Regulating the donor-conception industry in the US
By Wendy Kramer,
BioNews
| 02. 27. 2017
Since 2000, the Donor Sibling Registry (DSR) has connected more than 14,000 donor-conceived individuals with their donors and half-siblings. We've helped them to create and explore these new familial relationships and to better understand their ancestry and learn about their medical backgrounds. The DSR has also helped to eliminate much of the stigma associated with being a gamete donor or donor-conceived person. Behind the scenes, the DSR's research, education, and counseling service have provided the momentum for the establishment of positive reforms in the egg-donation and sperm-banking industries around the world.
We ask: 'What is in the best interests of the child to be born?' Our many research surveys, which reach thousands of donors, parents and donor offspring, have helped to answer this fundamental question. We are interested in the views of all those involved, particularly regarding medical issues, donor anonymity, and connecting with donor relatives. For almost 10 years, the DSR has partnered with researchers and universities around the world, including Cambridge in the UK, to publish more than two dozen peer-reviewed research papers on parents, donors...
Related Articles
By Grace Won, KQED [with CGS' Katie Hasson] | 12.02.2025
In the U.S., it’s illegal to edit genes in human embryos with the intention of creating a genetically engineered baby. But according to the Wall Street Journal, Bay Area startups are focused on just that. It wouldn’t be the first...
Several recent Biopolitical Times posts (1, 2, 3, 4) have called attention to the alarmingly rapid commercialization of “designer baby” technologies: polygenic embryo screening (especially its use to purportedly screen for traits like intelligence), in vitro gametogenesis (lab-made eggs and sperm), and heritable genome editing (also termed embryo editing or reproductive gene editing). Those three, together with artificial wombs, have been dubbed the “Gattaca stack” by Brian Armstrong, CEO of the cryptocurrency company...
By Lucy Tu, The Guardian | 11.05.2025
Beth Schafer lay in a hospital bed, bracing for the birth of her son. The first contractions rippled through her body before she felt remotely ready. She knew, with a mother’s pit-of-the-stomach intuition, that her baby was not ready either...
By Emily Glazer, Katherine Long, Amy Dockser Marcus, The Wall Street Journal | 11.08.2025
For months, a small company in San Francisco has been pursuing a secretive project: the birth of a genetically engineered baby.
Backed by OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and his husband, along with Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong, the startup—called...