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Donor
identity can be extremely important to some clients, while
of little or even no concern to others. Some clients feel
that they have a right to know everything about a donor including
their identity before they use them, some would like the donor
child to have access to the donor when the child becomes an
adult, while others wish the donor to be as anonymous as possible,
and to keep the use of a donor a well guarded family secret.
All of these positions are understandable and reasonable depending
upon circumstances and the ability of the parties involved
to understand and deal with the possible consequences of knowing
or not knowing donor information. At the very least, we think
most everyone agrees that having a basic medical-family health
background on a donor can be very helpful if not very important,
so that information is always available on all donors.
Donors
are of course, on the other side of this equation. In order
to recruit donors with the highest quality sperm, we target
younger men with our donor advertising. Most of our donors
are college aged, 18-26 years old, and none are recruited
above the age of 35. Many donors have yet to find or marry
spouses and or establish families of their own. As a donor
in this age group, most have no idea how a future spouse,
child, or other family member may react to the knowlege that
the donor may have unknown children in the world produced
through what the donor saw as his generous act of donation
years ago. Many of our donors participate in the program for
the money, many because they have known someone with a fertility
problem, some because it just seems like the generous thing
to do. No donor can actually know what the implications of
his participation can be to him or his family in the future,
so the act of donation is indeed a very, very generous act,
even with the minimal monetary reward.
Just as
our clients have many different positions on donor identity
release, so do the donors themselves. Many donors want total
anonymity, and indeed, many donors would not ever participate
without this level of security. This option of anonymous participation,
if unavailable, would shrink the donor selection pool very
considerably. Other donors may be open to the idea of revealing
their identity. Revealing ones identity to recipients can
be very satisfying for both parties when reasonable demands
for information are involved and left at that, or it can turn
into a nightmare if either party would make unwelcomed contact
or demands from the other. In many ways, donor identity release
can be a can of worms. Once opened, there is no way to stop
the information from being provided to others that may have
other than reasonable motivations and actions. So, even though
we occassionally have donors that are open to release of their
identity at any time, the actual release of this information
is restricted by the Cryobank to the children produced through
the use of their donations once the children have reached
legal age. This is currently termed "known donor",
or "identity release" donor by many in the donor
industry. Because a donors' personal situation will indeed
change over the years, there can be changes in the donors
attitude and openness to future contact. In general, past
experience has shown that many donors become more open to
contact with children as they age and become more mature,
established, and stable in their own lives. Of course there
can be no guarantees that a donor will even be alive or available
for contact 20 years into the future.
In order
for a legal aged donor child to initiate possible contact
with their donor, they must approach the Cryobank with the
donor ID number and other information that the Cryobank can
use to authenticate the request. We are not able to reveal
information in client charts to third parties for any reason
unless specifically authorized to do so, so we would be unable
to refer to charts to reveal donors ordered by their parents.
The cryobank will at that time make a reasonable search for
the donor, and if the donor is found, to then inform the donor
of the contact. At that time the donor would then have the
option of reciprocation to that contact and to choose the
level of contact that he is comfortable with at that time.
If the donor can't be easily found, the donor produced child
would have the option of paying for a more exhaustive professional
search for donor contact information, but this search would
not be guaranteed in any way and would still be run by the
Cryobank as the third party.
When a
donor completes information for participation in our program,
we ask the potential donor many questions regarding how he
feels about releasing his information to recipients of his
donations. These questions are meant to reveal the donors
attitude towards future contact by recipients and the progeny
produced through the use of his donations.
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