Illustration by Louise Zergaeng PomeroyA great friend of mine was the donor for
my baby. At some point, I know my
daughter will ask about her father, and I’m
not sure how I will answer her question.
While her biological father supports us
in many ways, he doesn’t wish to play a
parental role. I want to respect his wishes,
as the greatest gift was his donation. If my
daughter inquires when she is older and
my friend still wishes not to be identifi ed,
my plan is to explain that I procured a
donor and that that person is anonymous.
Am I doing the right thing in disclosing
only select information to her? I fear that if
I tell her that her father is someone in our
lives who wishes to remain anonymous,
she will have diffi culty understanding. But
ultimately my approach may be fl awed
because DNA testing and Google make it
easy for people to fi nd out about their
biological parents. How do I do the right
thing by both my daughter and my friend?
Name Withheld
Some people believe that all children
have a right to know their biological
parents, and should, at any age, have
access to them. The trouble is that when
we speak of rights, we often think of
prerogatives or constraints that trump
anything else. In reality, though, clashes
regularly arise between diff erent rights
and between diff erent rights-holders;
compromises must often be found. Most
of our rights — to privacy, property,
expression and more — aren’t absolute.
Just too many things matter to us and
beckon for protection.
And when we come to the preroga-
tives of parents and of children, we soon
run into complications. There are cases
when a sperm donor has been awarded
paternity rights against the will of the
mother — or deemed a parent, against
his own will, and ordered to pay child
support. What, for that matter, about
the woman who becomes pregnant
after being raped by a stalker? (If a rapist
learns that his crime resulted in a child,
he is permitted, in some states, to sue
his victim for custody.) What about cases
when adoptees were severely abused by
their biological parents? And is there a14 5.8.22 Illustration by Tomi Um
role for ‘‘safe havens,’’ when newborns
are anonymously relinquished? I can tell
you that in some villages in Ghana, babies
born with disabilities can be viewed as
bad omens, and safe havens save lives.
All this is far afi eld from your own situ-
ation, but because there’s so much abso-
lutist rhetoric about knowing our parent-
age, it’s worth contrasting the high-beam
clarity of the polemicists with the chiar-
oscuro of ethical life. From conversations
over the years with people who have been
adopted, I know that many feel that they
need to know their biological parentage
and that some simply don’t care much
about it. (This is distinct from the prac-
tical interest we have in proper access to
family medical history, which, in princi-
ple, is information that could be secured
while maintaining confi dentiality.) Yet the
argument has been made that knowing
one’s biological relatives is inherently
important for the formation of an identity
— wrongly implying that children who, for
whatever reason, don’t know their ances-
try are somehow defective.
Still, I’m glad that open adoption is
emerging as a default, albeit an overrid-
able one, and the time may have come
to rethink our norms regarding sperm
donation, too. (I would add that, in a better
system, we wouldn’t rely on donors’ self-
attestation for medical histories; donors
should grant access — even if anonymized
— to later diagnoses that may have familial
signifi cance. Genomic analysis hasn’t yet
obviated family medical history.)
Again, if the only thing that matters
is the child’s right to know, your quan-
dary is immediately resolved. But there
are considerations on both sides here.
A perplexity in your case is that your
daughter exists only because you prom-
ised the donor privacy. While she’s still
young, you can tell her the truth that her
biological father was someone who made
her life possible but didn’t want anyone
to know who he was. Promises, you can
explain to your daughter, are a serious
business. Without them, many human
arrangements, like your daughter’s birth,
wouldn’t happen. If she really wants to
know who he is when she’s older, try to
persuade your friend to change his mind.
If he doesn’t and you simply renege on
your promise, he could decide to with-
draw from your lives altogether.
I hope he does reconsider over time.
Your daughter, he should realize, is notI Promised My Sperm-
Donor Anonymity.
What Do I Tell My Child?
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(Include a daytime
phone number.)Fraser writes: My
wife, Michelle, drains
the brine from pickle
jars, fresh mozzarella
and anything else
with ‘‘icky liquids,’’
then puts them back
in the fridge. (I
am happy to provide
photographic
evidence.) To date,
there have been no
illnesses resulting
from this. But I think
it’s gross.
————
I don’t want to see
your disgusting
photos. I’ve seen the
results in my own
fridge after pouring
off a little pickle
juice to enjoy as a
bracing shot. I am
sympathetic to your
wife’s aversion to
eating foods from
shared tubs of finger
water (every ‘‘dirty’’
martini from a public
bar is a sewer). She
may even have
learned to love the
taste of dried-out
mozz balls and limp
pickles. But she’s still
wrong. Store them
as the manufacturer
recommends, and
get a pickle fork —
the kind you use
to grab pickles, not
the tool used to
separate ball joints,
which I just learned
about. (Thanks,
search engine!)Bonus Advice
From Judge
John HodgmanThe Ethicist By Kwame Anthony Appiah