A Reminder: Don't Donate Sperm

For various reasons, I say men should not donate sperm. In no particular order, here are some reasons why:

1. If someone wants to raise a child, they can adopt. If someone wants the experience of pregnancy, they can adopt a very young child ("extra" frozen embryo).

2. If donating to someone you know, you’re going to feel some sort of "ownership" of that child, which will cause parenting conflicts.

3. Human life should not be treated like a commodity.

4. You should have more influence over and responsibility for someone created with your generic material. You know what it is like to grow up with your genes already.

5. If you bump into your offspring or your offspring bump into each other many years down the line, there is no small chance there will be an intense physical attraction of the sexual sort. Pregnancies can result long before the biological relation is known.

6. Your sperm may be used to make human beings for the purpose of killing them.

7. In man cases, donated sperm is used to condemn a child to a fatherless life, either to be raise by a woman who doesn't have enough time or social skills to do it the natural way, or two women (or perhaps four or more, should the original two split up) – none of these people recognizing the importance of fathers, and perhaps men in general.

8. You may end up on the hook for child support. Yes, it has happened.

9. Resulting children could show up later to wreak havoc in your life.

There's more corroboration of points 5, 8, and 9 in this recent article.

Donor anonymity is given to encourage men to make donations, says Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Sperm banks fear potential donors will get cold feet if they think they may be held financially or legally responsible for the children they help produce, he says. But donors need to understand that "anonymity cannot be enforced," Caplan adds. "When children, for emotional or health reasons, want to find their 'biological' parents, records are unsealed and they do." Kids trump parents, Caplan concludes, and their need to know is more important: "Courts will go this way, as they do in adoption."

Guys, don't do it. Just say no.

My sister-in-law has donated scores of eggs in multiple sessions. She's done doing that due to newly found moral reasons (thankfully). But what complications will she have down the line as a result? Will she, her future children, or my own kids bump into her kids? How many embryos (human beings) were created only to be destroyed or later selectively aborted (murdered)?