A Man Donates Sperm

[Eggnotz]

A man donates sperm. It is used to create children. If the mother is unable to support them she will turn to the state for support. When a man voluntarily launches his sperm into the world, a case could be made that he contributed to the situation and should be asked to financially join the party. It this off base?

 

[Trishie]

It is wrong to give away or sell what may join to become his child. It’s basically giving away or selling his child if a child is conceived. He is responsible for the welfare of his child as a person and as an eternal soul. His child may be brought up in any way, including without faith in God. He has no way to protect his child as a father should.

 

[Elizabeth502]

Sperm donation should be illegal except to one’s own wife, i.m.o. (IUI, which is permitted by the Church.) And criminal repercussions for donations to known or stranger “others” should be full financial support for any child resulting from that donation, outside of one’s marriage.

Anonymous sperm banks are immoral and should be shut down. They encourage further immorality by their existence. I’ve always been shocked that there is not more of an outcry about them from the RCC.

 

[JPUSC]

I think I heard of a story where a couple was about to get married until they found out they were brother and sister as they had the same sperm donor.

 

[survive]

He should be asked to refund the money he made selling his sperm. The clinic should refund their net after-tax profit on the sale as well. This might reduce sperm donations. But they shouldn’t have to support the child. What would that say to childless single women? You can just go buy sperm, get pregnant, and the kids will be supproted by anonymous people? That would be even quicker and more tempting than old-style welfare rolls, which were demeaning and time-consuming and involved having a boyfriend but not getting to let him stay over. Now that adults are desperate for kids and half are unmarried, it would attract lots of biological-clock-fearing single women if they could get free, supported kids as anonymously as buying a soda pop.

 

[JimG]

Why shouldn’t the sperm donor have to support his kids? He’s their biological father. (But he would also get visitation rights.)

If this were the law, you can bet that sperm donations would cease. And that would be a good thing.

 

[thistle]

A man donates sperm. It is used to create children. If the mother is unable to support them she will turn to the state for support. When a man voluntarily launches his sperm into the world, a case could be made that he contributed to the situation and should be asked to financially join the party. It this off base?

A Catholic is anyway not allowed to donate sperm.
That is a grave sin.

 

[Newbie2]

Sperm donation (legally, anyway) is like any other kind of donation; once you give it away, you no longer have any responsibility for it or the consequences of it.

Sort of like donating a used car. One is not responsible for it’s upkeep. That’s the responsibility of the new owner.

Very warped thinking, methinks, when it comes to a human being. But that’s the society we live in.

 

[JG77]

A man donates sperm. It is used to create children. If the mother is unable to support them she will turn to the state for support. When a man voluntarily launches his sperm into the world, a case could be made that he contributed to the situation and should be asked to financially join the party. It this off base?

Yes, this is off base. A person’s ending up on public assistance has nothing to do with the fertilization and the elements which were involved in it. Would the person try to sue their biological father (the sperm donor who their mother chose) because somehow his sperm gave him or her the genetic make-up that led them to be a person who ends up on public assistance? And how would you know if it was the sperm that was the defective element that brought the person to that level? Could you not just as easily sue the mother for a bad egg? Or even bypass that and sue God since he is the one who created the individuals whose sperm and egg met to form the person who is now on public aid?

Or … your question is just silly. There is really no way one can end up on public aid simply because of genes. In a way this is disrespectful to the poor, which our world has plenty of. To say that this is just who they are - as if it is in their biological make-up. Ending up on aid is not because of our genes but from our environments we were born into, from our choices and from those things that happen in life that we have no control over (such as job loss, etc.).

But you do bring up something that is not that silly. Donating sperm is a sin for it involves masturbation. And is the child who is conceived through his donation in time to come his child? Yes it is. Even though he has no particular responsibilities for that child because of the disconnection from himself to the woman in whom his sperm was implanted, it still raises the point that this would be his child. Because of the legality of donating and implanting I am sure there were agreements and paper work that would prevent the child from ever being able to sue the one unknown parent (the donor) that their other one went to.

 

[Eggnotz]

Sperm donation (legally, anyway) is like any other kind of donation; once you give it away, you no longer have any responsibility for it or the consequences of it.

