Lesbian parenting through donor insemination: Implications for the hetero-normative family

Abstract

This paper draws together the views about parenting and family formation from sperm donors and from lesbian women seeking to conceive. It demonstrates the importance of social context in shaping the preferences and possibilities for lesbian family formation with known donors. The paper draws on interview data from those participants in the Lesbian Conception Study conducted in South Australia in 2006/7 who conceived (or were attempting to do so) using donor insemination with known donors. The perspective of sperm donors is gained from an analysis of the postings on the online Australian Sperm Donor Registry in 2007. The results suggest that lesbians seeking donors through informal (non-clinic based) avenues in South Australia express a preference mostly for the donor not to be involved in the lives of the children born of their donor insemination (DI), though overwhelmingly they want the donor to be willing to be identified and/or contacted if and when the child/ren wish. They also report a preference for gay donors over heterosexual donors. In contrast, the gay and bi-sexual sperm donors registered on the national Australian Sperm Donors Registry (ASDR) were significantly more likely than the heterosexual registrants to want an active role in the lives/parenting of children born of their DI. The families that lesbians construct, and that sperm donors envisage, reinforce some aspects of heteronormative family structures whilst challenging and transforming others. Both lesbians and potential donors in this study confirmed the idea that it is ‘love that makes a family’ rather than ‘blood ties’ per se. The lesbian mothers for the most part rejected the idea that biological connection is the defining element of parenthood either for men or women, or that ‘father figures’ are necessary. However, almosthalf of the sperm donors saw their DI as enabling them some degree of ongoing relationship in the lives of children conceived of their DI. This desire for a parental role varied in degree, but was much more common and more pronounced in gay and bi-sexual men than in heterosexual men. The contradictions inherent in these newly negotiated family formations reveal fault-lines which have the potential to transform the meaning of the family. Nonetheless, the powerful ‘glue’ of romantic love and the image of the parenting couple reinforce traditional family forms.