1 in 25 Fathers is Raising Someone Else's Child
This issue drives me nuts. I've been writing about it forever. My pals and I argued that there is no excuse for anyone anywhere to be allowed to parent a child through gamete donation without having agreed in advance to reveal to the resulting child that he or she has a different biological parent. New evidence now suggests that 1 in 25 fathers, that's right, one in twenty-five, are in fact parenting someone whom they did not biologically father - but don't know it. What kind of rights do all those involved in reproduction have? I surrender. I don't know. It's anarchy. Hide the sperm.[thanks Josh Braun]
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What are your thoughts re the IOM recommendation around misattributed paternity? For example, take a situation where a child tests positive for a genetic disorder and the mother and her husband are tested. . . only to find out (inadvertently) that "dad" isn't the biological parent. IOM says that the counselor should talk to mom alone and encourage her to fess up; but it places protection of the mother's confidentiality above the dad's right to know his genetic profile (and, by the way, that he's not the father of the child).
Is the duty to disclose in such a case materially different from gamete-donation cases, or not?
- by Sue on Aug 18, 2005 at 2:40 PM | link