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Donor offspring are also reported to suffer more than children of adoptive parents:
As a group, the donor offspring in our study are suffering more than those who were adopted: hurting more, feeling more confused, and feeling more isolated from their families. (And our study found that the adoptees on average are struggling more than those raised by their biological parents.) The donor offspring are more likely than the adopted to have struggled with addiction and delinquency and, similar to the adopted, a significant number have confronted depression or other mental illness.
Nearly all donor offspring in the study reported myriad emotional and psychological issues such as:
- Scanning crowds for their father
- Resentment over the financial transaction made to create them
- Feeling like a “lab experiment” or “freak of nature,” and
- Strained relationships with their parents.
Clark and Marquardt make it very clear that knowing one’s biological roots is of incalculable importance to an individual. Furthermore, their research (albeit indirectly), yet again reinforces the notion that the nuclear family structure is the optimal environment for childhood development, defying the conclusions drawn from the first study highlighted in TIME. They suggest tighter regulation on sperm donation, at least comparable to the rigorous process parents undergo to adopt a child, and ending private sperm donation all together to help donor offspring in the future.
Contrasting the two studies underscores the inherent bias in so much of what passes for “research” in our culture. This is, of course, nothing new in academic circles (see Kinsey, ’48 and ’53), but when there is such a clear connection between substandard methodology and “fashionable” but anti-establishment findings, as in the TIME study, one wonders whether the cart is deliberately being placed before the horse. When “science” informs what is normative, and what is normal is perceived as good, our cultural mores shift. What should our response be to these profound ethical questions when even “objective” science is agenda-driven, at best? Furthermore, what is the distinctly conservative answer to the progressive re-engineering of the family structure while still protecting essential freedoms? According to the Slate study, the well-being of future Americans depends on our answer.
