'i Am Not the Child My Mother Paid for' - a Qualitative Study on the Experience of Insemination Fraud from the Perspective of Donor-Conceived People

For several years, concerns about third-party reproduction have been evident in many countries. However, despite growing concerns, several loopholes remain in the legislation governing sperm donation. This state of affairs has led to a number of abuses, such as insemination fraud, which occurs when the physician performing an insemination knowingly substitutes a different sperm sample (from another donor, another patient, or the physician himself) for the sperm sample chosen by the parents without their knowledge or consent. Today, over 50 physicians were found to have committed such acts all over the world. Although these cases have received significant media attention, they have largely gone un-addressed by academia.

This paper presentation aims to broaden our understanding of insemination fraud by examining the experiences of donor-conceived adults affected by it.

A qualitative study was conducted, involving semi-structured interviews with 21 participants (12 women and 9 men) who discovered they were conceived with the sperm of a different man than the one intended by their parents. Participants were aged between 23 and 60 and came from different countries: USA (9), Canada (8), The Netherlands (2), England (1), Ecuador (1). A thematic analysis was conducted on all the transcripts.

Two main themes emerged from the preliminary analysis of the data: 1. Misaligned identity; 2. Tarnished identity. The first theme refers to the fact that insemination fraud implies that a previously thought genetic tie no longer exists and that a previously unsuspected one is (potentially) unveiled, which can lead to a sense of loss, disorientation and a redefinition of one’s identity. The second theme underlies the fact that insemination fraud implies that the very conception of donor-conceived people rests on an ethically questionable act, which can lead to feelings of shame, guilt and the questioning of the very legitimacy of one’s existence.