"Those who
make as if children born of artificial insemination with donor sperm can be
intensively worried about the story of their conception are idiots."
This is how Arthur tells it, straightforwardly. Nor physicians, nor
specialists of a Cecos (Centres for the Study and Conservation of Eggs and
Sperm), he is "the only one" among these 50,000 children born of an
artificial insemination with donor sperm (IAD) since 1973 and one of the
first who dares to speak publicly. Today at 24 years old, Arthur Kermalvezen,
psychopedagogist, has been fighting for 2 years for the quest for his
origins. He fights for removing the anonymity of the gamete donation in
France, within the association called medically anonymous procreation. He
wishes that this anonymity removal takes place at 18 years old, so that "children
have the choice to consult or not their file. A file in which could appear a
name or a picture, a job position or even the story of the donation
motivations".
Invasive absence
In Né de spermatozoïde inconnu, Arthur Kermalvezen tells his story,
that of his infertile father, of his parents who are convinced that the IAD
can resolve their problems, that of his development having the feeling that
a part of him is prohibited... He tells the pain of his parents, and
particularly of his father, with the irruption in the centre of their couple
of a "second man" and the difficulty to communicate about this
subject with people around them. He shows how, since he was a child, he
developed himself around this "absence", which became omnipresent and
invasive in his relationship to others. He insists on the very strong
relationship he has with his parents to well indicate that by searching "his
biological donor" he is not searching a father, explaining how difficult
it is to "develop with blurred origins" and to consider his own
paternity. It is difficult to recognize his body whose half part seems to be
stranger to him, when he was a teenager, it was impossible to physically
project himself into his father, perpetual anxiety to meet his biological
father at school, in the street, at his girlfriend’s, terror of unconscious
incest… From that a revolt developed regarding adult’s world, particularly
regarding those who represent the masculine authority, because among them he
could find his "genitor" and they may have invented this silence world which
hurts him.
Unfairness and infantilisation
In the centre of his disquiet, he found the bitter feeling of being a victim
of an organisation which ignores his parents and him. He tries to feel his
way along like in a labyrinth where the leaders wearing white collar,
instead of helping him, prohibit him to find the way out. All along his
investigation of his origins, we can find the emblematic face of Cecos’
physicians, holder of the more intimate secret of his being they do no want
to reveal him: That of the beginning of his existence. Added to the pain of
the "absence" the unfairness: Why do the physicians know his secret
whereas he and his parents are not authorised to know it? They are the first
concerned. "Only the Cecos know who the donor is: This contributes
inevitably to put our parents in position of children compared to those who
know and also compared to their own children." Everything seems
organised to "deprive of maximum responsibility the couples who, because
of their pain, are grateful to physicians to the point of forgetting to
think." "The infantilisation of the people concerned can achieve
unbelievable proportions." "At that time Daddy and Mummy were even
not conscious that the sperm of the donor was something alive. The fact that
it comes from a person or a thinking subject totally escaped them. All Cecos’
organisation contributes to this delusion." He has the feeling they were
taken hostage.
Secret or lies?
The author wonders about the deep reasons of the willing to maintain
anonymity. He sees in it a more or less conscious desire of Cecos to
reinforce their power. "In our case the separation between sexual
relation and procreation to which is added the necessary intervention of a
third party who resorts to masturbation to be a sperm donor, transforms
rapidly the physician, officer of the scientific experience into God in
person. That’s he is not at all. This approach which reinforces the ego and
the medical almighty is unbearable to me." Between secret and lies: the
border is thin and worried. At the crossroad of biological, affective, and "educative"
paternities, to let believe that the biological side is not important, is
not deceiving the donor and the recipient and closing the child in a
prohibited quest? As if only the secret could contain the contradictions of
the system.
Contradictions
Some examples gathered all along the pages invite us to think about the
ontological status of the gametes. Arthur’s mother accepts the gamete
donation without thinking that it is a donation of "heredity" and yet,
thinking about being inseminated by her stepfather’s sperm (considered
possibility), she is terrified and refuses absolutely. The parents are
pleased their three children are the fruit of three different donors,
because a single donor would have taken too much place within the family…
Why does the law require that the wife of the sperm donor signs her consent
each time? If the sperm donation is a little commitment for the donor and
for the child conceived, why surrounding it with so many mysteries, why
using so many precautions? Do we fear that one day the attraction of the
donor for the child he contributed to generate or of the child for his/her
biological father would be too strong? Is it not the admission that the
sperm donation is a "heredity" donation and that the fact to admit it
would result in shaking the entire machine?
