The children of Donor H898 – 12 autistic children fathered by same sperm donor | Hacker News Reader

The children of Donor H898 – 12 autistic children fathered by same sperm donor

washingtonpost.com

24 pointsmasonic16 comments

Ugh... This article make me want to vomit. The idea in the very near future we are going "filter" out people who's brains work like mine because "clearly” people like us can never lead happy productive lives is grotesque.

Chill with the pity party. Autism is a spectrum and for every person like you who is doing fine, there is a child whose brains doesn’t work fine and can’t talk, can’t socialise and can’t communicate. Parents of children like that become full time, life time caters and I’ve seen with what happens when they realise their children won’t ever get “better” and have to figure out who will loom after their kids for the rest of the child’s life after they pass.

Indeed. A family friend (single mom, dad bolted, financially stretched, we all pitch in when we can) has an autistic daughter who, in her mid teens, is barely potty trained (and who might never be higher functioning). Her other younger daughter, without autism, acts out because she gets whatever attention is left over after the mother has provided all the care necessary for the autistic daughter.

The mother I refer to should have the right to opt out if this type of existence if she could have. If we’re going to support woman having reproductive autonomy, genetic testing pre and post conception (and any resulting termination) goes with that. If someone doesn’t want to have an autistic child (and medical technology can provide a high level of confidence when making the decision), that is their choice.

there is a huge difference between aborting a child because it has been diagnosed with something, vs choosing a partner based on how their medical history could affect their children.

everyone should be free to choose who they have children with.

Everyone should be free to choose who is contributing genetic material to their child (if you read the entire article, the donor in question was not entirely honest about the facts about themselves they put forth). But I think you’ll see people err on the side of caution, just as birth rates have plummeted across the world when you have reproductive freedom. Ain’t no prizes spending your life being miserable.

yes, that's the point. the donor/agency was denying that choice by not having all the information.

but i don't get your second point. yes, people err on the side of caution, so what?

if we develop a society where having children is difficult then we are doing something wrong. and to respond to the start of the thread, if we develop a society where having autistic or handicapped children is difficult, we also ought to change things. but either way we need to make these changes by choice. we can not force people to have children, nor can we force people to take risks that they don't want to take.

this is especially critical in the US where there is little or no support for people who end up carrying the burden.

i heard someone say something like this once: "handicapped are not suffering by themselves, but they are a test for us in how we treat them". if they suffer, we are doing it wrong.

Absolutely. I'm ADHD (granted, a lesser challenge) and society does the same thing to us. Take these drugs so you settle down and be a good little kid.

Ya know what? I like who I am. Those traits make me direct, impulsive, creative, effective, and driven. I cannot live without them. <expletive> off....

I just listened to the Sept 10 episode of the ADHD podcast because a developer that I respect, Brett Terpstra, was on it. He had a lot to say about the difficulties that ADHD brings to his life. He also talked about the anxieties of losing his prescription when he changed doctors. One size does not fit all. Some people WANT to influence their ADHD.

Would you think the same of those opposing hearing aids for children though.

... I don't follow? What does people opposing hearing aids have to do with anything?

Nature's filter is months or years of socializing, dating, and marrying.

Sperm banks are really removing a natural filter.

I would be very interested to know if this donor has a partner or natural children. Many autistic people struggle to attract a mate.

> He was blond and blue-eyed, 6-foot-1, 240 pounds, and appeared to be smart and accomplished. His profile said he had a master’s degree and was working as a medical photographer. His hobbies included long-distance running, reading and art.

Isn't this enough to identify him, not just in sperm banks but in real life?

> And most important, Rizzo says, he had a clean bill of health, according to his profile — having scribbled “NA” and a strikethrough line on all but one of the more than 100 medical questions, including mental health ones, posed by sperm banks. (His paternal grandfather had had prostate cancer at age 85.)

I'd be interested in what "not applicable" means here, and how the mother understood it.

Seems like an expected side effect of not knowing or having a relationship with genetic parent to filter out traits. Sueing won't fix that..

I sometimes hear people talking negatively about prospective partners... "He's rude". "He is too much of a lad", "He isn't mature", etc.

All of that is them filtering out those traits from their future children. Sperm banks can never do that.

Do the sperm banks add thimerosol or other ingredients to keep sperm fresh? Never know...

it's crazy that some of these sperm banks absolutely did no background checks to verify some of these profiles.

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