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Thursday, April 3, 2008
Reveal sperm bank daddies
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The discovery by three different teams of scientists of a genetic link to nicotine addiction and to a susceptibility to lung cancer is reason to cheer — offering, as it does, the prospect that early warnings with a simple, inexpensive test can prompt lifestyle changes and customized treatment options for those at risk.
The findings, based on gentic study of more than 35,000 whites of European descent in Europe, Canada and the U.S., are being published today in the journals Nature and Nature Genetics. Follow-up studies will be done on blacks and Asians and the results could be different. Scientists don’t know for certain if they have a set of variants in one gene or in three that are closely connected.
The research being reported today reveals that whites who smoke have a 14 percent chance of getting lung cancer. If they inherit the genetic variations from one parent, it’s 18 percent. If from both, it’s 23 percent.
Advances in genetic research that now make possible advance warning of family susceptibility to certain diseases reinforces my belief that children are born with the right to know the identities of the male and female who created them. That includes children born to and raised by single women, children put up for adoption, and children conceived with the help of sperm banks.
Only in the first instance — children raised by unmarried women — should the males be obligated to provide financial support. In that instance, of course, they should be tracked to the ends of the earth to be held accountable financially.
But even those conceived with the help of anonymous sperm donors have a right to know the donor’s identity at some point — no later than their early adult life. The reason is simple. Children have a right to know the medical history of the man and woman who gave them life.
Sperm donors report their medical histories, to the extent that they know. But the reality is that the donors are young men who may not be aware of family health problems until later in life. The children they help to create should have access to that information.
