Postcard Submitted Anonymously: Being Sold

This was submitted anonymously to a site - PostSecret (http://postsecret.blogspot.com/) - that you may or may not be familiar with. People anonymously send in their secrets via postcards. Some are uploaded to the website each Sunday while others are used in books. I think it's important to note that the person who created this postcard had access to paperwork from her donor indicating that his reason for providing his sperm was "money." This caused her pain, given that he did not mention any other motives.

While I do not feel envious of adoptees myself, I did want to share this person's message. I must agree that it is an odd, and somewhat disturbing, feeling to realize that your biological parent, your own flesh, sold you. I, too, said this once on a Canadian radio program. After really thinking about this topic as a result of my own intense search, I came to the realization that my sperm donor had basically been paid $25 to create me and sever all ties forever. Did this cross his mind when he 'donated' (or, more accurately, sold) his sperm? No, probably not. Again, I know and believe that most participate for a combination of money and altruistic reasons.

Yet this leads to the point that many of these men who are recruited for sperm donation are young and naive. With all of the pleas to young men and women to help a family in need yet little discussion of different points of view of the resulting children, I am not convinced that donors are fully aware of what they are doing. Furthermore, the current terminology does not help. By referring to them as "donors," we are minimizing the reality that they are being PAID to CREATE life. Why do we continue to do this? I think it's because "donor" is a much more appealing and comfortable word for the donors, recipients, clinics, and society in general that enables status quo.

Radio Lab - NPR

Thanks, Ari, for a great program about the "history of sperm."

One of three segments discussed my search, including interviews with two incredible men who went through DNA testing with me. Each segment is 20 minutes. You may listen to them here: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2008/11/21

"Fatherhood" (2nd segment - starts at 22:30)
In this segment, Ari Daniel Shapiro introduces us to a young woman and her years-long search for the man whose donated sperm was used in her conception. Kathleen has thought long and hard about what fatherhood means, about the psychology of genetic relationships, and about the complicated emotions tied up in family, responsibility, and identity. Her persistence and determination brought her into strangely intimate contact with complete strangers, who had some surprising and unexpected reactions to her sudden appearance in their lives.

The other segments included:

"Sperm" (1st segment)
Why so many sperm? We turn to the animal kingdom to answer that question, which lands us on a tour of sperm battles in ducks, flying pig sperm, and promiscuous whippoorwills. We ponder the necessity of males in a world where sperm can be frozen and kept for all eternity. And we sit quietly in a stark sonic space with a widow struggling to keep some essence of her husband alive.

Matthew Cobb takes us back to 1677, when Anton Van Leewenhoek first identified sperm and there was much talk of souls and miniature men residing in the seminal fluid. Upon observation it became clear that there were an awful lot of those little guys that never turned into babies! Jad wonders: why so many sperm? Bird-sex specialist Tim Birkhead, of the University of Sheffield, explains what effect imperfect monogamy has on reproductive strategies. Then sperm physiologist Joanna Ellington and her pig Hazel give us some insight into the obstacles sperm must overcome in their odyssey from their male originator to their female destination.

"Deep Freeze" (3rd segment)
Genetics researcher and author Steve Jones speculates on how males got their start, and then presents us with a biological mystery: Why have males hung around so long? Males don't appear to be biologically necessary. In fact, some species, says Steve, have done away with them entirely. But surely males have some use? Steve makes one argument for why we need men ... or at least a freezer full of sperm. NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce tells us how news of a new technology allowing the extraction of sperm from a man posthumously impacted a grieving New York widow named Leisha.