Aggregated News
Consumer DNA testing kits like 23andMe or Ancestry have opened up a new world of information for children conceived using sperm or egg donors. This can bring knowledge about medical history or half siblings — connections that enrich donor-conceived children's lives.
In some instances, though, the revelations are painful and open up new questions about truth and consent in fertility medicine.
A growing number of people are finding out through DNA testing that instead of being “donor conceived” — the product of an anonymous sperm donation — they were “doctor conceived.” Their mothers’ fertility doctors used their own genetic material to impregnate their patients.
And right now, there are few options for parents or children to pursue civil or criminal remedies in these cases. There’s a push to change that in Washington state: A bill making its way through Olympia that would make fertility fraud a crime.
Soundside host Libby Denkmann spoke to three people connected to the issue.
Traci Portugal lives in Woodinville, and discovered her biological father was her parents' fertility doctor.
"I don't think there's words to...