Your family is not a good/service. You are not simply providing 'material', you are providing an entire legacy.

This is not just philosophical. Scientific studies show that children of anonymous donation are at higher risk of negative outcomes than other groups: https://slate.com/human-interest/2010/06/new-study-shows-spe...

The link with depression is especially troubling given that a history of family depression typically makes a man ineligible to be a sperm donor.

Interesting discussion, even though some responses are emotionally charged, understandably :-)

IMHO, the key ethical question is, how can a person (the child in question) be made party to a contract in which they have no input?

Is it unreasonable to give them full/veto choice over the matter of contacting genetic parents -- because that is the only place in the story where they have any agency? Donors & receivers have full agency at the point of exchange.

Further, if one is willing to conceptually agree that a child might have needs/rights beyond what parents (either adoptive or biological) might be willing to provide for, then one is necessarily led to seek & consider data on possible harms (emotional or otherwise) to children who do not have the choice to contact their biological parents.

Article 7 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of a Child asserts that everyone has a right to know their genetic origin.

Intentionally depriving someone of that right through anonymous donation is unethical.

On a broader level, I believe that taking an action that causes no harm to oneself but causes harm upon another person is unethical.

Wanting to stay anonymous has a harmful effect on the actual human beings being created here - I can cite research and/or hundreds of anecdotal conversations and relationships I have had with real-life people conceived this way.

> Article 7 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of a Child asserts that everyone has a right to know their genetic origin.

No, it doesn't. The child has a right to "know his or her parents". It does not specifically state "biological" parents. Parents are the people who raise you and are legally responsible for you.

> I believe that taking an action that causes no harm to oneself but causes harm upon another person is unethical.

I agree with that statement in general, but don't see how this applies. If someone donates sperm anonymously, that anonymity does not cause harm to any child conceived with that sperm. That child may later really want to know where their genes come from, but that's not harm. If the offspring feels some sort of anguish over this, that's a self-inflicted harm.

Having said all that, I would really prefer that couples with severe fertility issues would instead adopt. Arguably the planet is already overpopulated, and there are plenty of unwanted kids who need parents. But I'm also one of those people who doesn't understand how people feel the need that they must reproduce, so clearly I'm missing something that the mainstream believes.

Adoption is a lot of work, money, time and vetting, especially if you don't want a child with physical issues, to look like the parents or to go international.

Fertility treatments can be paid by health insurance and there is no 'parent vetting' process to delay things. Often fertility issues are one sided, so at least the children will be half of the couple.

Oh, completely agreed. It's still a shame that it's not a better-traveled path, though.

> That's your definition. It's not everyone's.

Maybe not everyone's, but it's a pretty well-accepted definition that a majority of people would likely agree with. That's often the best we can do.

> So you're saying the feeling of anguish is self-inflicted?

Not in general, but in this particular case, yes, it would be.

> A rape victim who feels anguish is self-inflicting harm?

Ah, the good old false equivalency. Please don't present arguments in bad faith.

> Article 7 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of a Child asserts that everyone has a right to know their genetic origin.

Source, please, since that's not what it says at https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/crc.aspx

"the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents."

It clearly does not say biological parents.

A parent can simply be a "caregiver of the offspring in their own species"[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parent

The very first "type" of parent listed in the Wikipedia article you're citing are biological parents.

I'm not in such a position, but if I wanted to learn about my ancestry and the source of my conception was reduced to someone else's anonymous transaction I think I'd be quite upset.