"If Marc is Suzanne's father, does it follow that Suzanne is Marc's child?"
When we speak or write about assisted reproduction, we often use terms like 'parent,' 'child,' 'donor,' 'genes,' and 'reproduce.' New research suggests we may not always have the same things in mind.
Kristien Hens, a bioethicist at the University of Antwerp in Belgium, has spent a lot of time thinking about the meaning of genes and their association, or lack of association, with parenthood. But she realized that while ethicists use words like "parent," "child," and "reproduce" to describe concepts, they don't always stop to check whether their own intuitions about the meanings match those of the general public.
So she and her colleagues decided to inquire. They created vignettes and asked questions about them, to explore how people felt about these words and ideas as they related to donor conception. And some of the responses were surprising — even trending opposite to what the researchers expected.
5 minute read
Before reading about the study and its findings, click on a link below (only one) to get a sense of the type of questions people were asked in this study. Please answer. It will take about one minute.
When we speak or write about assisted reproduction, we often use terms like 'parent,' 'child,' 'donor,' 'genes,' and 'reproduce' and believe they have clear meanings. But maybe they don't. Maybe we're not always talking about the same things.
To tease out how people think about these words and the complex relationships between genes, reproduction and parenthood, the team designed three vignettes involving a couple where the man was infertile and used someone else's sperm to have their child. In one, the sperm came from a sperm bank. In another, the sperm came from Marc's younger brother. In the third, the sperm came from Marc's identical twin brother.
"Using this method, unexpected associations or inconsistencies in people's interpretations of certain concepts may be revealed," the authors write.
Here is the framework for the vignette that was used in the study:
Maria and Marc are a couple in a long-term relationship. They have always wanted to become parents. However, Marc is infertile. A fertility doctor uses Maria's eggs and [sperm from a sperm bank/ sperm from Marc's younger brother/ sperm from Marc's identical twin brother] to create an embryo. The embryo is transferred to Maria's womb and Maria becomes pregnant. Marc and Maria finally see their dream come true: their baby Suzanne.
In the context of the particular vignette they were presented with — donor from a sperm bank, younger brother or identical twin brother — respondents were asked to agree or disagree, on a five-point scale, with specific statements. Some pertained to Marc: "Marc is Suzanne's parent," "Suzanne is Marc's child," or "Marc reproduced." Others were about the donor: "The donor is Suzanne's parent," "Suzanne is the donor's child" and "The donor reproduced." There were 50 responses per experimental statement, with a total of 450. English was the mother tongue for all respondents.
Some of the findings were not so surprising, at least not to me. For instance, people were more inclined to say that Suzanne was the donor's child than that the donor was Suzanne's parent. A discrepancy, yes, but one that I think makes sense. (It would have been interesting to see how the word "father" might have played out.) Similarly, respondents were less likely to say that Marc had reproduced than that he was a parent. Again, I get that.
Other findings were a little more surprising. People were more likely to say Marc is Suzanne's parent than that Suzanne is his child. Really? And the likelihood of Marc being considered a parent seemed to depend on his connection to the donor. When the donor was from a sperm bank, there was an average agreement of 4.28 out of 5. When the donor was Marc's younger brother, there was only agreement of 3.68 with the statement that Marc was Suzanne's parent. When the donor was his identical twin brother, agreement was lower still — just 3.5.
Why does Marc's claim to parentage vary by his social relationship to the donor?
Equally interesting was how social relationship affected the likelihood that the donor would be considered a parent. The sperm bank donor got 2.42, the younger brother 2.98 and the twin brother 3.31. Why?
Even more surprising were the responses about whether Marc had reproduced. People were more likely to agree that Marc had reproduced when the donor was from a bank (2.08) than when the donor was his younger brother (1.94) and even less when it was his identical twin (1.86).
This seems especially odd. To me, saying Marc "reproduced" feels the same as saying Marc "passed his genes on to an offspring," so if the couple used a sperm bank donor, who shares no genes with Marc, I'd lean towards the low end of the scale. With a younger brother as a sperm donor, I would have paused. Given that a brother would have some shared genes, then yes, Marc had reproduced, at least partly. But with an identical twin brother... I mean, although the sperm didn't come from his body, it did convey the exact genes his own sperm would have conveyed. Even a genetic test would not be able to tell us whether it was Marc or his twin who was the actual contributor of the sperm that created this child. Shouldn't that have led to a higher level of agreement with the statement "Marc reproduced" than the others? That was what the researchers expected too.
Hens says that ethicists like her tend to believe that people attribute a lot of importance to genetic reproduction and genetic sameness. She calls it a "weird preoccupation with genetic ties." But this study illuminates something else. "Like the data show, it's much messier," she says. "It's completely messy."
The authors write that, "Our study yielded some expected and some surprising results. In particular, the 'closeness' of the donor to the social father seemed to have implications for the attribution of parenthood in a way that goes beyond genetic contribution."
Did respondents have a feeling that an anonymous donor would not play a parental role but that a brother or twin might? Why? Is a donor a mere genetic contributor whereas a brother is more? Are genes less important — and presumed social relationships with donors more important — than we've been assuming? Gut responses can be informative.
It wasn't just the genetic relationships that were altered in each vignette, of course, but the presumed social relationships too. When Hens and I spoke, we mused about a long-lost genetic twin versus an adopted brother who was socially close. Hence the vignettes at the top.
Hens says she would love to see people conducting the study in different contexts — different places, cultures and languages. Bottom line for now, though, is that we should not assume that we all understand these supposedly simple concepts in identical ways.
Kristien Hens et al. "If Marc is Suzanne's father, does it follow that Suzanne is Marc's child? An experimental philosophy study in reproductive ethics." Journal of Medical Ethics. 2024.