Ninety-six. That’s how many kids Dylan Stone-Miller, a sperm donor, has fathered. And now, like any father, he wants to visit his biological children — many of whom don’t even know he’s their dad.
In a recent story for the Wall Street Journal, reporter Amy Dockser Marcus followed Dylan Stone-Miller on his cross-country journey to visit 14 of the 96 children he fathered. (READ MORE: IVF Companies Depend on Abortion)
“His road trip is part of a larger odyssey—to figure out how he fits in the lives of the boys and girls he fathered in absentia,” Marcus writes. “It began three years ago, when he first saw a photo of one of his biological children, a toddler named Harper who had his blue eyes and his sister’s blond curls. He got tears, he recalled, and unexpected feelings of kinship.”
But Stone-Miller’s story is not unique. An estimated 30,000-60,000 babies are born from donor sperm in the U.S. each year, according to the Atlantic. And now that the first generation of test tube babies have grown into adults, they want to know who and where they came from.
With each successive generation conceived through a combination of in vitro fertilization and donor sperm, this impulse will only get stronger. These children — just like adopted children — have a right to know their biological father.
‘He Is Not Her Dad’
The emotional and legal boundaries that accompany sperm donation and fatherhood are murky. Not all donors want to see their offspring; 29 percent of participants said they would refuse to donate sperm if their identity was revealed when their offspring came of age, according to a study by Harvard Law Professor I. Glenn Cohen.
Doctors used to advise parents to keep the donor’s identity secret, but they have since reversed that policy, according to Atlantic writer Sarah Zhang. (READ MORE from Elizabeth Crawford: ‘No Egg? No Sperm? No Problem,’ Promises IVG)
“Today, parents are strongly encouraged to tell the truth; moreover, DNA tests mean they couldn’t hide it even if they wanted to,” Zhang writes. “As more people find out they are donor-conceived, they are in turn finding one another: they are gathering in online communities such as ‘We Are Donor Conceived’ and other Facebook support groups catering to a mix of donors, parents, donor-conceived people, and others who have learned that their parents are not who they thought they were.”
Alicia Bowes, a parent to one of Stone-Miller’s children, said she and her partner are trying to figure out boundaries, according to Marcus.
“I don’t want Harper to feel like she can call him anything,” Bowes told the Journal. “He is not her dad. Period. If she were to say that in front of us, we would straight up say, ‘Dylan is not your dad. He will never be your dad. You don’t have a dad. You have a donor.’ ”
Like the Death of a Parent
But the emotional weight of being fatherless is heavy for those conceived with donor sperm. Zhang, for instance, likens the experience to the death of a parent.
“Because when donor-conceived people ask for regulations on the exchange of sperm, they are also asking for acknowledgment that this biological exchange matters, that biological origins matter,” Zhang writes. “We naturally recognize this in situations where a child has never met a parent owing to tragic life circumstances—so how does the situation then differ when the bond is severed by biotechnology instead?” (READ MORE: Meloni Pushes to Outlaw Italian Participation in Global Surrogacy Industry)
IVF has allowed many couples — whether struggling with infertility or in same-sex unions — to have children. But besides the moral questions of conception outside the womb, the attitude surrounding it is problematic: parents view conceiving a child as a right instead of a gift.
There are also legal concerns about maintaining donor anonymity — one of which has to do with tracing inherited diseases. In August of 2022, the American Cancer Society published an article highlighting the risks anonymous sperm donations raise.
“Calls for change have been fueled in part by multiple cases and lawsuits in which donors misrepresented themselves and sperm banks failed to properly vet them or in which banks failed to follow up or adequately disclose critical information to recipients,” the article states. “Advocates have pointed out that such lapses have endangered both the physical and psychological well-being of offspring.”
For children conceived via anonymous sperm donors, having “daddy issues” is not a cliche; it’s a reality they live with every day. They deserve to know their biological father. He’s a part of them.