As DNA Donors’ Secrets Emerge, What Should the Children Know?

May 27, 2022

(Wall Street Journal) – Mr. Sniff, who has since co-founded an advocacy group, recognizes that his parents’ decision to use an anonymous donor is responsible for his existence. “I am grateful for my life,” he says. But as an adult, he felt his right to information about his genetic background was at least equal to, and might even take precedence over, the rights of his parents and the donor to their privacy. Mr. Sniff later learned, through information posted by biological relatives on the website of the home DNA testing company, that his biological father died at 36 years old from a probable fentanyl overdose. “Knowledge about my genetic origins doesn’t belong only to my parents and the donor,” Mr. Sniff says. “The information is also mine.” (Read More)