Book contents
- Donor-Linked Families in the Digital Age
- Donor-Linked Families in the Digital Age
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Donor-Conceived Families
- Part I ‘DIY’ Donor Linking: Issues and Implications
- Part II Children’s and Adults’ Lived Experiences in Diverse Donor-Linked Families
- Chapter 6 The Importance of Donor Siblings to Teens and Young Adults
- Chapter 7 The Experiences of Donor-Conceived People Making Contact with Same-Donor Offspring through Fiom’s Group Meetings
- Chapter 8 ‘It’s All on Their Terms’
- Chapter 9 On Familial Haunting
- Chapter 10 Assisted Reproduction and Making Kin Connections between Māori and Pākehā in Aotearoa New Zealand
- Chapter 11 ‘Spunkles’, Donors, and Fathers
- Part III Institutionalised Resistance to Openness
- Index
- References
Chapter 8 - ‘It’s All on Their Terms’
Donors Navigating Relationships with Recipient Families in an Age of Openness
from Part II - Children’s and Adults’ Lived Experiences in Diverse Donor-Linked Families
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 July 2023
Book contents
- Donor-Linked Families in the Digital Age
- Donor-Linked Families in the Digital Age
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Donor-Conceived Families
- Part I ‘DIY’ Donor Linking: Issues and Implications
- Part II Children’s and Adults’ Lived Experiences in Diverse Donor-Linked Families
- Chapter 6 The Importance of Donor Siblings to Teens and Young Adults
- Chapter 7 The Experiences of Donor-Conceived People Making Contact with Same-Donor Offspring through Fiom’s Group Meetings
- Chapter 8 ‘It’s All on Their Terms’
- Chapter 9 On Familial Haunting
- Chapter 10 Assisted Reproduction and Making Kin Connections between Māori and Pākehā in Aotearoa New Zealand
- Chapter 11 ‘Spunkles’, Donors, and Fathers
- Part III Institutionalised Resistance to Openness
- Index
- References
Summary
In recent decades, a number of jurisdictions have moved towards more open practices in donor conception, including legislating for the rights of donor-conceived people to trace their donor. In such contexts, the donor’s role is ambivalent. They are not expected to enact a parental role in relation to people conceived from their donation. However, they are expected to ‘be available’ for some form of relationship. Our UK-based research found that donors typically navigate these dual obligations by articulating a moral commitment to ‘following the lead’ of the families they help to create and particularly the people conceived from their donation. In this chapter, we illustrate how sperm and egg donors imagine and enact this commitment but also show that it is easier to say than to do. The embedded nature of donors’ personal lives and relationships create challenges in letting others decide their role in relation to recipient families.
Keywords
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Donor-Linked Families in the Digital AgeRelatedness and Regulation, pp. 138 - 153Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023
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