The number of donor-conceived people is growing due to increased acceptance of reproductive assistance. Donor-conceived people face unique issues, and parents choose donor material for various reasons. Some donor-conceived individuals may not know their genetic truth, but elective registration in donor registries can connect them with half-siblings and donor information.
A donor-conceived person is someone who was conceived with the assistance of donated eggs, sperm, or both. The number of donor-conceived people is growing in many regions of the world, due to the increased acceptance of reproductive assistance in the conception process, and as a result, donor-conceived people are attracting interest from the media, society and members of the medical community. There are a number of issues unique to a donor-conceived person that have provided interesting and fruitful avenues of exploration in a wide variety of fields, from psychology to ethics.
There are a number of reasons parents choose to use donor eggs, sperm, or both during conception. In the first and perhaps most obvious case, parents use donated material when one or both parents are unable to produce viable sperm or eggs due to infertility. Gay and lesbian couples also use donor eggs or sperm, as do some couples who may be concerned about passing on genetic predispositions to disease and other health problems.
By convention, the names of the recipient parents are usually printed on the birth certificate of a donor-conceived person, usually without any indication that the child is the result of genetic material from the donor. As a result, it is possible for a donor-conceived person to live their life completely unaware of genetic truth, which some people consider to be potentially harmful. Information could leak, for example, causing emotional anguish from prolonged concealment of the truth, or a donor-conceived person could unknowingly marry a half-sibling.
Parents who choose to disclose the origins of their donor-conceived children usually do so out of a desire to be honest with their children about their genetic makeup and past. They may also believe that it is important for a donor-conceived person to be aware that she may have half-siblings. Where donor information is available, parents may choose to provide it so their children can learn more about their genetic history, and in the case of anonymous donors, parents may provide a donor number that the donor conceived the child can use to enroll in a donor registry.
Elective registration in donor registries is open to any donor-conceived individual who wishes to connect with other donor-conceived individuals. Though such registries, children can sometimes identify half-siblings, assuming they’ve also registered, and sometimes they can also get more information about their donors. The ever-increasing size of the donor-conceived community has encouraged a proliferation of such registries and, in some regions, there has been a push for centrally based registries to ensure that information is collected in one central and secure location.
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