A man in Germany has fathered some 25 children after a number of women purchased his sperm from some pseudo-medical establishment in Virginia named Fairfax Cryobank and had themselves inseminated. He is anonymous (how nice), and misnamed "Donor 401". These sperm "donors" are not donors at all. Besides the fact that the idea of what a true donation is has been completely misunderstood, it will suffice to say that no donation was made in this case. Rather the man was paid around $9,000 for his semen. He sold, not donated, his sperm after emptying himself in a vial twice a week for six months and went on his merry way back to Germany. He has no legal (let alone moral) obligation whatsoever to whomever has been conceived (those 25 children) through his paternal merchandise. The women who patronize the clinic pay for his body fluids and then sign a legal document releasing the man from having to own up to his fatherhood. Along with a host of other inhuman implications, that means that those 25 children have no legal recourse in finding their father - that is, if they are ever told the truth about their father.
One of the mothers of the children, Kimberly, has not disclosed all the relevant facts to her little ones but instead she is awaiting another time, saying, "As they get older and understand better, I can give them more information." Will she give her children all the information? Will the child in question know that her father, who never knew her mother nor cared to, was paid money to ejaculate in a vial and then that fluid was inserted into her mother artificially at some clinic? Or perhaps she was conceived in a dish with several more brothers and sisters and then by some awful fate she survived the holocaust of a petri dish, but most of her siblings did not? Waiting until she is "older and [can] understand better," to me means that Kimberly is waiting until the child is old enough to be misinformed. At least it means when she is old enough to be convinced that she is supposed to be alright with her absentee father and even find his actions honorable. All 25 children may be convinced of the nobility of the Saxon that "created" them when in fact the man prostituted part of himself - a sacred part of himself - for $360 per surviving child.
The story emerged when Kimberly's children stumbled upon a talk show where several children with their mothers were being featured. The paternal DNA of these children was also bought at the Fairfax Cryobank. It was Kimberly's child, while watching the program, who said something to the effect of, "Hey, Mommy, those kids look like us!" Sure enough, the kids being featured on the talk show looked much like Kimberly's children. She later confirmed that the children on TV and her own children all came from Donor 401 and apparently they all looked similar. I suppose it a good thing that these children found out about each other so young and not after adventitiously marrying one another later in life.
Human life is sacred. So is the transmission of it. So are the bodies and fluids that make it happen. Human life is not for sale, nor are its parts. In fact, the buying and selling of our bodies is the ultimate testimony that we are well entrenched in the business of degrading ourselves and are convinced, even those of us who are "older and can understand," that humanity - in its flesh - has no real dignity. If it's merely biology - then Donor 401 has done a thing neither good nor bad. But recalling our divine image means elevating biology to the sacred and not demoting it to the sacrilegious.
The physical embrace of sexual love has sacred meaning. When it is emptied of its sacredness it actually becomes demeaning (de-mean, emptied of meaning). It actually renders the sexual act incapable of communicating love. This is why we call it "making love". It means fidelity. It means commitment. It means that the child that comes about is the fruit of biology and the fruit of love - (its a 'both, and'). Both must be present to speak the true meaning of sexual love. The children that results from the normal biological functions void of love-making (as in our 25 siblings) are everything that all children are - precious, good, pure, loved by God. But they have been wronged.
The clinics call it "artificial insemination." Well, what do they mean, artificial? What is artificial about such procedures? Where does the artificiality lie? The biology that results in a child during normal sexual intercourse among loving spouses is the same biology that results in a child in a petri-dish, or when sperm is inserted into the woman. The artificiality of it all has nothing to do with biology. The piece that is missing - the piece that is artificial - is the piece that has been left out: love. Artificial insemination is by its own title without love. This is the sin that we commit against the resulting child. This is the wrong that has been committed against those 25 American siblings. They have been given artificial love.
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