Sort of like donating a used car. One is not responsible for it’s upkeep. That’s the responsibility of the new owner.

Very warped thinking, methinks, when it comes to a human being. But that’s the society we live in.

It sounds like it should involve a bill of sale like a car.

“Sold to XXXXX, one dose of sperm, AS IS, for the sum of XXXXX. No guarantees, expressed or implied. Use at your own risk.”

Donating sperm to a bank is the height of affectation. He wants to derive a morbid pleasure from knowing the world will be populated with his offspring but without any of the heavy lifting. Getting someone else to spread your seed to and fro is belies incredible arrogance and pride.

 

[JG77]

Sperm donation (legally, anyway) is like any other kind of donation; once you give it away, you no longer have any responsibility for it or the consequences of it.

Sort of like donating a used car. One is not responsible for it’s upkeep. That’s the responsibility of the new owner.

Very warped thinking, methinks, when it comes to a human being. But that’s the society we live in.

Sperm donation is not like donating a car or donating blood. Sperm donation is sinful (becasue masturbation s involved, duh) whereas the donating a car or blood is not. And, while the car or blood my no longer be theirs because they no longer have possession, the child that results from the use of that sperm is the man’s child.

Have we broken away from reality so much that we can forget what makes a child; that even though a child that was conceived from a element that was donated he is still the progeny of the that donor, even if the donor considered his sperm to be an equivalent to a used car to forget about once sold.

 

[chevalier]

Sperm donation could be performed without masturbation, depending on how the sperm were collected. However, it would still be immoral.

The man is the father. By his act of sperm donation, he contributed - and in a necessary and indispensible way - to bringing about that specific child. Therefore, he has responsibility for it. The mother should not be allowed any benefit for herself alone, only for the child.

 

[RosaryFan]

A man donates sperm. It is used to create children. If the mother is unable to support them she will turn to the state for support. When a man voluntarily launches his sperm into the world, a case could be made that he contributed to the situation and should be asked to financially join the party. It this off base?

Donating sperm is so wrong on so many levels…

 

[Newbie2]

Sperm donation is not like donating a car or donating blood. Sperm donation is sinful (becasue masturbation s involved, duh) whereas the donating a car or blood is not. And, while the car or blood my no longer be theirs because they no longer have possession, the child that results from the use of that sperm is the man’s child.

Have we broken away from reality so much that we can forget what makes a child; that even though a child that was conceived from a element that was donated he is still the progeny of the that donor, even if the donor considered his sperm to be an equivalent to a used car to forget about once sold.

You missed my point entirely. Sperm donation IS like donating a car, in that once it’s gone, you no longer have any responsibility for it or what happens to it. Duh.

I agree with you entirely; it’s **society **that sees it as I previously posted, not we Christians.

 

[JG77]

You missed my point entirely. Sperm donation IS like donating a car, in that once it’s gone, you no longer have any responsibility for it or what happens to it. Duh.

I agree with you entirely; it’s **society **that sees it as I previously posted, not we Christians.

Possibly it was the way you worded it. I took it that you meant that sperm donation was, as you say in your post, like any other kind of donation. The point I was trying to make was that since donation very often includes the sin of masturbation and that the use of the sperm is normally in the process of in vitro, that sin becomes an issue. Sin is normally not involved in the donating of a car. The man who donates is still the father of that child that result from the use of that sperm, whereas the title of the car is signed over to the person or group who received the donated car.

You say that you agree with me but still you say that it IS like donating a car and I am saying that even though the man is separated from any material responsibility for that child that it is different than donating a car. Once you donate a car it is no longer yours unlike the child that would have come from a donor; there is a biological tie between them even if legally the child belongs to the couple or woman who conceived through in vitro.

So to clear it up, would you say it is more correct to say that it is like donating a car in some ways but not in every way, at least with the point that I am trying to make? For me at least I see that difference.

 

[Newbie2]

So to clear it up, would you say it is more correct to say that it is like donating a car in some ways but not in every way, at least with the point that I am trying to make?

That’s exactly what I’m saying…and that society incorrectly views sperm donation like car donations.