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Sperm bank threatens to sue DNA tester
Old 02-17-2019, 06:42 AM   #1
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Sperm bank threatens to sue DNA tester

This is an interesting story. A woman who's five year old daughter was conceived with a sperm donation, ran a 23 and Me test and found the father. The sperm bank raised holy hell threatened to sue the mother. It's pretty obvious that such outfits can't enforce bans on seeking parental information on the children once they grow up. A little more murky with respect to the parents.

It seems to me that sperm donors who don't want their offspring to find them have a roll here. Don't take consumer DNA tests without restricting use of your data. Duh!
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Old 02-17-2019, 07:03 AM   #2
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Originally Posted by donheff View Post
...
It seems to me that sperm donors who don't want their offspring to find them have a roll here. Don't take consumer DNA tests without restricting use of your data. Duh!

The donor can't avoid it. The DNA test in question located a relative of the donor, not the donor himself. So many people have submitted DNA samples that are now in databases for sale to the highest bidder that a random sample can get close to you, and the noose only gets tighter as more people freely give up their DNA information.


Genetic Databases Could Identify Millions of Americans | Time
"If investigators were presented with a random DNA sample from an American of European ancestry, they could in roughly 60% of cases use consumer genetic databases to find a third cousin or closer blood relative match."
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Old 02-17-2019, 07:09 AM   #3
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Interesting. I'm one the 23 & me site, I found 3 close relatives that sperm donor children looking for their fathers. (it's be one of my uncles or cousins that donated)
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Old 02-17-2019, 07:12 AM   #4
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More quotes:
"Narrowing the list of individuals to those within a 100-mile radius would exclude 57% of the possibilities, the study says. Estimating the target’s age, plus or minus five years, would cross off 91% of the remaining pool. And inferring the person’s biological sex would leave only 16 or 17 individuals, the authors estimate — a short enough list, theoretically, to investigate them individually."
100 mile radius: its a local clinic...
Age: a little tougher, but some initial guesses can be made
Estimate biological sex: Duh... sperm donor.
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Old 02-17-2019, 09:32 AM   #5
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Another example, IMO about technology outpacing laws.
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Old 02-17-2019, 09:50 AM   #6
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Next thing you know the mom will be suing the donor for child support. Lol!
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Old 02-17-2019, 10:05 AM   #7
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Another example, IMO about technology outpacing laws.

Coming from a more Libertarian perspective, its more about technology out pacing peoples intelligence/critical thinking abilities to anticipate the downsides of finding out if they might be 1/1024th Irish (or whatever). If common sense were more common there wouldn't need to be a law for everything.
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Old 02-17-2019, 10:30 AM   #8
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Coming from a more Libertarian perspective, its more about technology out pacing peoples intelligence/critical thinking abilities to anticipate the downsides of finding out if they might be 1/1024th Irish (or whatever). If common sense were more common there wouldn't need to be a law for everything.
+1.

What is this common sense thing you talk about?
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Old 02-17-2019, 10:34 AM   #9
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The donor can't avoid it. The DNA test in question located a relative of the donor, not the donor himself. So many people have submitted DNA samples that are now in databases for sale to the highest bidder that a random sample can get close to you, and the noose only gets tighter as more people freely give up their DNA information.


Genetic Databases Could Identify Millions of Americans | Time
"If investigators were presented with a random DNA sample from an American of European ancestry, they could in roughly 60% of cases use consumer genetic databases to find a third cousin or closer blood relative match."
Right. The DNA test identified the child's biological grandmother (the mother of the sperm donor), not the donor directly. The donor expected his anonymity to be protected at the time he donated.

The mother of the child is quoted as saying she thought it would be a "cool" thing to do, to give her child the "gift" of a 23andMe test.

Not such a cool gift when it comes to the privacy of the donor.
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Old 02-17-2019, 10:55 AM   #10
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Right. The DNA test identified the child's biological grandmother (the mother of the sperm donor), not the donor directly. The donor expected his anonymity to be protected at the time he donated.

The mother of the child is quoted as saying she thought it would be a "cool" thing to do, to give her child the "gift" of a 23andMe test.

Not such a cool gift when it comes to the privacy of the donor.
In the world of dna there is no donor privacy. Anyone who thinks otherwise is foolish. 20 years ago, I can understand, but today any donor needs to understand they will be identified at some point and be ok with that. They should be counseled as such, but as of 4 years ago weren’t.
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Old 02-17-2019, 11:03 AM   #11
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All those anonymous things are (IMHO) stupid and deprive "children" of their biological information.

Most are there due to some shame/secret/comfortableness about sex anyhow, and are not in the offspring best health interest.

