My unknown father | Politics & Society | '
It was nearing her 40th birthday when Elisabeth G. learned from her mother that she was the child of a sperm donation. The truth came to nothing for the mother of two. "It was unreal, my heart was beating wildly, but I really did not understand it, it just pulled the ground from under my feet".
Maybe she should have suspected something, says Elisabeth. She has an adopted older sister, that was never a secret. But the father felt his infertility as a serious blemish and his wife wanted to have more children. So the couple decided to go to a fertilization clinic in Bad Pyrmont, Lower Saxony, where they received the seeds of a donor unknown to them. Elisabeth was born in May 1977, followed a year and a half later by her little brother.
In order to avoid cases like that of Elisabeth, a new law has been in force in Germany since 1 July 2018. At the German Institute for Medical Documentation and Information, a nationwide database for sperm donations has been introduced, which will allow every child who learns of his conception through a sperm donation, to learn the identity of his biological father. The documents must be kept for 110 years. However, the database lists only those children who were conceived from July 2018 – older years are not listed in the register.
Elisabeth G .: "That just pulled the floor from under my feet"
Thousands of Danish sperm donations by mail
Officially, in Germany all children of a sperm donation have the right to know their biological descent, as the Federal Constitutional Court in 1989 stated. But there were always ways to make anonymous donations. One still leads many women to Denmark. It is the only EU country that allows both anonymous and non-anonymous donations.
In Aarhus, Denmark, sits Cryos, the largest seed bank in the world. The company is located on two floors in a nondescript red brick office building. For 30 years seeds have been sent from here to all over the world. In the online catalog, suitable donors can be selected according to physical characteristics; education and occupation are also indicated; some men even have photos or sound recordings.
Parents want anonymity of the father
Previously, women could have the selected semen sent home for self-insemination, also anonymously. For the German law, which prohibits anonymity actually, affects only fertility clinics, no private households. How many children have been fathered by Cryos anonymously or non-anonymously in Germany, the seed bank does not announce. "We send several thousand sperm straws per year to Germany, and our knowledge of the actual children is based on the information provided by reproductive practices," says managing director Peter Reeslev.
On the same day that Germany introduced the new sperm donor database, Denmark introduced a new law banning the supply of semen to private households. Since then Cryos sends only to reproductive practices, which excludes anonymous mediation.
Cryos in Aarhus, Denmark is the largest seed bank in the world
However, women still travel to Denmark to receive anonymous semen in clinics. This can have various reasons, for example straight heterosexual couples often wish that there is no connection to the biological father, as a social father exists, says seed bank boss Reeslev. "People are finding ways to anonymously have children, nightclub or the Internet, so it's better to do it in a seed bank where the seed is carefully tested for disease."
Closed doors everywhere
Anne Meier-Credner from the German Association of Spenderkinder knows about the problems of many people in the search for the father: "We also know from Germany of doctors who have used their own sperm, so it was not always in the interest of the doctors who Many documents also appear to have disappeared over time, sometimes causing water damage or fires. " In addition, some doctors who practiced at that time have since died. This complicates the search.
Some are fortunate enough to find their biological father or other half-siblings via DNA databases. This has also tried Elisabeth, so far unsuccessful. The clinic in Bad Pyrmont no longer exists, but Elisabeth is in contact with other children who were conceived there. A man looks very much like her, but he has not been examined yet.
The semen is frozen before it is sent to the reproductive clinics
Her parents were told at the time that her grower was an intern at the clinic, but she does not know any more. "I feel an absolute insecurity. Whenever I discover bad qualities in myself, I wonder if they come from him." She feels fainted and angry that she has been deprived of the right to know about the donor: "Everywhere you stand in front of closed doors."
So different from the brother
There are no more documents for her procreation – there was a fire in the clinic, she was told. After all, Elisabeth has in retrospect to reinterpret many problems in her family. It must have been a burden on her father to continue being confronted with childlessness while his wife had children from another man, she says. And now she knows why she looks so different from her brother, why she is handicrafted in contrast to the parents. The knowledge of her conception has severely damaged her relationship with her mother: "I have internally sealed myself off from my mother, which has deprived me of any basis of trust." Her brother does not want to acknowledge the truth until today.
Elisabeth wishes she had heard of her conception earlier. Studies show that even young children can handle this knowledge, and many develop a positive image of their biological father when their parents speak openly about him. Most dream parents consider the sperm donation a great gift. Completely unencumbered is the knowledge about their own conception by donating sperm probably never, says Elisabeth. "But it could have been a lot easier."
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