Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T22:53:56.044Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 8 - ‘It’s All on Their Terms’

Donors Navigating Relationships with Recipient Families in an Age of Openness

from Part II - Children’s and Adults’ Lived Experiences in Diverse Donor-Linked Families

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 July 2023

By
Leah Gilman  and
Petra Nordqvist
Edited by
Fiona Kelly ,
Deborah Dempsey  and
Adrienne Byrt
Fiona Kelly
Affiliation:
La Trobe University, Victoria
Deborah Dempsey
Affiliation:
Swinburne University of Technology, Victoria
Adrienne Byrt
Affiliation:
Swinburne University of Technology, Victoria
Get access

Summary

In recent decades, a number of jurisdictions have moved towards more open practices in donor conception, including legislating for the rights of donor-conceived people to trace their donor. In such contexts, the donor’s role is ambivalent. They are not expected to enact a parental role in relation to people conceived from their donation. However, they are expected to ‘be available’ for some form of relationship. Our UK-based research found that donors typically navigate these dual obligations by articulating a moral commitment to ‘following the lead’ of the families they help to create and particularly the people conceived from their donation. In this chapter, we illustrate how sperm and egg donors imagine and enact this commitment but also show that it is easier to say than to do. The embedded nature of donors’ personal lives and relationships create challenges in letting others decide their role in relation to recipient families.

Keywords

opennesspolicy‘good donors’sperm donoregg donorauthorityrelationalityembeddedpersonal liferelational networks
Type
Chapter
Information
Donor-Linked Families in the Digital Age
Relatedness and Regulation
 , pp. 138 - 153
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Almeling, Rene. 2011. Sex Cells: The Medical Market for Eggs and Sperm. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Applegarth, Linda D., Kaufman, Nancy L., Josephs-Sohan, Mitasha, Christos, Paul J., and Rosenwaks, Zev. 2016. ‘Parental Disclosure to Offspring Created with Oocyte Donation: Intentions versus Reality’. Human Reproduction, June. https://doi.org/10.1093/humrep/dew125.Google Scholar
Besson, S. 2007. ‘Enforcing the Child’s Right to Know Her Origins: Contrasting Approaches Under the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the European Convention on Human Rights’. International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family 21 (2): 137–59. https://doi.org/10.1093/lawfam/ebm003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BICA. 2019. ‘Guidelines for Good Practice in Fertility Counselling’. York: BICA.Google Scholar
Blyth, Eric, and Farrand, Abigail. 2004. ‘Anonymity in Donor-Assisted Conception and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child’. The International Journal of Children’s Rights 12 (2): 89–104.Google Scholar
Carsten, Janet. 2000. ‘“Knowing Where You’ve Come from”: Ruptures and Continuities of Time and Kinship in Narratives of Adoption Reunions’. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 6 (4): 687–703.Google Scholar
Cosson, Barbara, Dempsey, Deborah, and Kelly, Fiona. 2021. ‘Secret Shame – Male Infertility and Donor Conception in the Wake of Retrospective Legislative Change’. Men and Masculinities, 25 (3): 497–515. https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X211038329.Google Scholar
Crawshaw, Marilyn. 2008. ‘Prospective Parents’ Intentions Regarding Disclosure Following the Removal of Donor Anonymity’. Human Fertility 11 (2): 95–100.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dempsey, Deborah. 2010. ‘Conceiving and Negotiating Reproductive Relationships: Lesbians and Gay Men Forming Families with Children’. Sociology 44 (6): 1145–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dempsey, Deborah, Nordqvist, Petra, and Kelly, Fiona. 2022. ‘Beyond Secrecy and Openness: Telling a Relational Story about Children’s Best Interests in Donor-Conceived Families’. BioSocieties 17: 527–48. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41292-021-00225-9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freeman, T., and Golombok, S.. 2012. ‘Donor Insemination: A Follow-up Study of Disclosure Decisions, Family Relationships and Child Adjustment at Adolescence’. Reproductive Biomedicine Online 25 (2): 193–203.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Frith, Lucy. 2001. ‘Beneath the Rhetoric: The Role of Rights in the Practice of Non-Anonymous Gamete Donation’. Bioethics 15 (5–6): 473–84. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8519.00255.Google Scholar
Gilman, Leah, and Nordqvist, Petra. 2018. ‘Organizing Openness: How UK Policy Defines the Significance of Information and Information Sharing about Gamete Donation’. International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family 32 (3): 316–33. https://doi.org/10.1093/lawfam/eby014.Google Scholar
Grace, Victoria M., and Daniels, Ken. 2007. ‘The (Ir)Relevance of Genetics: Engendering Parallel Worlds of Procreation and Reproduction’. Sociology of Health & Illness 29 (5): 692–710.Google Scholar
Graham, Susanna, Mohr, Sebastian, and Bourne, Kate. 2016. ‘Regulating the “Good” Donor: The Expectation and Experiences of Sperm Donors in Denmark and Victoria, Australia’. In Regulating Reproductive Donation, edited by Golombok, Susan, Scott, Rosamund, John B. Appleby, , Richards, Martin, and Wilkinson, Stephen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ilioi, Elena, Blake, Lucy, Jadva, Vasanti, Roman, Gabriela, and Golombok, Susan. 2017. ‘The Role of Age of Disclosure of Biological Origins in the Psychological Wellbeing of Adolescents Conceived by Reproductive Donation: A Longitudinal Study from Age 1 to Age 14’. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 58 (3): 315–24. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.12667.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Klotz, Maren. 2014. (K) Information: Gamete Donation and Kinship Knowledge in Germany and Britain. Vol. 32. Frankfurt: Campus Verlag.Google Scholar
Mason, Jennifer. 2004. ‘Personal Narratives, Relational Selves: Residential Histories in the Living and Telling’. The Sociological Review 52 (2): 162–79.Google Scholar
May, Vanessa. 2013. Connecting Self to Society: Belonging in a Changing World. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Mohr, Sebastian. 2018. Being a Sperm Donor: Masculinity, Sexuality, and Biosociality in Denmark. New York: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Nachtigall, Robert D., Becker, Gay, Szkupinski Quiroga, Seline, and Tschann, Jeanne M.. 1998. ‘The Disclosure Decision: Concerns and Issues of Parents of Children Conceived through Donor Insemination’. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 178 (6): 1165–70. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0002-9378(98)70318-7.Google Scholar
Nachtigall, Robert D., Tschann, Jeanne M., Szkupinski Quiroga, Seline, Pitcher, Linda, and Becker, Gay. 1997. ‘Stigma, Disclosure, and Family Functioning among Parents of Children Conceived through Donor Insemination’. Fertility and Sterility 68 (1): 83–89.Google Scholar
Nordqvist, Petra. 2014. ‘The Drive for Openness in Donor Conception: Disclosure and the Trouble with Real Life’. International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family 28 (3): 321–38.Google Scholar
Nordqvist, Petra, and Gilman, Leah. 2022. Donors: Curious Connections in Donor Conception. London: Emerald Publishing.Google Scholar
Smart, Carol. 2007. Personal Life: New Directions in Sociological Thinking. Cambridge and Malden: Polity Press.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×