A lesbian couple who used donor sperm to conceive their child said the experience ruined their friendship with the biological father, simply because the man asked to be able to see his son.
In an op-ed for Yahoo! Life, the couple (who used the pseudonyms Alice and Charlotte) said they both wanted a big family. They began by searching Facebook groups for a donor, and connected with one who assured them he wasn’t interested in contacting the child. The potential donor was married and had children, and said his wife was supportive of him donating sperm for same-sex couples to use. They bought a home insemination kit, he gave them his sperm, but they didn’t achieve pregnancy. They said they were more confused when he blocked them on Facebook unexpectedly. It was then that a friend, for whom they used the pseudonym Daniel, stepped in.
“[W]hilst he was over we told him how upset we were,” they wrote. “It was then he offered to become our next sperm donor.” He assured them he wouldn’t want to be part of his son’s life after donating sperm. They pursued home insemination again.
“The next day Daniel popped over, we did a test and when it came up positive Charlotte and I hugged each other with excitement,” they wrote. “‘Congratulations, I’m so happy for you,’ Daniel smiled, looking a bit surprised that it had actually worked.”
But they warned that problems were arising, as Daniel kept texting to ask if the baby had arrived yet.
In February of 2023, Charlotte gave birth to a healthy boy. “We both fell instantly in love with our gorgeous little boy and once Charlotte was out of theatre we messaged Daniel too. ‘He’s healthy and he’s fine,’ I wrote. A couple of days later when we were back home, Daniel replied, asking, ‘Can I come and meet the baby?'” they recalled. “We were annoyed because we had made it clear from the start we didn’t want our donor to be involved in the baby’s life. We hadn’t thought that he would want to meet him. ‘No,’ I replied firmly. ‘We agreed you’re just a donor, not the baby’s dad.’ But he didn’t leave it at that and in the days and weeks that followed, more and more messages flooded in. He only lived about five minutes away and we both got so anxious about all the messages and the fear of bumping into him when we were out, that we hardly left the house.”
All of this anxiety — to the point that they were afraid to leave the house — was born of nothing more than Daniel wanting to meet his biological infant son.
After several months, they allowed him to meet his son, hoping it would bring an end to the issue… and it did.
Daniel has dropped the issue, seemingly content with having been able to see his son. But to Alice and Charlotte, this was enough to destroy their friendship. “Now we’re keen to have a second baby, a brother or sister for our son,” they said. “However, there’s no way we would turn to a friend again after how complicated it turned out last time.” Instead, they’ve turned to Facebook again.
It’s heartbreaking to think of the selfishness involved in this child’s conception. It’s entirely understandable that a parent would want to meet his or her biological child, and even more understandable that, one day, this little boy may want to know who his father is. But given how horrified they were that Daniel just wanted to simply see his son, just one time, it raises great concern as to how they’ll react when their son wants to know who his father is.
After all, as they said themselves, “As soon as our son starts asking questions and is old enough to understand, we’ll explain to him how he was conceived, although we won’t tell him who the donor was.”
This child is being intentionally deprived of a father, and additionally, the knowledge of his biological background and heritage. While some children are raised by single parents, due to things like death, divorce, or abandonment, there is a world of difference between making the best of a less-than-ideal situation, and intentionally raising a child without a parent. Children are human beings, but they are now treated as objects which adults are entitled to have, simply because they want them.
By default, this process turns a child into a product to be bought and sold.
“When you are commissioning and swiping your credit card for a product, even one that you want badly, you are participating in commodification, regardless of whether the intended parents are the biological parents of the surrogate-born children. In this case, the products are human beings,” Katie Breckenridge, of the children’s rights advocacy organization Them Before Us, has explained.
Katy Faust, founder and president of Them Before Us, has likewise pointed out that children conceived in such a way are well aware of their own commodification. “One story from a now-adult child on our website says her parent would often say, ‘Do you know how much I paid for you?’” Faust wrote on Instagram. She added, “The ‘would you rather be dead?’ retort is often said to kids who were told how ‘loved and wanted’ they were, when in reality, their dads were paid $75 to stay out of their lives forever.”
