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Searching for ‘relations’ using a DNA linking register by adults conceived following sperm donation

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Abstract

This paper considers the experiences of adults conceived following sperm donation, who were registered with a voluntary DNA linking register and considers: how awareness of being donor-conceived affected their identity and family relationships; and the process of searching for their donor and donor-conceived siblings. The views and experiences of donor-conceived adults has, until recently, been a relatively neglected research area. This study is the first, to our knowledge, to consider the experiences of donor-conceived adults using a DNA-based register. This paper presents qualitative data from a questionnaire-based study with 65 adults conceived following sperm donation. It examines how ideas of relatedness, kinship and identity are enacted and how narrative certainties are challenged by opening up new conceptions of what it means to be ‘related’. No single story of being donor-conceived emerged – with competing narratives about the effects and implications for respondents’ kinship relationships and sense of identity. The knowledge of being donor-conceived could be both a powerful disrupter and a consolidator of existing family relationships. This study sheds light on how identity and kinship relationships are negotiated and managed by donor-conceived adults, both with their existing family and donor ‘relations’, and how these can change over the life-course.

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Notes

  1. UK DonorLink ceased to operate in 2013 and its functions were transferred to the Donor Conceived Register (http://donorconceivedregister.org.uk/).

  2. This adds up to 24 as one respondent was linked to both donor-conceived siblings and donor.

  3. Being affected does not necessarily mean affected negatively – the quotes explain in more detail how respondents talked about any effects of finding out they were donor-conceived.

  4. Although it must be noted that numbers in each age category of finding out are small. Further, the study was not designed to establish any causal connections between age of finding out and attitudes to it.

  5. To contextualise the quotes in this section we have added the age at which respondents learned they were donor-conceived.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the staff of the UKDL and all those who responded to our survey.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Health Services Research, University of Liverpool, Block B, The Waterhouse Blds, Brownlow Street, Liverpool, L69 3GL, UK

    Lucy Frith

  2. School of Human and Health Sciences, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, England, UK

    Eric Blyth

  3. Department of Social Policy & Social Work, University of York, York, England, UK

    Marilyn Crawshaw

  4. Department of Psychology, Middlesex University, London, UK

    Olga van den Akker

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  1. Lucy Frith
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  2. Eric Blyth
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  3. Marilyn Crawshaw
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  4. Olga van den Akker
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Correspondence to Lucy Frith.

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Frith, L., Blyth, E., Crawshaw, M. et al. Searching for ‘relations’ using a DNA linking register by adults conceived following sperm donation. BioSocieties 13, 170–189 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41292-017-0063-2

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