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A great documentary that made me think about the make-up of the modern American family. I can't help to think that even though father Jeffrey, his offspring, and their families would be considered "non-traditional" by even liberal standards of family, they face the same problems and feelings that all families do: secrecy, love, lack of trust, being too judgemental, friendship, regrets...
The ethical issues raised in this film are obvious. I'm sure there is a great sense of togetherness and closure that the siblings gained from meeting Jeffrey, but it seemed that the daughter from Maryland had a deeper need to see her surrogate father. Could it be because she was one of the youngest and farthest away? One of the other older girls didn't seem to sad to part Jeffrey because she said only "lived two hours" away in California and she had seen him before. Does locality and age slowly kill the need to be near a long lost relative? I'm sure it can in traditional families just as easily in one that started in a SoCal sperm bank.
Nothing against Jeffrey, but one wonders how many young people in their early twenties are walking the streets with half of his gene pool. Then again, one wonders how many test tube babies are walking the streets from any donor. It's got to be in the millions by now. The first test-tube baby, who was conceived in virto fertilization around 1980 in England, recently celebrated her 30th birthday. Imagine how many donors of both egg and sperm have set their DNA loose in the past 30 years. And this is a world-wide phenomonen.
I guess in the end, the only people who don't directly have to deal with the ethical implications is the $4 billion gamete industry. I'm sure they would argue with that, but hey, once the donor signs the agreement, does his or her duty into a plastic cup and the check is in the mail, it's just another number to the gamete industry. Unregulated, no one keeping track of the numbers, everybody(gamete industry, couples, donors) seals the deal and is satisfied. Except those unborn and their future questions...who is my real daddy? Where is my biological mother?
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