CommentaryThe dangers of being a sperm donor
Introduction
In the debate about donor anonymity, few people have really considered the question of why many donors do not want their donor status revealed and why they want to remain anonymous. When a person helps someone, why does he fear that others find out? Sperm donation is a socially recognized and legally framed practice in most Western countries. Still, it is not fully accepted in daily life: it is not openly discussed among friends and family, and men do not tell others when they donated or have children by donation. Few people want to use donor spermatozoa, want to donate spermatozoa or want their partner or son to donate spermatozoa. Public campaigns to promote sperm donation are rare, while such campaigns have been set up for organ and blood donation. The reluctance to organize public campaigns may be explained by the lack of consensus about the social and moral acceptability of the practice. The ambiguous attitude towards sperm donation shows in two central causes of harm to the donor: stigmatization and attributional fatherhood. The wish to avoid this harm is a significant reason why many potential donors do not want to donate and why many donors do not want their donor status to be revealed and/or their identity to be disclosed.
Section snippets
Stigma and attributional parenthood
The best known cause of harm is the stigma attached to sperm donation (Haimes, 1993). This stigma is connected to certain aspects of the donation: sexuality (masturbation) and payment. Male masturbation is associated with moral disgrace and shame (Nordqvist, 2019). In particular, the connotation with a reprehensible form of sexuality (masturbation) is mentioned by donors as a reason not to talk to others about their donor status (Kalampalikis et al., 2006; Kirkman, 2004). The financial
Donor status and donor anonymity
Two steps can be distinguished in the possible harm to sperm donors. The first step is when a man's donor status is revealed. Contrary to what many people believe, being outed as a donor may be harmful. Being outed as a donor shows certain similarities with being outed as gay. Western societies are supposed to accept homosexuality and oppose discrimination in any form but discrimination against homosexuals is still very much a reality.
For many donors, anonymity may be the way to guarantee that
Avoiding harm in the future
How can this harm to donors be avoided? The macro solution would be to educate society in order to eradicate the genetic connection rule for kinship so that fatherhood would no longer be attributed to donors. Since this goal is unlikely to be reached in the near future, the focus should shift to a micro solution. The first option has proven its effectiveness: non-disclosure of the donor status and anonymity. However, this solution can no longer be guaranteed due to the existence of the genetic
Conclusion
Although sperm donation is seen as a socially accepted practice, the practice is still struggling against the ubiquitous rule in the rest of society in which fatherhood is linked to genetics. In other circumstances, siring children without rearing them is regarded as highly irresponsible. This paper has shown that not everyone in society accepts the exceptionalism of sperm donation in this regard and that some keep seeing the donor as a father. These people may blame the donor for not living up
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