The Aerie
According to this article in The New Scientist magazine, an enterprising 15-year-old boy pieced together the secret of his donor father's identity using new services, such as commercial DNA testing.
What a fantastic story, and what a resourceful young man.
As a reunited adoptee and one of the founders of Bastard Nation I have to say that I am encouraged by this lad's ability to unearth his heritage. But I am disturbed that a child undertook all the cost and risk involved in meeting this stranger, and that the donor agency stresses the confidentiality of the adult donor over the emotional and physical well-being of the searching child.
The forgotten member of the anonymous donor contract is the offspring. These persons did not agree to the contract of anonymity. The fact of their conception does not obligate them to adhere to a contract to which they did not agree. Likewise, adoptees all over the world are held to adoption contracts and promises to which they were not a party.
Adopted persons and donor offspring are more vulnerable than other citizens to genetically-inherited vulnerabilities to disease. They do not have contact with blood relatives, increasing the difficulty of locating organ or marrow donations. And these liabilities are handed down to their own offspring, who certainly have no responsibility for the conditions under which their parents were conceived.
Adoption and sperm donorship are excellent and necessary institutions. But for too long agencies have made promises that they have no right making in order to facilitate their business. And they maintain policies of secrecy and privileged information without appropriate oversight: policies that deny the rights of the adult citizens who emerge from their practices.
It is long past time that these organizations revisit the core beliefs that underly their placement policies: that children are a commodity, that secrecy is beneficial to the donor or adoption process, and that they have any right at all to keep from adult citizens the personal and medical information that can profoundly affect the lives of those citizens and their own chilren.
And as this story indicates, if these agencies cannot grow and change they will be bypassed. Mightn't it have been better in this case for the 15 year old to be encouraged to wait until he was an adult, with the understanding that at that time he would have the right to contact his biological father? Wouldn't it have been better if, refusing to accept that delay, he and his parents could have received counselling in concert with the meeting with his biological father? Instead, a child took matters into his own hands and faced all the risks without any professional guidance.
Secrets and lies are not an appropriate foundation for such well-intentioned businesses as donor banks and adoption agencies. It's long since past time that these ill-considered secrecy policies be discarded, and open practices be put into place to protect all parties and guarantee the full rights of everyone involved - including the adults who trace their origins to these organizations.