The content on or accessible through Medpedia.com is for informational purposes only. Medpedia is not a substitute for professional advice or expert medical services from a qualified health professional.
Read more
Medpedia Answers
(Other)Medpedia Answers is a platform for asking and answering questions about health and medicine. Read more.
Should children be told that they were "donor conceived"? Would it ever be ethical not to tell them?
Should children be told that they were "donor conceived"? Would it ever be ethical not to tell them?
If they are to be told, at what age should that be? Should an attempt be made to identify the donor? Should the donor be allowed or encouraged to visit the children? When?
If the donor is a woman donating eggs and not a man donating sperm would there be a difference in answers to the above questions?
How would the questions be answered if the questions applied to a surrogate "mother" who only carried the pregnancy to delivery resulting from implantation of the fertilized eggs of a husband and wife? ..Maurice.
If they are to be told, at what age should that be? Should an attempt be made to identify the donor? Should the donor be allowed or encouraged to visit the children? When?
If the donor is a woman donating eggs and not a man donating sperm would there be a difference in answers to the above questions?
How would the questions be answered if the questions applied to a surrogate "mother" who only carried the pregnancy to delivery resulting from implantation of the fertilized eggs of a husband and wife? ..Maurice.
asked Sep 07 at 12:13PM in Other
-
0Votes
answered Sep 08 at 01:41AMChildren should be told always how they have been conceived. If this was by a donor, children should have the opportunity to find the identity of the donor. It must be the choice of the child to inquire after the donor's identity or to contact the donor. The donor should be available for contact, but the choice to make contact or not should be the child's choice.
In the eighties of the former century, male domors in the Netherlands had anonimity. As a medical student, I have made a journey to Sweden, to become a non-anonymmous sperm-donor. In the the end, it turned out that I could only become a 'fresh' donor, which would mean that I would have to live in Stockholm, Sweden to be in donor. We haven't gone that far. Since then, The Netherlands have moved into a non-anonymous sperm donor system (but I have not been a donor).
As a psychodrama-therapist I can only but emphasize that children should know their inheritance or at least how they have been conceived. Transgenerational thems frquently emerge in psychotherapy as in psycho-oncology and can be addressed in a better way if the past is known.
I feel that children should be told as early as possible, as a very young child. They should not grow up in a state of cognitive misinformation that does not fit their existential state.
Sign-in
to post an answer to this question.
Related Questions
in
Other
- Concerning tissue transplantation, could there be a person who is a "universal donor," as type O-neg is a universal donor? This is a complicated research-oriented question, and it might not belong in this section. Please contact me if I should move it.
- Should the father (anticipated organ donor) and daughter (anticipated organ recipient) be informed that genetic testing fails to show a biologic relationship?
- Is there any ethical difference between a "Saviour Sibling" and the delivery of an unplanned for child?
- How much, as a patient, would you NOT want to know about your medical illness and treatment?
- When patients have throat cancer, do doctors typically recommend not to quit smoking?
- What are the ethical implications of egg donation?
- Will a kid with an "enlarged heart" (he's now 16) "grow into" it, as he grows, or will the condition affect him later in life?
- Are the rights of a critically injured accident victim who was "fighting for life" being violated by the attending physician, fearing patient harm, by not telling the patient that there was a "strong possibility that she might not survive"
- Progyluton usage
- If you were a medical student, how would you respond to the 3 scenarios?
- »» See All
The content on or accessible through Medpedia.com is for informational purposes only. Medpedia is not a substitute for professional advice or expert medical services from a qualified health professional.
Read more
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/health/06donor.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=incest&st=cse
discusses a popular donor who has contributed to 150 births and there is concern that eventually incest might occur between the children of various families if there is no publicized identification of which children are offspring from which single donor. ..Maurice.