Brother or Beau?

Ayushmann Khurrana in the film Vicky Donor

“Sperm donation is a social cause, it doesn't save life, it gives life, it is a completely different zone altogether,” says VJ-turned actor, Ayushmann Khurrana who plays the protagonist in a new film, titled ‘Vicky Donor’. The film has put the spotlight once again on the contentious issue of anonymous sperm donation. Meanwhile, in the US, a mother discovered that her son, who she conceived with the help of donor sperm, has nearly 150 half-siblings. The news raised many ethical, moral and legal questions. Is it time, then, to debate the future of fertility treatments that use donor egg and sperm?



When a mother in the US reportedly decided to trace her son’s half-siblings, conceived from a common sperm donor, she was stunned to find the number touched 150. Do prospective parents in India — who explore fertility options in clinics — run a similar risk? Is it time we prepared ourselves for scenarios such as accidental incest, by tracking down donor fathers?

Biologist Pushpa Bhargava believes that the risks of accidental incest are low. “The chances of such cases are 1,000 to 1. A child has the right to know attributes of the donor, not his identity. Anonymity of the donor is important and even revealing an assigned donor number may well lead to the donor himself.”

Explains fertility specialist Firuza Parikh, “There are many caveats in medicine. The chance of accidental incest may be there, however small. However, even if identification numbers are given, there has to be rigorous quality control and medical audit system in each centre for it to work.”

She adds, “All IVF and semen banks have a unique number assigned to the donor. However as per the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) guidelines, the identity of the donor is not disclosed to recipients. Paradoxically, the guidelines state that the child so born would have the right to know his parentage. Hence sperm banks have to maintain records.”

Currently, sperm from a particular donor can be implanted 75 times and the success rate is usually 20 per cent, which translates into about 15 babies. According to ICMR guidelines, information about the donor (including a copy of the donor’s DNA fingerprint if available, but not the individual’s personal identity), can be released by a clinic to the offspring after he is 18-years-old, and never to the parents unless directed by a court of law.

 The Ethics Committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine states that disclosure of the fact of donor conception may be in a child’s best interest. Meanwhile, the international community, too, grapples with the ethics of the issue.

‘Mechanical adultery’

Pope Pius XII equated sperm donation to “mechanical adultery” as it brings a third person into the marriage. The Catholic Church maintains that life begins at the moment of conception and doesn’t believe in creating ‘spare’ embryos that are later destroyed when they are no longer required.

Says actor Purab Kohli, who portrayed a youth making a living as a sperm donor in the film ‘I Am’, “To each his own. But, personally, I wouldn’t be comfortable with the idea of a child fathered by me existing somewhere in the world without my knowing the child!”

Surgeon and spiritual teacher Shantanu Nagarkatti recommends premarital genetic testing to screen for diseases in the absence of donor numbers being known, to help prevent genetically inherited diseases in offspring. In many communities in India, he says, the premarital genetic testing is strongly advised due to the risk of inheriting thalassemia. On the moral issue, Nagarkatti says, “The search for the ideal sperm donor goes back in time. Queen Kunti in the Mahabharata used the secret mantra gifted to her by Durvasa Muni to have sons fathered by Surya, Dharma, Vayu and Indra. Madri, Pandu’s second wife, used it to have the Aswinis father twins by her. An apocryphal story has an imprisoned and condemned Samson (of Delilah fame), bedding the wives of Jewish men desperate to have the hero’s genes in their family.”

Adds Dr Nagarkatti, “Multiple offspring from one popular sperm donor pose a risk -- of children from the same father meeting, marrying and reproducing. While this provokes an abhorrent emotional response, we must understand that this is not uncommon in nature. The dominant male lion drives away all other male challengers to the females in his pride. Subsequently, he alone impregnates all the females.  Inevitably cubs from a common father eventually mate and produce offspring. The Genghis Khan Gene is present in large areas of Asia and has been detected in 8 per cent of its population or 0 .5 per cent of the world’s population.”

Select Right Profile

In a country like ours, where circumstances of such conception are usually kept hidden from the offspring, it’s important to select the right donor profile. Anoop Gupta, who runs a fertility centre, remembers a mother-in-law who insisted her daughter-in-law get the “best” treatment in the US and came back with a white baby! He says, “It’s important for banks to give information on the donor’s background, IQ level, looks and complexion so that a child’s looks blend with that of the family. Usually, the same donor’s sperm is used if the couple wants a second baby.”

 DEEPAK CHOPRA: “Choose between sperm donors and fathers”

“The problems surrounding multiple sperm donors seem minor and incidental.  Since the donor’s only aim is money — and perhaps some strange male vanity — there is something unseemly about “fathering” dozens of children. The word belongs in quotations because in fact no fathering is involved — quite the opposite. A father loves and cares for his children. His family is an extension of himself. A sperm donor shares none of these qualities.

Technology cannot be stopped, so sperm donation, with all of its shadowy issues, is here to stay. The moral fight doesn’t seem as vitriolic as that waged over abortion, for example. It’s up to each individual to settle those issues privately, with each person’s needs being privately addressed.

I loved my father, and I love being a father. My life would be bereft without that role, and my compassion goes out to children with absent fathers, whether because of sperm donation, divorce, or deadbeat dads. For centuries the gods and God took on the title of divine father. Now that honour has slipped away, largely, and until we find a new definition of “father” in its highest spiritual sense, there will be inescapable confusion and no little sorrow.

http://www.speakingtree.in/spiritual-articles/new-age/brother-or-beau?track=1&uid=46938&date=20120403