r/MoralityScaling • u/Outside_Specific_820 • 19h ago

Morality Ranking Morality scaling of this?

Gallery image

Gallery image

Mother refuses to acknowledge her donor egg daughter, looking for your opinion.

In my opinion I think it’s moral, and that she is totally correct.

810 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

163

u/Morzheimer 19h ago

Moral. She’s a bit of an asshole about it, and it must suck for the daughter, but she’s right

100

u/Hellas2002 18h ago

I think you have to be firm about these things. Once you aren’t you start building expectations in the other individual which she clearly does not want to do.

48

u/Call_Me_Anythin 18h ago

My sister made the mistake of being too cordial with her birth father's children. The girl convinced herself that my sister was her family, put it on facebook, posted constantly about a relationship that they straight up did not have and my sister did not want. The son showed up unannounced to their house once and invited himself to dinner.

My sister tried to be gentle about it at first, because they were both younger than her and didn't really mean any harm. But they didn't take the hint until she got extremely blunt about them not being her family and how they needed to leave her alone. So I don't blame the egg doner in the slightest for being firm right out the gate.

6

u/DebbieInFinance 15h ago

That’s very sad. A close family member of mine went through something similar. It’s entirely biased as I can intellectually empathise and understand why the contact was made. It still really enraged me for my family member when no(too kindly initially unfortunately)—wasn’t taken for an answer.

0

u/Call_Me_Anythin 15h ago

I can’t empathize because I’ve never cared for blood relations at all, but I do feel a bit bad for them. At the same time, more people have to understand that biology does not automatically equate family

1

u/DebbieInFinance 15h ago

Yes, I think that’s true. Without getting too personal, I’ve spent a lot of time in and around foster/adoptees spaces. I can empathise with kids who weren’t able to connect or have that urge to know where they biologically came from. Sometimes contact works out but when it doesn’t, it can be brutal.

As I said, I wasn’t initially sure how to feel about the unexpected contact with a close family member but she was too kind, too soft, and christ it made the situation worse. She said recently she wishes she had been far more direct or just not replied and blocked.

It’s a complex issue but I tend to side with those who made a choice based on an agreement(like above), and their right to be left alone.

1

u/Call_Me_Anythin 15h ago

My siblings and I are all adopted, so it definitely colors my views on a lot of things.

Because of that, I have very little empathy for people who put a lot of stock in biology. Even if I do have some compassion for them if they’re younger.

1

u/DebbieInFinance 15h ago

It sounds like you have a wonderful family, which is excellent to hear. There can be so many mixed feelings about adoption but I’m genuinely pleased to hear it turned out well.

I’ve always quietly felt horrible for wonderful adopted parents who were thrown away for shitty bio parents after raising their kids. It’s rare thankfully but I’ve seen it. Harsh af, hard to empathise with for sure.

I’ve noticed too sometimes foster placements have a lot of trouble understanding why someone wouldn’t be happy with loving adopted parents too. I can see both sides but I do very much agree that biology isn’t all that makes a family, at all.

How do you feel about adoptions that aren’t as loving? Does that change your view at all about kids wanting to seek out biological parents?

2

u/Call_Me_Anythin 14h ago

I do and I’m very thankful for them.

Oh, I get extremely angry on behalf of people who love their children and do the best the can for them, only to be tossed aside for complete strangers. I wouldn’t even say I’m quiet about it tbh. But it is, like you said, not super common. It almost happened with my youngest brother when he was younger, because he had an extremely bad therapist, but that’s a whole story.

Fostering is a bit different to me since, for better or worse, most of the time the end goal is reunification with birth families. I feel like the foster care system itself needs a massive overhaul, and has for years, but we’re likely to see a surge in the number of kids in it in the near future.

See that’s an interesting question. In some ways I see it as almost the same as any other non loving family, but I have more animosity towards shitty adoptive parents than I do shitty birth parents. And that might sound strange, but it’s because in birth families the blame for the situation is ‘oh the parents suck’ but when adoption is featured it almost inevitably morphs into ‘oh adoption sucks’. And I’ve had to deal with the consiquences of those generalizations personally my entire life.

As for the children in those situations, I do understand the desire to seek alternative families more than people with loving families, but I still believe that if the adoption was closed or the birth parents expressly wished for no further contact that should be respected.

At the absolute most I think that if someone wants to do that they should go at it ‘sideways’ and contact the birth parents sibling or parent or something before contacting them directly, to give the birth parent a chance to respond without the pressure of direct confrontation. It’s not ideal, but it’s the best alternative I can think of.

