Daniel Groll's "Conceiving People"

Daniel Groll is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Carleton College in Northfield, MN and an Affiliate Faculty Member at the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota.

He applied the “Page 99 Test” to his new book, Conceiving People: Genetic Knowledge and the Ethics of Sperm and Egg Donation, and reported the following:

Here's some of what's on page 99:

It is hard for us to watch ourselves navigating the world from a third-person perspective. There are times when we are able to see ourselves from above, so to speak, to observe or reflect on what we are like. But the activity of doing this—of projecting ourselves into a third-person point of view of ourselves—tends to be self-conscious which, in turn, affects the very activity we are trying to observe. We turn to face ourselves, but never catch a glimpse. Interacting with someone who is like you can give you an opportunity to catch a glimpse of yourself you would not otherwise get. And inasmuch as your genetic progenitor is like you in some respects, then knowing your genetic progenitor can be a source of self-knowledge about what you are like.

But notice that this only works to the extent that you already have a pretty good idea of what you are like. If you did not already know that this person is in your mold (or you are in their mold) then the fact that they do things this way, or move in that way, or deal with problems in this way won’t teach you anything about yourself even if the person’s behavior accurately reflects a part of you back at yourself. Velleman gets the connection between the formation of his family-resemblance concept and self-knowledge backward. Once we move beyond simple forms of resemblance, the formation of the family-resemblance concept (at least a rationally formed one) presupposes that the members have enough of a grasp of themselves to be able to see the other and say, “Hey! You resemble me in these ways!”

These paragraphs give a really good idea of one of the central questions in my book: What value, if any, is there in knowing who your genetic parents are? The discussion on page 99 finds us in the middle of my attempt to answer that question. My focus on page 99 is on the ideas of the philosopher David Velleman who thinks that being acquainted with your genetic parents is really important for coming to understand yourself. While I think Velleman is on to something, I don't agree with the importance he attributes to knowing who your genetic parents are or the role that knowing your genetic parents plays in answering the question "Who am I?"

The question I'm grappling with on page 99 is crucial to the overall book, which is about the ethics of creating people with donated eggs and sperm (aka gametes). There are lots of good questions to ask about donor conception (e.g. is it Ok that people are paid to donate their gametes?), but the one I focus on is whether there's something wrong with creating children by using anonymously donated sperm or eggs. I try to show that there is something wrong with creating children with anonymously donated gametes. My account aims to stay true to the experiences of donor conceived people, many of whom are very interested in acquiring genetic knowledge and some of whom are not at all interested. I argue that having genetic knowledge can play a role in answering the question “Who am I?” but that it is not required. Even so, the fact that most donor conceived people want to know who their donor is gives people that are planning to create a child with donated gametes a very good reason to use what is often called an identity-release or open donor, i.e. someone who is willing to make their identity available to the resulting child.

Figuring out whether it is morally acceptable to create children with anonymously donated sperm or eggs is important for people involved in the world of donor-conception. This is particularly true in places like Canada and the United States where anonymous donation is still permitted. But thinking about the ethics of gamete donation raises a host of questions that matter to everyone who has a family (which is to say, everyone): What’s important, if anything, about knowing your genetic origins? What makes us who we are? What makes someone a parent? Anyone interested in these questions – and intrigued by the brief discussion on page 99 – will enjoy the book.

Visit Daniel Groll's website.

--Marshal Zeringue