Reconfiguring reproduction

Assisted reproductive technologies are changing the way families are created. These technologies open new paths to parenthood but also challenge traditional beliefs about genetic relatedness and familial roles. Interestingly, even low-tech interventions such as sperm donation can reveal inconsistencies in how people perceive parenthood and reproduction.

Our recent study examined concepts of reproduction, paternity, and genetic relatedness, using an experimental approach. We created three vignettes featuring a couple, Marc and Maria, who use donated sperm to conceive their child, Suzanne. The genetic relationship between Marc and the sperm donor varied across the three vignettes. The donor was either an unrelated stranger, Marc's younger brother, or Marc's identical twin. Participants were then asked to agree or disagree with statements about who had reproduced, who was considered a parent, and whose child Suzanne was.

The results yielded some surprising insights. We anticipated that participants' willingness to regard Marc as having reproduced might increase in line with the degree to which he shares genes with Suzanne. Thus, participants might be somewhat more likely to regard Marc as having reproduced when his younger brother is the sperm donor, rather than an unrelated stranger, and still more likely to do so when the donor is his identical twin brother.

If we take genetic resemblance as a significant aspect of paternity, it should mean that – of the three vignettes – the one where Marc's identical twin brother is the donor should also be the one where Marc is most strongly viewed as Suzanne's father. One might also assume that when participants agreed that Marc had reproduced, they would be more willing to ascribe fatherhood to him. Further, in cases where participants agreed that Marc is Suzanne's father, we might expect that they would be correspondingly willing to agree that Suzanne is Marc's child.

However, although respondents largely agreed that Marc was Suzanne's father in all three vignettes, the degree of certainty decreased somewhat, as his genetic resemblance to Suzanne increased. In other words, our participants found it easier to describe Marc as Suzanne's father when there was no genetic relationship between him and Suzanne than when there was a close genetic resemblance.

Respondents were likely to affirm that the donor had reproduced, in all three cases, which might suggest that there is a relatively stable concept of reproduction as a matter of genetics. However, if reproduction is understood as having its basis in genetic resemblance, Marc ought to be viewed as having reproduced in the identical twin case: Suzanne is as closely genetically related to him, as a child conceived from his own gametes would be. Yet respondents consistently regarded Marc as not having reproduced and, as we noted, this was slightly more pronounced in the identical twin case. Thus, there seems to be something else at work here. This is an interesting avenue for further research.

Although participants largely thought Marc had not reproduced, they did regard Marc as being Suzanne's father across all three scenarios, most strongly so in the unrelated donor vignette. We can see here that there is a schism between the notions of reproduction and fatherhood. Marc is a father, even though he has not reproduced and irrespective of his genetic relationship with Suzanne.

There was also an asymmetry in the participant's interpretations of the parent-child relationship. One might assume that if Marc is Suzanne's father, then Suzanne is Marc's child. However, our results did not support this common-sense assumption. Instead, participants were willing to ascribe paternity to Marc, but more inclined to state that Suzanne was the child of the sperm donor. Thus, the fact of having reproduced, at least for our participants, does not justify a move towards describing that man as her father.

It is not obvious what normative points to draw from these findings. However, they perhaps call into question the heavy reliance on genetic explanations and genetic goals in fertility treatment and paternity testing. If the public does not view paternity in genetic terms per se, why should we work so hard to enforce a specifically genetic understanding in the clinic or law? Are there other reasons to do so, and if so, what are they? And if the public does not view reproduction as simply a matter of genetic resemblance, what is it in addition to genetic similarity to a child that enables us to say of someone 'he has reproduced'? One answer in 'natural' reproduction is that a man begets his offspring. On this view, it is the act of begetting that is significant as well as, or perhaps even instead of, the transmission of genes.

Whatever the answers to these questions, it seems evident that the concepts we rely on in our understandings of reproduction, paternity, and genetic relationships are not as self-evident as we may assume.