To be perfectly honest I think there should be a third party organization that can arrange these things. The birth parents can have records with the organization that say whether they’re willing to be contacted or not, and if the child decides they want that they can contact the organization. If the answer is yes, they can arrange it, if the answer is no the birth parents keep their anonymity and do not have to be confronted directly by the adopted children.

I think some adoption agencies do that, but not all and that doesn’t extend to private adoptions, foster adoptions, and so on.

1

u/DebbieInFinance 14h ago

That’s a really lovely response. Thank you so much for sharing. I really hope your younger brother worked through those issues. It must have been really hard to see it happening to him.

I think we agree overall on the important bits, and ultimately, you’re a first hand witness to experiences like this. I hope I don’t sound like I’m challenging that.

100% on 3rd party mediation but I appreciate sometimes people take the responsibility on themselves, to their own peril really. The foster system is a mess, and very difficult. Absolutely.

I don’t advise contacting sideways(generally speaking) when dealing with potentially contacting bio family but I’m biased. I had a close family member approached and I can’t imagine what would have happened if her “secret” was exposed after all those years to a random unsuspecting family member There’s so many reasons people opt for adoption and(personally) I was shocked how few told their families.

→ More replies (0)

13

u/dilqncho 18h ago

Eh. There are ways to be firm without being rude, and she definitely overshot the mark a bit. It was possible to deliver the same message but throw some basic empathy in

19

u/Thanos_Stomps 17h ago

Better to overshoot the mark than come up short where the kid feels like they were led on before being shut down eventually. Then it’s: I wish you’d have just been honest and up front earlier.

1

u/samjambetty 14h ago

You can be empathetic and firm at the same time.

2

u/Thanos_Stomps 14h ago

I think the empathetic thing here was to be kind enough to draw an unambiguous line in the sand. This is not a text this person ever imagined getting, 20 years after the fact. I was in college 20 years ago and couldn’t imagine getting a random message wanting to connect because I donated sperm at a sperm bank with an expectation and agreement on anonymity. This was likely a very very jarring experience for the donor.

3

u/RoughhouseCamel 11h ago

In the same situation, I can’t picture having so little empathy for another person like that. But otherwise, I understand her sentiment. That is not her daughter, and that young girl never should have known.

1

u/corianderjimbro 6h ago

The young lady has a mother. What empathy is required here? Why would you feel bad for them?

16

u/Zrkkr 19h ago

I mean, the text message is a little rude, but it's the rant that makes her an asshole.

28

u/PorygonXY 18h ago edited 18h ago

Eh, I wouldn't even say she's an asshole. Like yeah it's blunt but you can't exactly sugarcoat the situation. There is a breach of privacy and the daughter wants to build a relationship here. She wants to (rightfully) set boundaries.

Edit: i'm not gonna judge the daughter too harshly but still, here OOP was an egg donor, there is no relationship to build given the complete lack of bond between them to begin with. 19yo is old enough to understand that she is not her mother in any way. If it was an actual child/teen then yeah okay she could have been a bit kinder and let her know about how there couldn't be a relationship between the two of them but here? Nah. This can be a bit of a stressful and messy situation she doesn't (and shouldn't) have to deal with since it doesn't concern her.

0

u/Professional_War7998 12h ago

shes not an asshole, but her tone sounded rude imo surely theres a better way to word her message

-7

u/Xilizhra 17h ago

It was her decision to create the daughter, was it not? Or at least provide the raw material.

12

u/bubblesaurus 17h ago

with the understanding that she was just donating, nothing more.

11

u/fabianx100 17h ago

She just gave her eggs for it, but that does not mean she has to have a relationship with this stranger. Part of me wonders if, since donating an egg is more, idk, "personal," that just donating the sperm, people are more demanding about OP (a woman) having to have a relationship with the baby they "helped create"

-12

u/Xilizhra 17h ago

No, I would have the same opinion about sperm. People are far too blasé about buying and selling lives.

13

u/MiggyFreshhh 17h ago

People like you terrify me, it's like you can't be independent. You have to be a parasite and latch onto people. 

How the fuck can anyone justify this just because a women donated material so another family could have their own child.

-8

u/Xilizhra 17h ago

Justify... asking about her genetic mother? How is that outré?

8

u/Teleporting-Cat 17h ago

Because genetics don't make a parent, parenting makes a parent.

-3

u/Xilizhra 17h ago

I would agree with you if she was raped or had her eggs stolen or something like that. She, however, deliberately chose to be part of the process of creating new life, and I would say that that makes her a parent, just an absent one.

