Monday, January 14, 2008

Donor or Father ?

The other night I saw a post on the Yahoo DSR group by Tom, a donor conceived adult, that was part of a thread addressing the ongoing debate and fact that donors are indeed fathers, biological fathers at a minimum. Tom stated the following as part of a larger post:
My point is this: *all other things being equal* a biological parentwill be better than a non-biologically related parent. And quite significantly better too.

Something about his post made me respond with the following:

We live in a strange world all of us on this site. For each of the heterosexual families out here they certainly would have preferred to not go through infertility and the subsequent choices they made but here we are. Whether it was right or wrong no longer matters now that we are here.

The trick is now dealing with the deck we have created and determining what is best for the kids. I try my best every day to bethe best father, dad, whatever term you want to apply to my kids. Sometimes I do well and others I screw up and forget they are only 5 and 3 and expect to much of them but I believe in all cases I am acting as their dad through and through.

I was struck by Tom's use of the phrase "all other things being equal". Yes without a doubt the sperm donor is the natural father to my children. If he had married my wife and produced these kids with her and raised them I am sure he'd be a great father to him. But he did not and was not part of that particular equation.

His part in the process so far has been genetic and the kids have grown thus far due to a mix of his genetic and my nuture. Which one has played a greater part? The question is irrelevant and unfair to them and to each man involved. If we look at it in that manner it makes it a competition and does not serve any purpose but force the children to look at me as competing with a ghost.

If the kids someday look to find this man and create some sort of relationship so be it. But the fact is at this point his contribution has been in the creation and what his genes bring to these kids. I am not discounting this man as his contributions help define who these children are but I still believe until these children define him as the father that decision is their alone.

Monday, January 07, 2008

Tom Cruise: A DI Dad ?


According to reports of Andrew Morton's new unauthorized biography of Tom Cruise, baby Suri is the product of donor insemination using frozen sperm of late Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.

I am not even sure what to say to this. I am doubting the veracity of the story but it sounds a bit like the plot line from the Boys from Brazil albeit without little Suri duplicates dispersed around the world.