Ethics Conference: Happy I Attended

Since I got back from Toronto I have not had much time to truly start putting my reactions down to paper. Overall I am very happy I decided to attend. I got to meet a number opf folks I have only corresponded with or have read their blogs or just seen on TV. I spoke as a DI Dad and also updated folks as to where the Yahoo Group is and my desire to start a NY area based in person support group. I only wish I had written out what I wanted to say as I missed a number of points I wanted to make by speaking off the cuff.

It was quite a long day. I started the day by getting up at 330 am here in NYC, leaving at 430 am for the airport, arriving in Toronto at 730am only to return back to New York that evening and walk back into my New York apartment at 930pm.

The conference stayed pretty much focused on ethics for most of the speakers. I will try to give the conference the recap it deserves later this week but it is going to be tough as work is nuts, Yom Kippur is this Thursday and then on Friday my wife and I have our first real vacation in years leaving the kids with her parents for 4 days and 3 nights. God help them all.

Oct 4 Symposium: Putting Ethics At The Core Of Gamete Donation Practice

On Octiber 4, 2008, the Canadian group Infertility Network is sponsoring, in Toronto, an all day seminar titled "Getting it Right - Putting Ethics At The Core Of Gamete Donation Practice". I am attending both as a parent personally and as one of a few parents who will speak about our experiences.

When I was last at a Infertility Network symposium the number of attendees was about even with invited presenters. I encourage anyone who lives nearby to attend as the list of speakers / presenters is quite good. I am concerned as to what I can say as I have spoken my mind on most issues in print and on-line and I am unsure what I can bring to the seminar that is different. Like last time the presence of a DI Dad is an anomaly and interesting one to most people.

As far as speaking on the general topic about ethics, do I feel it was unethical to create two lives separating them from their genetic past?

The attorney in me wants to ask how could it have been unethical if I had no intent to be unethical and did not see the issue from that position when we made the decision to use DI. Grammatically I am not sure I worded that correctly but my point is like many infertile coupdles we were dealing with ourselves first and did not look at the issue from the perspective of the life (lives) we were creating. So perhaps then the answer is we were unethical as igmorance of a moral issue is probably no excuse.

Now that we are past ther act of creation, right or wrong, the next question is are we ethically raising these children in light of their conception story? I believe we are. We decided long ago that we were telling them their storiesas early as we could so we can build upon the story and fill in what blanks we can as time goes on. For us the only ethical issue left to us was solved when we decided to tell and te reaization that the children's interests are greater than ours in this respect.

More later.