Sperm Donors Beware, Your Children Are Searching
Sperm donor identity is no longer 100% anonymous. OmniTrace Corp, the People Search Experts, offers a new service to help children find their donor fathers. As more and more of these children come of age, they are asking, "Who am I and where did I come from?" This raises concerns for all parties involved.
Boca Raton, Florida (PRWEB) June 9, 2009 -- People conceived by artificial insemination have always believed they would have no chance of finding their sperm donor father. Not anymore. OmniTrace Corp, a leading provider of people search services, announced today a new service to assist these individuals in finding their sperm donor fathers.
"The demand for such a service has been steadily increasing," according to David Betz, President of OmniTrace, "but nobody has been able to develop a successful search system until now."
The idea of donor fathers losing their anonymity raises many concerns not just among donor fathers but all parties involved, including children of donors, sperm banks, mothers and potential male donors. There are many donor fathers who have well over 50 offspring; how much should their privacy be protected? Do they have any rights? Do their children? What if a donor child is sick and needs their medical history?
Various sperm banks are suggesting a national registry but no agreement has been made over what information to include. The American Society of Reproductive Medicine is wading into the situation but is faced with the same dilemma of establishing uniform criteria.
OmniTrace's search system uses the information available on donor profiles, public databases and proprietary genealogical research methods to locate donor fathers. "We actually stumbled upon our first successful sperm donor location when we assisted Wendy Kramer locate her son's donor father; we had no idea the search was for a donor until afterwards. Wendy Kramer eventually went on to establish the Donor Sibling Registry an online service which was one of the first tools developed for children, parents and donors who were looking for each other," stated Chris Maione, Research Manager for OmniTrace.
"Sperm banks are recruiting donors and promising them anonymity," says Wendy Kramer. While that may be true in the U.S. it is not the case for other countries such as the UK, where sperm donors must let their identity be given to their children at a determined age New Scientist.
Many donor children are only now coming of age with many reaching their teens. The explosion in artificial insemination took off in the early to mid 1980s and as the children grew up they began to ask questions - Who am I? Where did I come from? A Cambridge University study team talked to 165 children conceived by this means and found, "that it's best to tell children sooner rather than later how they were conceived, however, it's important to recognize that this may trigger curiosity and they may want to contact their biological parent."
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