A Mother Learns the Identity of Her Child's Grandmother. A Sperm Bank Threatens to Sue.

[Eugene]

Source: New York Times

A Mother Learns the Identity of Her Child’s Grandmother. A Sperm Bank Threatens to Sue.

The results of a consumer genetic test identified the mother of the man whose donated sperm was used to conceive Danielle Teuscher’s daughter. Legal warnings soon followed.

By Jacqueline Mroz
Feb. 16, 2019

Danielle Teuscher decided to give DNA tests as presents last Christmas to her father, close friends and 5-year-old daughter, joining the growing number of people taking advantage of low-cost, accessible genetic testing.

But the 23andMe test produced an unexpected result. Ms. Teuscher, 30, a nanny in Portland, Ore., said she unintentionally discovered the identity of the sperm donor she had used to conceive her young child.

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So perhaps it’s no surprise that the fertility industry is facing questions, too. For decades, the business relied on the idea that sperm banks can guarantee anonymity to donors, and promised that there wouldn’t be any relationship with offspring unless the donors wanted.

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In Ms. Teuscher’s case, NW Cryobank, the sperm bank in Spokane, Wash., from which she had bought the donated sperm, sent her a stern letter.

It threatened Ms. Teuscher with penalties of $20,000 for “flagrantly” violating the agreement she’d signed by seeking the identity of the donor and contacting his family. The bank also said it would deny her access to four vials of sperm from the same donor that she had hoped to use.

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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/16/health/sperm-donation-dna-testing.html