Example adopted children - historically it's common that these "children" are not allowed to know the biological parents, so best they can hope for is 20-40 years ago, so rushed social worker asked "any history of heart disease in the family ? "
Not that the biological mother or father (if around) really cares or provides a good answer.
Plus the social worker never asks about the few thousand other genetic disorders possible, that may only show up when the birth mother is 50 or 60 yrs old !

If people are worried about child support or ownership of the child, just fix the law to cover that.
Example: (non-lawyer here).
- You give up your kid for adoption, you give up all rights to that kid.
- You take a sperm donation, you and child give up all rights for any support or interaction with the donor.
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Old 02-17-2019, 01:59 PM   #12
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Next thing you know the mom will be suing the donor for child support. Lol!
Thats the only motivation this women had. She thought she was going to cash in.

Lesson: Don't donate sperm because you may be paying child support eventually.
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Old 02-17-2019, 02:17 PM   #13
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TW, glad you are staying single because I don’t think you like women. I doubt she wants child support.
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Old 02-17-2019, 03:07 PM   #14
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Why would she use sperm from an anonymous donor, then seek out information on the donor, then report she is "devastated" at being unsuccessful?

She knew it was anonymous from the start.

Her devastation stems from not getting what she wanted.

And my 2 daughters, current GF, and the women who I have promoted in my career would disagree with your theory. So would the female coaches I hired to coach boys athletics, as well as the girls ( ok, they were age 8-13 so maybe not credible) that I coached in basketball.

Not everyone has good intentions, many just pursue the almighty dollar.
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Old 02-17-2019, 03:13 PM   #15
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I don't think there is sufficient information in the article to draw any firm conclusions one way or the other about her motivations, so why don't we just move on from speculating about that?
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Old 02-17-2019, 05:21 PM   #16
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Originally Posted by Sunset View Post
Example adopted children - historically it's common that these "children" are not allowed to know the biological parents, so best they can hope for is 20-40 years ago, so rushed social worker asked "any history of heart disease in the family ? "
Not that the biological mother or father (if around) really cares or provides a good answer.
Plus the social worker never asks about the few thousand other genetic disorders possible, that may only show up when the birth mother is 50 or 60 yrs old !

If people are worried about child support or ownership of the child, just fix the law to cover that.
Example: (non-lawyer here).
- You give up your kid for adoption, you give up all rights to that kid.
- You take a sperm donation, you and child give up all rights for any support or interaction with the donor.

But am I right that you would be opposed to this stipulation?:
" - I am the biological mother of this child, I am giving up all parental rights, and specifically request that this adoption remain "closed" and my identity not be made known to this child or anyone not identified below: "


There are many reasons a woman might want to do this, and I think it fair to respect her wishes. She can provide medical info if she wants, and we are nearly at the point when the offspring can get better info through genetic testing than would be available through the mom's medical history anyway.
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Old 02-17-2019, 05:58 PM   #17
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not directly related to this post but it does deal with the DNA issue. Military members were required to give a DNA sample. We were told #1, it was mandatory and #2, it was only to be used to identify us in case of battlefield death. OK, I'm retired from active duty now. Can I have my DNA back federal government? Nope. We have it now. Hahaha . Too bad, so sad.
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Old 02-17-2019, 06:27 PM   #18
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Interesting that people will go through all sorts of actions to keep their personal data private but will then give away 100,000 years of their most personal history for free.

Our paranoid neighbor even had Google block out the image of his house on StreetView but then bragged how he has sent his DNA to several different outfits.
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Old 02-17-2019, 06:45 PM   #19
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Interesting that people will go through all sorts of actions to keep their personal data private but will then give away 100,000 years of their most personal history for free.
Regardless of one's personal feelings about the bounds of privacy, I have seen many folks rail against government and admit that they ask Alexa to turn the lights out.
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Old 02-17-2019, 11:28 PM   #20
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But am I right that you would be opposed to this stipulation?:
" - I am the biological mother of this child, I am giving up all parental rights, and specifically request that this adoption remain "closed" and my identity not be made known to this child or anyone not identified below: "


There are many reasons a woman might want to do this, and I think it fair to respect her wishes. She can provide medical info if she wants, and we are nearly at the point when the offspring can get better info through genetic testing than would be available through the mom's medical history anyway.
IF DNA testing could tell us all the medical possibilities of disease, then I'd be totally in agreement with closed adoptions.
Until then, there should be no such thing.

Lots of biological mothers and fathers are not the loving parent people imagine, so they don't won't even bother to give much medical information and certainly NEVER would followup a decade or two later when they develop a hereditary disease to say "oh you should inform my bio-child".

After all the bio-child has rights to their full ancestral medical history, but are denied it, even though it will impact them as much as anyone else in the world.
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