Should I be a sperm donor?

October 19, 2022 1:34 PM

An acquaintance asked me to be a sperm donor. I'm inclined to do it, but this question came out of left field for me. I've literally never considered this even at the most hypothetical level before. What should I be thinking about?

The basic situation is that a friend of a good friend, whom I've met four or five times over several years, asked me to be a sperm donor (she will also use donor eggs). Acquaintance lives in my same city (in California). She has made clear that she would not like me to be a co-parent of any sort, and would accept a role ranging from "none" to "involved as a friend."

The questions I'm considering are:

1. How will I feel about having helped create a kid who is not my kid? I've always wanted kids or at least assumed I would have them, but I am increasingly aging out of this possibility, socially/relationship-wise.

2. How will my girlfriend feel about this? We've been dating for just over six months. One aspect of dating her has been weighing whether not having kids is a dealbreaker for me, and she knows this. (We would not have kids in the long term, mostly due to age.) It's the kind of thing that is just emerging as a conversation between us.

3. How will I feel about the role of non-parent? This is related to #1 but it's more just like, "Geez, a lifetime is a long time, maybe my relationship to the child and parent would change over time, maybe I'll leave California, maybe I'll disappoint them, if i want no relationship would that be okay?"

So those are the things I'm thinking about. Should I be thinking about additional things like legal questions, etc? Does anyone who's been through it care to share their experience and whether they are happy they did it? Any advice for someone weighing this?

posted by kensington314 to Human Relations (18 answers total)

Regardless of the mom's plans it's probably worth looking up the law in your and her states to what your potential responsibilities or liability could be and see if you're comfortable with that.

For example, what if something were to happen to the mom and her family or the state were now making decisions about the kid? They may want to enforce some responsibility on your part (if it legally exists.)
posted by sevenless at 2:05 PM on October 19, 2022 [8 favorites]

You should absolutely think about legal questions. The term you're looking for is known donor. Any legal agreement has no legal enforeceability. You would be legally this child's father if anyone (the mother, the child, the state, some insurance company) decides to make it so.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 2:16 PM on October 19, 2022 [14 favorites]

Note that this legal paternity goes the other way, too -- you could decide 10 years from now that you want shared custody and you would have as much right to that as any other bio father. This is why women looking to be single mom's by choice are frequently advised against known donors.

You can write anything you want in a contract but that contract is not enforceable. If you consult a lawyer about drawing up a contract make sure you get separate lawyers and ask about enforeceability specifically.

I am a single mom by choice. Anon donor.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 2:20 PM on October 19, 2022 [4 favorites]

Best answer: It sounds like you don't really know this person yet you might be watching her raise a child that you feel connect with and care about. Do you have any clues that make you thing she would be good at being single parent? Just wanting a child doesn't predict how they will respond to the stress of every day parenting, especially without support. There are lots of forms of poor parenting that are not outright child abuse - imagine how you would feel if you think she is getting it seriously wrong (dismissing health or behavioral issues or overly critical, punitive or demeaning to the child) and you had to stand on the side lines with no authority to interfere of challenge her.

Not a problem if you are going to just donate sperm and disappear but certainly an issue if you want to have some mild involvement in the child's life. If it was someone who you knew well, you feel more confident in estimate how capable she will be as a parent (although people change and you can't always know) but for someone you only met 4-5 times over a number of years, this is going to be hard to assess, especially since she already knows what is at stake and so had every incentive to look good in her answers.
posted by metahawk at 2:42 PM on October 19, 2022

Response by poster: Hello, thanks for answers so far. Should clarify that we both live in CA.
posted by kensington314 at 3:35 PM on October 19, 2022

Best answer: Have a good think about how you would feel if your girlfriend was unhappy with the idea. Or if she was only happy if you had no contact with the child. Just generally be prepared for the fact that she may have very strong feelings about it that you'll need to listen to open-heartedly.

Just because you probably won't have kids with your girlfriend, doesn't necessarily make it unproblematic for her to imagine you having a kid with someone else while in a relationship with her (however close/distant that relationship might turn out to be).

For many (most?) people it wouldn't just be like: "Oh, that's fine, I won't be having kids with you, so someone else might as well and nothing will change between us." However it pans out, you'd be initiating a potentially lifelong, life-changing thing, that is nothing to do with her, and that she can't really share in/won't experience the way you will.
posted by penguin pie at 3:37 PM on October 19, 2022 [3 favorites]

Why did she pick you? Is she doing home insemination and trying to save money (financial instability would be a yellow flag for me)? Are you a member of a group not well-represented in sperm banks?
posted by momus_window at 3:38 PM on October 19, 2022

Response by poster: momus_window, she has a preference for a known donor (her egg donor is also a known donor), and my friend basically said, "Have you thought about so-and-so?" I think that's the long and short of it. I'm not, to my knowledge, a member of any group who is underrepresented in sperm banks.

