Note: The ethical judgments on this page refer exclusively to the action — never to the person who performs it. Every person possesses inalienable dignity, regardless of what they do or have done. Cf. Note on ethical judgments (German).
The provision of egg or sperm cells by a third person for the purpose of artificial fertilization. Gamete donation leads to the splitting of parenthood into genetic and social parenthood and violates the unity of procreation and parenthood that underlies the personalist norm (cf. Bexten 2017, pp. 330 ff.).
Gamete donation is a form of practical oblivion of the person, because it decomposes the personal relationship between parents and child into its biological components. In the natural order, genetic, gestational, and social motherhood or fatherhood are united in one person. Gamete donation tears apart this unity and produces a fragmented parenthood in which the child does not know, or cannot know, who its bodily parents are.
From the standpoint of personal ontology, the procreation of a child is no merely biological process, but a deeply personal act. In procreation two persons give being to a new person. Gamete donation separates the biological transmission of life from the personal relationship of the parents. It reduces the gametes — germ cells that carry the genetic identity of a person — to material that can be exchanged.
The ontology distinguishes sperm donation and egg donation as subordinate concepts of gamete donation. Both raise specific problems: egg donation requires invasive medical interventions on the donor; sperm donation can lead to the existence of numerous genetic half-siblings who do not know one another.
For the embryo that arises from a gamete donation, profound questions of identity follow: the child’s right to know its origin is structurally violated. The instrumentalization shows itself in the fact that the interests of the adults (the desire for a child) are placed above the rights of the child coming into being.
Ontological classification:
- Superordinate concept: practical oblivion of the person
- Subordinate concepts: sperm donation, egg donation
Chapter assignment: Chapter 5: Oblivion of the Person (German)
Egg Donation
Egg donation is a reproductive-medical procedure in which a woman makes her egg cells available to another, so that the latter may carry a child. From the standpoint of personal ontology, egg donation raises fundamental questions, because it splits motherhood: the genetic mother and the gestational mother are no longer the same person. A fragmented parenthood arises, in which the natural unity of procreation, pregnancy, and birth is deliberately dissolved.
The personalist norm demands that the person never be used merely as a means. This holds both for the donor, whose bodiliness is subjected to a technical procedure, and for the child coming into being, which is placed from the very beginning into a divided origin.
Egg donation belongs, like sperm donation and surrogacy, to those procedures that place the desire for a child above the question of what is owed to the child as a someone — namely, the unity of its bodily origin.
Sperm Donation
Sperm donation is a reproductive-medical procedure in which a man makes his sperm available, so that a woman may conceive a child without the genetic father appearing as the social father. From the standpoint of personal ontology, sperm donation raises fundamental questions, because it deliberately splits fatherhood and thereby produces a fragmented parenthood.
The child that comes into being through sperm donation is placed from the very beginning into a situation in which its bodily origin does not coincide with its social reality. The personalist norm demands that the person — including the future person — never be treated merely as a means.
When the procreation of a child is detached from the personal relationship of the parents and becomes a technical process, there is a danger that the child will be regarded as the object of a desire instead of as a someone with a right of its own. Sperm donation belongs, like egg donation and surrogacy, to the procedures that require critical examination in the light of personal ontology.
Sources: Bexten 2017, pp. 330 ff. (gamete donation and fragmented parenthood).
Further sources:
- Wojtyła, Karol: Love and Responsibility, transl. H. T. Willetts. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993 (personalist norm and the unity of procreation and parenthood).
- Catechism of the Catholic Church (1997), nos. 2376–2377 (on the moral evaluation of heterologous fertilization).
See also
- Right to Knowledge of One’s Genetic Origin
- Three-Parent IVF (Mitochondrial Donation)
- Dignity