I Used a Sperm Donor. Should I Introduce My Daughter to Her Half Siblings?

October 24, 2020

Illustration by Tomi Um

The Ethicist

I Used a Sperm Donor. Should I Introduce My Daughter to Her Half Siblings?

The magazine’s Ethicist columnist on whether to make your donor’s numerous offspring part of your child’s family — and more.

By Kwame Anthony Appiah

I am a single mother by choice. My baby, now 10 months old, was conceived using an “open ID” donor from a sperm bank, which means that when my daughter turns 18, she can contact the donor via the sperm bank.

Right now, however, we can be in touch with other families who conceived using the same donor, through the sperm bank’s private online-connection platform, other donor sibling registries or both. I am questioning whether it’s fair to my child to introduce her there. I do not post about her on social media and believe in protecting her privacy. But I believe strongly that she needs to know her origin story and understand, from an early age, that she has some 15 to 20 donor half siblings. Still, part of me feels that she — not I — should decide what interaction she should have with her donor half siblings and their families.

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It feels like an invasion of privacy to share her information with the donor half siblings’ families (or others), even if these sites are private and seem an unlikely hacking target. But it’s hard to know at what age I should consider her “competent” to decide for herself about making contact. Furthermore, I imagine that it would be much easier to normalize the unusual situation of having so many biological half siblings with whom she has no other familial connection if she grows up knowing at least some of them as actual people, even if solely via photos, emails and video chats. While I would probably benefit from connecting with the other donor families, many of whom are also single mothers by choice, my primary concern is what’s best for my daughter. What are the ethical considerations of sharing her identity and some personal information with “strangers” who are also the families of her genetic “relatives” before she can have a say?

Read the Ethicist’s response here.

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