Check out this article from the New York Times about a woman who used a Web-based registry to see how many half-siblings her son had from the same sperm donor. It turns out he has more than my graduating class from Knoxville Public High School: 150.
The article contains stories of those who used this method for conception only to find that their donor has been keeping busy, often producing several dozen offspring that he will never meet (in many states, the donor is legally protected from his offspring having access to his contact information). It’s sad to see that our society has so wholeheartedly embraced a procedure that essentially orphans a child from birth and reduces his or her connection to their biological father to a financial transaction.
I think this line from the story about the child having dozens, if not hundreds, of ersatz siblings walking the earth with no connection to one another but a father more prolific than Ghengis Khan, sums the situation up: ““Experts don’t talk about this when they counsel people dealing with infertility,” Ms. Kramer said. “How do you make connections with so many siblings?
