Still more on the plight of donor-conceived people. First, from the Walrus, a fascinating piece on “frontier families” by a “dumped” sperm donor. Matthew Hayes, a gay man living in Canada, gives an inside look at the life of known donors:
Suzy, one of my closest and oldest friends, was phoning from her Toronto home. “Matt, I don’t really know how to say this to you. But we’ve decided to go in another direction. I don’t feel like this is working out.”
It was a few sentences that were both simple and entirely complex. But the essence of it was easy enough to summarize: I was being dumped as a sperm donor.
[…] I was hardly alone. In fact, I was caught in the gears of the various new machinations emerging from the burgeoning number of queer families, and one particular decision faced by many lesbians aspiring to parenthood. They have the means, but they still need sperm to get the job done. There are two options at this fork in the road: do they go the anonymous sperm donor route, or do they harvest the sperm of a close friend (usually gay)? We might call it the plan A (anonymous donor) or plan B (close gay friend) conundrum.
Second, from Choice Moms, Mikki Morrisette talks with a potential sperm donor and a reproductive law attorney about the pros and cons of using a known donor.