A donor-conceived woman who is appearing in an upcoming documentary was heartbroken to find out that the sperm donor she was conceived from — her biological father — had passed away… one month before she was born.
In “Born From the Same Stranger,” which aired on ITV, Marco Radley told her story. Raised by same-sex parents, she grew up knowing that she was donor-conceived. Her parents, two women, conceived in an underground lesbian self-insemination center, as same-sex couples raising children was frowned upon in the 1970s and 1980s. But Radley was heartbroken when she discovered her biological father had passed away in 1987, just one month before she was born.
She also found out she has four half-siblings. “His children speak so warmly about him, and he was a very academically clever man, and he was really into science… he was a doctor,” she said. “The way he’s been described is quite quirky, quite funny.”
Initially, they thought he was a “prolific” sperm donor, and were surprised to learn that wasn’t the case.
READ: Sperm donor says he’s likely fathered hundreds because of unregulated fertility industry
“So, there are two siblings who are from my donor’s marriages, so children that he was father to if you like, and then two other half-sibling who were donor conceived from heterosexual parents,” Radley explained. “Given the information that we thought we knew about him being quite prolific in the gay community, it is the entirely opposite to what I was expecting. Suddenly I’ve gone from having a really small family, to having a plethora of siblings. It never once occurred to me that I would be getting to know my donor’s own children.”
Radley and her mother, Lynn, visited his grave with flowers in an emotional moment. “1987, the end of his life and the start of yours,” Lynn said, adding, “It’s like coming to say a very heartfelt thank you.”
Though Radley said she felt happy with her questions being answered, for many children, learning they were donor-conceived was a massive shock. Others have found out they have hundreds, or even thousands, of siblings due to a largely-unregulated fertility industry. One Harvard Medical School study found that 62% of children born after being conceived through donor technologies consider it to be immoral and unethical.
“I am a human being, yet I was conceived with a technique that had its origins in animal husbandry,” one person wrote in a book for Anonymous Us. “Worst of all, farmers kept better records of their cattle’s genealogy than assisted reproductive clinics … how could the doctors, sworn to ‘first do no harm’ create a system where I now face the pain and loss of my own identity and heritage.”