She also offered to pay equivalent to sperm bank rates; I understand her to be financially stable.
posted by kensington314 at 3:40 PM on October 19, 2022

So a quick google suggests that what I said about legal paternity is no longer true in California. Be sure to ask the lawyer what happens if one or both of you move out of California.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 5:26 PM on October 19, 2022

Best answer: Science has progressed a step or two into genetics. Mostly, people have kids, and questions of mom's genes and dad's genes are put to the side. With a donor it's different. If you have a troublesome gene in your background, you should speak up about it. By troublesome, I mean as evidenced by more than one woman getting breast cancer, or two men getting prostate cancer, or two people getting diabetes at an early age.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:48 PM on October 19, 2022

My understanding is that generally you must go through a sperm donation clinic if you want you parental rights to be automatically severed. There was a case a few years ago where a lesbian couple had used a known donor and gone about things informally, and when one of them claimed assistance benefits, the state was able to go after the biological father for child support. All of this will likely vary by jurisdiction, so definitely talk to a lawyer!
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 7:34 PM on October 19, 2022 [2 favorites]

if the prospective kid grows up to hate you for knowing they existed but declining to be their father, you will have no defense other than the legal one, which to some people would be the least important part of it. this happens from time to time with anonymous donations but in those cases the donors are blissfully free of having to know about it or answer for it and so the mothers have to absorb whatever anger there may be. here, I am assuming your name and location would not be a secret to the child. I lead with this because you need to be fully aware that whatever deal you make with this friend-of-a-friend is not a deal with their child. "but your mother and I agreed" and "but I told your mother at the time" are not convincing arguments in the ears of a child who believes herself to have her own rights and interests.

if the prospective mother should die when the child is still a minor without naming a suitable guardian first, you would have to know about whatever became of them and feel whatever guilt you might feel. you would presumably not want to pursue custody in such a case, but if for some reason you did, you might not be able to. but this is a legal question you should find out the answer to no matter how unlikely it is.

if the mother and/or any co-parent of hers should become disabled or have some financial or medical catastrophe making them unable to care for the child, you might want to help but be unable to. or, they might beg you to help when you did not want to.

if the mother and/or any co-parent of hers should mistreat the child in any way that was not life-threateningly illegal, there would very likely be nothing you could do about it.

those are the main things to worry about.
posted by queenofbithynia at 8:00 PM on October 19, 2022 [6 favorites]

Best answer: If you are in a situation where the thought "Do I need a lawyer?" even momentarily crosses your mind: You need a lawyer.
posted by sourcequench at 8:53 PM on October 19, 2022 [5 favorites]

Best answer: You should spend some time thinking about WHY you are considering doing this. Because if the reason is anything other than "I'd like to help this person become a parent" I think it is probably a bad idea.

Based on the way your question is phrased, I wonder if the reason this is interesting to you is because you want/wanted to be a parent but that isn't going to happen and this seems like the "next best thing". If part of what you like about this idea is the prospect of having a relationship with the kid, I think you should reconsider. I don't think you'll be less interested in being involved once the kid is here.
posted by mjcon at 9:39 PM on October 19, 2022 [4 favorites]

How will you feel when / if the child wants contact with you? I think in any talks with the mother, and your girlfriend, considering this arrangement from the perspective of a teenager looking for their father ought to be the priority here.
posted by 15L06 at 3:52 AM on October 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

Adding to 15L06's comment, how will you feel when / if your adult child contacts you? Or tags you on social media before you have met? Or is very angry? Or writes a blog about it? Or becomes an activist in the donor-conceived community?

Yes, you'll be helping another person become a parent, but the real outcome is the creation of a human who'll be an adult for most of their life, with their own rights, desires, fears, doubts, and aspirations.
posted by ImproviseOrDie at 4:45 AM on October 20, 2022 [4 favorites]

Best answer: Hi, I'm a person who was conceived by donor sperm. The donor was "anonymous" and I didn't find out until I was 32. I can't stress to you enough how much this fucked me up.

There are a lot of things to think about when you do something like this, and I encourage you (and the parents!) to research what people who are donor-conceived think about sperm donation. In particular:

* Don't agree to be anonymous. (It doesn't sound like this is the plan, but just in case.)
* Make sure the resulting human will know and understand their genetic origins, as early as possible. Don't agree to allow the raising parents to lie to the donor-conceived person about their origins.
* Ideally, consider staying in touch with the family over time. Be a family friend. Allowing the resulting human to know you and your personality will give them the (surprisingly important and impactful) context for their own genetic traits and behaviors.
* Know that there's a strong possibility the person who results from your donation will want some kind of relationship with their genetic family, including you, your parents, your siblings, your siblings' kids, etc. Be open to that.
* Certainly, as mentioned above, have genetic testing done to be as sure as you can that you won't be passing on any medical issues. Commit to keeping the receiving family updated about your health history, forever.

It's a big decision and I think it can be ethical if you take the resulting human's feelings into consideration. Don't forget that they'll grow into an adult someday :)
posted by woodvine at 7:48 AM on October 20, 2022 [9 favorites]

Obviously only your girlfriend can tell you how she feels, but a while back my boyfriend thought a friend of his might ask him to be a donor, and I was all in favor. While it didn't transpire, my thinking was: it's a huge kindness, known donors are better for kids, and I trust his judgment that she'd be a good parent. That said, she's married with a close family, and I do want kids. So it would have been very unlikely that he/I would ever end up with custody, and it wouldn't be a dealbreaker if we did.
posted by umwelt at 3:35 PM on October 20, 2022