Their Mothers Chose Donor Sperm. The Doctors Used Their Own.

Abstract

This paper reviews an article uncovering doctors who are the sperm donors of children they performed birth procedures on and how it violates medical ethics principles. Medical ethics is a system of moral principles focused on medical issues affecting patients and medical practitioners. These children once of age search for their father and have been discovering that their delivery doctor gave their mother their own sperm. Mother’s felt violated for receiving and being implemented sperm that was not originally asked for to the point where Texas passed a law charging doctors with sexual assault for wrongfully giving their sperm to the patient without their consent. Jacqueline Mroz article, “Their Mothers Chose Donor Sperm. The Doctors Used Their Own” highlights that doctors have different interpretations of this issue, some indicating that mixing their sperm increased the females chance of getting pregnant, yet there always are crueler intentions. Referencing to the article “Ethics and Neuropsychiatric Genetics: A Review of Major Issues” by Steven K. Hoge, MD and Paul S. Appelbaum, MD, this doing combats ethical practices since doctors violate the female’s autonomy when not issuing the correct information of what sperm is being admitted.

    Their Mothers Chose Donor Sperm. The Doctors Used Their Own.

    Doctors are said to have the most trust from a patient than any other provider. Females have been, for a while, implementing sperm through technology to get pregnant. Sperm donor kids are now into the habit of doing consumer DNA tests to see who their biological fathers and they have been shocked to find out that it is their delivery doctor or someone else and not who the mother trusted to be. For decades doctors have been using their sperm as the donor sperm for their patients without any intel of the act and at other times they would mistakenly give out the wrong sperm. Mothers and children go through life wrongfully believing someone else is the sperm donor and are left blinded by inaccurate medical background information related to the real donor. These committed actions go against medical ethics moral principles. Females have little to no knowledge of what is being put into their bodies but they do have trust in their doctors who have patients they are frequently inserting their sperm into. It defies the moral compass and leaves many mothers feeling disrespected and sexually assaulted. This paper examines the uncovery of cases where doctors all over the world who have been doing this practice turn a deaf ear to the allegations and laws being enforced to make sure this would not happen again.

    Imagine finding out that you had been impregnated with sperm you did not ask for or the sperm of the doctor who was treating you. J.P. Vandervoodt had opinionated “in a word, gross,” (Mroz 2019, p.2) and most definitely blatant. Margo Williams, a woman who got pregnant through artificial insemination, went to see Dr. Kim McMorries in Hope’s of locating a sperm donor since her husband was infertile. Dr. McMorries had informed Mrs. Williams that he found a donor in California and proceeded along with the insertion process. Thirty two years later the conceived child, Eve Wiley, had taken a consumer DNA test and came to find that the donor was not from California but was Dr. McMorries himself. Dr. McMorries chose not to speak on his behalf of the issue and leaves Mrs. Wiley conflicted and dazed with the findings of who her biological father is.

    With the surface of doctors using their own semen for artificial insemination, states have taken into action enforcing laws criminalizing this act. “Dr. Jody Madeira, a law professor at Indiana University, is following more than 20 cases in the United States and abroad,” (Morz 2019, p. 3) had discovered that Dutch Dr. Jan Karbaat had used his semen on women who visited his clinic which lead him to fathering 56 children. Dr. Karbaat practice could have been seen as normal thirty years ago when they began taking place, but does not account for what goes on in today’s time. Fertility specialist Dr. Norman Barwin had been found to insementing women with not only his sperm, but with wrong sperm for decades. Donor children of Dr. Barwin had claimed that the sperm they were convinced with were not the right ones and 11 women were inseminated with his own sperm.

    These doctors have been violating women’s autonomy by falsely informing them on who their sperm donors are. Medical ethics have been applied to and studied throughout all medical professions. An article about ethics and neuropsychiatric genetics by Steven K. Hoge, MD and Paul S. Appelbaum, MD discusses how people are interested in genetic testing to find if they have a malicious disease in their medical history. Women who have to get pregnant by insemination, for some cases, are not aware of the accurate medical history of their donor. When doctors implant their own or the wrong sperm into these women, they are violating female rights to who they choose their child’s father to be and their body rights which is unethical. The inception happens by a medical device penetrating women in delivering the semen. “I equate it with rape, because there’s no consent,” said Ms. Klick, the Texas legislature (Mroz 2019, p.5). Laws within states like Texas passed that have passed that “If a health care provider uses human sperm…register as a sex offedner” (Mroz 2019, 4). Doctors who have been confronted with these issues like Dr. Gary Don Davis, Dr. Donald Cline, Dr. McMorries, etc. have either turned a blind or denied the allegations which sticks to these practices being unprincipled.

    Some female pregnancies have been done through artificial insemination throughout the decades. During this doctors have been found to either be inserting their own sperm or the incorrect sperm into these women. Without any acknowledgement, sperm donor children had been born with misleading information on who their biological father is and the devastation mothers have after finding out what happened leaves them feeling violated. Doctors intentions are usually good. Some may see that the sperm females want are not a great match or they note that fresh sperm is better for higher fertilization. On top of that doctors also take their own medical histories into account seeing that the child comes out healthy. However because the actions are done in secret and mothers are not being told, the act transgress medical ethics.

Reference

Hoge, S.K (2012, November). Ethics and Neuropsychiatric Genetics: A Review of Major Issues.

Mroz, Jacqueline (2019, August). Their Mothers Chose Donor Sperm. The Doctors Used Their Own.https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/health/sperm-donors-fraud-doctors.html