people may may meet, fall in love, marry and have children totally unaware that they are siblings, cousins or uncles-nieces, or even fathers-daughters or mothers-son, like Oedipus. There are genetic conditions that suddenly appear, which can be traced to close family members marrying. That's not even taking account that according to Jewish Law certain marriages are forbidden and certain relationships, which result in "mamzerut," a "restricted category of people."

In many families children aren't told that their father isn't their father. It's a very difficult thing for men to admit that their sperm isn't capable of producing babies, and in many cases, the father's and donor's sperm are mixed to create a situation that without DNA testing nobody really knows who the biological father is. None of this was touched on in the article.

The article only focused on the creation of new family groups when all of the relatives of the children of a single donor get together. Today's easy communication, whether SMS or email make contact easy, at least for the kids. The fathers don't seem willing to meet their kids, but who knows? Maybe within the decade they will.