Biological fatherhood brings tough questions

It happened so quickly. Baby Louise, the first "test-tube baby," is already on the road show in Japan. Her technological siblings are being born and bred to other parents. An infertility clinic has opened in Norfolk, Va., and the hopeful or desper ate are lined up for their test-tube pregnancies

While we sit struggling with the ethics, unable to decide whether we should do what we can do, “progress” marches on:

The fallout from the debate over artificial conception settles down on another issue. Now it's artificial conception Insemination by donor (A.I.D.) which is increasingly in the

news.

In California, a lesbian gives birth to a baby conceived with the sperm of her lover's brother. In New Jersey,

a judge rules that an unmarried male donor has the right to visit, and the obligation to support, his child.

In Wisconsin, a team of researchers

eports about the shortage of

genetic information available on donors. For the first time, they raise the possibility of marriages between children born unknowingly of the same biological father.

There are at least a quarter of a million people living in the United States today conceived through A.I.D. From 6,000 to 10,000 are born every year. Yet the research reported in the current New England Journal of Medicine is virtually the first reliable study. It suggests not only that doctors keep poor records on donors

な

but that many use the same donor time and time again.

Until now, the legal and public policy questions raised by A.I.D. have been virtually ignored. In most A.I.D. families, it has been a well-kept secret.

Yet the problems, once raised, are legion. Should an A.I.D. child have

the right to know his biological history like many adopted children? Should single women be offered this medical help? Lesbians? Can we legally control artificial insemination when we can't control natural insemination? And, if so, how do we monitor a procedure so simple that all it truly requires is a man, a woman and a syringe?

And what about the donors how do we feel about their casual role? According to the three doctors who conducted this study, 62% of the doctors use medical students or hospital residents. Ten percent use graduate students, and 17.8% use both. They pay these men an average of $25 or $30.

Some no doubt, think of themselves as helping an infertile couple.

Ellen Goodman

stand that ends up as a baby. But it is, in a sense, reproduction without responsibility, children without fatherhood. And there is altogether too much of that already.

One of the real problems we face in society is strengthening the connection between fathers and children. To many

more by people, fathering is nothing

more than procreating. The young, the unwed, teen-age fathers need to tie together conception with childraising, impregnation with caring.

At the same time I think it is spooky and selfish for a/single woman or surely a lesbian couple

to deliberately set out to conceive a fatherless child. For the sake of "the experience of pregnancy," they, too, reduce fatherhood to a set of genes.

As adoption becomes harder, A.I.D. may become an increasingly popular alternative for couples.

It seem to me that the donorsshould at least be encouraged to think of donating sperm as carefully as they would donating a kidney. They should have genuine informed

But the majority, I suspect, regard consent

their contribution with no more emotion than giving a pint of blood. I cannot imagine a woman selling her egg to an anonymous broker, yet many donors sell their genetic history without thinking about its inheritors or their own paternity.

I'm not suggesting that this is an-immoral act. It is not a one-night

about the possible recipi-

ent, the changing laws, the idea that one day their children could win the right to know them.

This could make artificial insemination more difficult for couples who truly and responsibly choose this alternative way of bringing children into their lives. But biological fatherhood should be more than a sperm donation.