Hallich Oliver
a University Duisburg-Essen , Germany.
New Bioeth. 2017 Jul;23(2):107-120. doi: 10.1080/20502877.2017.1355083. Epub 2017 Jul 20.
Sperm donation is an increasingly common method of assisted reproduction. In the debate on sperm donation, the right to privacy - construed as a right that refers to the limits of the realm of information to which others have access - plays a pivotal role with regard to two questions. The first question is whether the sperm donor's right to privacy implies his right to retain his anonymity, the second is whether the gamete recipients' right to privacy entitles them to withhold information about the circumstances of their conception from their donor-conceived offspring. In this contribution, I tackle these two interrelated questions. In part (1), I defend the view that there is a prima facie right of sperm donors to remain anonymous. Part (2) widens the perspective by taking into consideration the welfare of donor-conceived offspring. I argue that anonymity may harm the child only if the gametes' recipients decide to disclose information about the circumstances of her birth to the child. Non-disclosure of these circumstances, however, is morally problematic because it may not necessarily harm, but wrong the child. In section (3), I attempt to rebut some arguments in defense of non-disclosure. In part (4), I defend the view that the best practice of sperm donation would be 'direct donation', i.e. that the identity of the donor is known from the time of conception. Part (5) concludes.
精子捐赠是一种越来越普遍的辅助生殖方式。在关于精子捐赠的辩论中，隐私权——被理解为一种涉及他人可获取信息范围限制的权利——在两个问题上起着关键作用。第一个问题是精子捐赠者的隐私权是否意味着他有保持匿名的权利，第二个问题是配子接受者的隐私权是否使他们有权对其通过捐赠配子受孕的后代隐瞒受孕情况的信息。在本文中，我将探讨这两个相互关联的问题。在第一部分，我捍卫这样一种观点，即精子捐赠者初步享有保持匿名的权利。第二部分通过考虑捐赠配子受孕后代的福利来拓宽视角。我认为，只有当配子接受者决定向孩子透露其出生情况的信息时，匿名才可能对孩子造成伤害。然而，不透露这些情况在道德上是有问题的，因为这不一定会伤害孩子，但却可能对孩子不公。在第三部分，我试图反驳一些支持不透露信息的论点。在第四部分，我捍卫这样一种观点，即精子捐赠的最佳做法是“直接捐赠”，也就是说，从受孕之时起捐赠者的身份就为人所知。第五部分是结论。
