Circumstances Leading To Finding Out about Being Donor-Conceived and Its Perceived Impact on Family Relationships: A Survey of Adults Conceived via Anonymous Donor Insemination in Germany

Abstract

Recent empirical research on the psychosocial implications of donor insemination is increasingly based on data directly obtained from donor-conceived persons. This descriptive study on donor-conceived adults in Germany inquires into their experience of finding out about being donor-conceived and answers the following research question: how do German adults conceived via anonymous donor insemination find out about the means of their conception and how do they experience family relationships post finding out? An online self-administered questionnaire targeting German donor-conceived adults to obtain qualitative and quantitative data was administered between September and November 2020. Fifty-nine donor-conceived adults were recruited via the support and advocacy group Verein Spenderkinder. Participants had been born in heterosexual-couple-parented families, were between 21 and 46 years old, and found out about the circumstances of their conception between 5 and 46 years of age. A broad spectrum of contexts and circumstances in which participants learned about being donor-conceived were reported, such as discovery via medical records, through disclosure as a result of parental consideration of the child’s current life situation or through direct-to-consumer DNA testing. Finding out about the means of their conception was experienced by participants as affecting their relationships with their family members to different degrees and in various ways. This first systematic inquiry into German donor-conceived adults’ experiences expands the literature and provides basic data for further research. Direct-to-consumer DNA testing is identified as one emerging trigger for finding out, warranting future research. The heuristic value of further in-depth inquiry into donor-conceived adults’ relationship with family members other than their parents, in particular their siblings, is highlighted.

Embodied sociotechnical imaginaries: how donor-conceived people imagine identity, family and reprodigital futures beyond regulation

“…Drawing on one of the largest samples of nonclinically conceived donor-conceived people, in combination with data from donor-conceived people conceived within a clinical setting, our findings illuminate how donor-conceived people imagine their identities and families. Consistent with previous studies on donor-conceived adults' experiences, only those who were aware they were donor-conceived could be recruited, many participants were recruited via online channels (which may shape their experiences and perspectives of donor conception), the majority of participants were sperm donorconceived and were women (see 11,36,40,46,55). Previous donor conception research has noted that women may be more likely to participate in research (36) and advised that caution should be taken in extrapolating findings about spermconceived people to other groups such as those conceived using third-party oocytes, embryo or via surrogacy (46).…”

“…Indeed, since 2000, donor-conceived peers have been interacting online, initially via Yahoo groups, which were superseded in the following decade by closed Facebook groups (26,38,39). Such social media platforms have not only been key to community formation but also activist organising for legislative reform and exchange of information about direct-to-consumer DNA testing (27,30,40,41). DNA testing offers many donor-conceived people more (timely) information than government donor registries, given that testing can be conducted in a short timeframe, at any age and offer a broader set of "matches" beyond the donor and donorconceived person (22,27).…”