The author wonders about the motivations of the one he calls "the bastard
donor”; the generosity of the "donor" displayed and praised by
the Cecos, for him seems to be a mockery. Among the main reasons given by
the donors he met during his investigation, he noted the desire to carry on
existing through his descendants, to give birth to several children (up to
10) without modifying the size of his own family and the interesting "deep
desire of "repairing" the accumulated spermatic residues" by giving to
the sperm its real purpose: the procreation.
Arthur Kermalvezen feeds his fight for removing the anonymity with his
revolt faced with lies. But maybe some people will see an even larger fight,
because the author’s disquiet seems, without being aware of it, to be
related to his mode of conception and also to the secret which surrounds him.
"I knew that I was the result of a cleverly orchestrated programming, of
a scientific experience which was little worried about the consequences on
us, the children. We were guinea pigs..." "My parents (...) in
a certain way committed a perfect crime".
1.
Né de spermatozoïde inconnu, Arthur Kermalvezen – Presse de la
Renaissance – Février 2008
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Information
campaign
Faced with the "lack" of oocytes available for the medically assisted
procreation (MAP), the French Biomedicine Agency launched, at the end of
May, in collaboration with health professionals and particularly with
gynaecologists, a national information campaign aiming at promoting "oocyte
donation".
Key figures
According to the last statistics from the Agency, in 2006, 228 women "gave"
their oocytes (compared to 168 in 2005), enabling 384 in vitro
fertilizations (IVF). In total, in 2006, over 100 children were born with an
"oocyte donation". It is around twenty years that this method is used and
some 1,000 children came from an MAP with "oocyte donation". We remind that
among the 19,026 children born in 2005 of a MAP, 1,293 have been conceived
with a "gamete donation".
Relaxing the legal framework?
In France, the oocyte "donation" is supervised by the law of bioethics of
2004 and particularly relies on three principles which are: voluntary help,
anonymity and gratuity. This "donation" aims at couples with pathological
infertility or having a risk to transmit to the child a serious pathology.
Furthermore, the law stipulates three criteria to be a "donor": to be in
healthy conditions, to be under 37 years old and to have at least one child.
Some people protest to ask for the expansion of this legal framework,
particularly for expanding the limit of age of the "donors", for abrogating
the obligation to already be a mother, for removing the anonymity or even
for paying this practice today only indemnified and 100% paid by French
social security.
Foreign legislations
The oocyte "donation" is prohibited in Germany, Austria, Italy, Norway,
Portugal and Switzerland. In countries where it is authorised, the
legislations are very variable.
The anonymity is the rule in almost all countries, except in Sweden (since
1985) and United Kingdom (since 2005). Holland and Belgium have opted for a
double possibility: the "donors" choose to remain anonymous or not. If the
gratuity wins unanimous support in Europe, some countries like Spain,
propose to financially compensate the painfulness of the "donation" process.
It is not the case in France where the regulation imposes the reimbursement
of all medical expenses and related expenses (work stoppage, transport…).
Unlike in USA for example, the legislation enables buying oocytes. On the
other hand, the obligation to already have a child is specific to France.
Compensation or income?
In order to try to palliate to this "lack" of oocytes, some countries plan
to pay the "donors". After Spain, the clinique de fertilité of Louvain, in
Belgium, prompts students to give their oocytes for €750. In its guide, the
Biomedicine Agency indicates that the time for obtaining oocytes is shorter
in countries where the "donation" is paid and that "numerous
professionals wonder if it would be necessary to pay this donation in order
to attract more donors".
A donation like others?
How not to be surprised when the scope of this donation is passed over in
silence infinitely less ordinary than blood donation for example? In this
information campaign, everything is established to make this act "commonplace",
to calm down the fears and to overcome the reservations. With as a slogan, "to
give again the hope to become parents", the Biomedicine Agency wants the
"oocyte donation" to become a supreme act of solidarity. But do women who
accept, by generosity, that the oocyte are sampled, know that “by giving”
their sexual cells, they transfer life, and the life marked by their unique
genotype?
Moreover, in addition to the medical risk inherent to the ovarian
stimulation (syndrome of hyperstimulation) and to the puncture (haemorrhage,
infection, anaesthetic risk), we can be worried about the psychological
consequences on the "donor", the two couples and the child. Is the "donor"
woman simply used as a "surrogate mother" to the detriment of her own
dignity? Will the recipient couple assume without difficulty the
intervention of a third party within the procreation process? Regarding the
child born of an anonymous oocyte, he could suffer from the same problems
like some adopted children, who do not know their biological parents. But
yet nobody would dare to present the adoption as a situation desired for
itself… |