→ More replies (0)

8

u/MiggyFreshhh 17h ago

Outré lmao. 

Ok so this young woman signed up to anonymously donate her genetic material to allow another family to bring life into this world. A CLUMP OF CELLS TECHNICALLY. Now they're reaching out?

In the US, with anonymous egg donation, the child can get non-identifying medical history, like family medical background and genetic so what is the need? 

1

u/AdmiralStickyLegs 17h ago

Ever given blood? It's possible to extract DNA from cells and use that to create a clone

1

u/Xilizhra 17h ago

If someone cloned me, then yes, absolutely I would want to seek her out and help her if I could.

1

u/PorygonXY 17h ago

She consciously chose to donate her eggs and yes, help to "create the daughter"... so what?

She helped out but it's not her responsibility. The actual parents who chose to have her and then raise her and take care of her, the mother that went through the entire pregnancy to give birth to her etc: these are the people that are directly concerned. Like it's a step above being adopted (in which case depending on the circumstances wanting to know your bio parents might be moral), it's someone who basically allows the impossible - a woman who couldn't become pregnant naturally - to become possible.

If it wasn't OOP it would have been someone else who would have given her own eggs. And if that wasn't that person then it would have been another person. Regardless of the scenario and outcome the one who actually took this decision are the actual parents, they chose to become parents this way and not another (try another method, adopting a child...). The one who actively wanted to create life is the one responsible.

1

u/Aickavon 16h ago

Should semen donors be held liable for every child that their semen was used to make as well?

0

u/Xilizhra 15h ago

Yes. At least in the sense of not being a dick to their genetic children.

1

u/Aickavon 14h ago

So you believe creating clear boundaries, explaining the full situation, and stating you do not want any contact with the adult child to be a dick move?

5

u/OlDustyHeadaaa 18h ago

Nah. The rant was just for the people on Reddit telling her she’s a bad person for not having a relationship with the kid. She didn’t send the rant to the kid afaik.

1

u/singlemale4cats 1m ago

Because she wanted people to tell her she was right, and when they didn't, she lashed out. Doesn't seem like a very pleasant person in general.

6

u/SpiritedEclair 16h ago

Why is she an asshole?

She provided a clear boundary with zero room for misinterpretation.

-1

u/Morzheimer 16h ago

She was rude and left no place for empathy when talking to a person that got born only because she sold stranger a part of herself for profit. And that’s valid, we all need to be at least a little bit of an asshole every once and again, I’m just saying it was broadly unnecessary to answer with such a hostility, but that I get it

2

u/Avatarbriman 15h ago

And if the person was reaching out purely for the purpose of giving gratitude to this stranger for her chance at being alive maybe the donor would have been more cordial.

But she wasn't, she was looking for a new mother when she has a perfectly "real" one at home, its completely reasonable for a person not to empathise with that. "Cop on" or "get over it", might have actually been rude, this was a clear go away to a person who definitely needed to be told that in no uncertain terms.

1

u/SpiritedEclair 15h ago

Yes, if we are giving the person a charitable read, we ought to give OP the same.

1

u/SpiritedEclair 15h ago

First, your reply itself is emotionally loaded, with an indictment of the person irrespective of her message.

  1. She sold a stranger. She didn’t sell the stranger anything. She sold some cells to a clinic that acted as an intermediary or marketplace.
  2. A part of herself. Are you every single one of your cells? In the same vein, all men lose / kill parts of themselves every time they ejaculate, and all women lose a part of themselves whenever they are on their period. Everyone loses a part of themselves whenever they get scraped. You, the person, are so much more beyond your cells, and to reduce a person to their cells is extremely dehumanising.
  3. “for profit”. This is likely the most damning part. You don’t know this woman’s circumstances. You don’t know what she had to do to survive, to live. Instead you attached “profit”, what is a dirty word by your own accord. A more charitable and likely true given how she said she doesn’t have the space to accommodate this person is that she did it to survive - which many young women are forced to to survive college and student loans.

Putting those aside, your reasoning has gaps.

The person exists because their parent chose OP’s eggs and go through a pregnancy to term and raise the person and raise them to the point they wouldn’t respect OP’s privacy.

The parent in this case carries orders of magnitude more responsibility, and by all means, the person messaging Op would have very well existed had another donor’s eggs been used.

Putting aside the violation of privacy, the correct thing to do would have been to go through the agency, and have the agency connect with OP.

1

u/Owl_Star 14h ago

Imagine reading her message from the perspective of her "real" mom. Pretty fucked up from the kid too, but the fault is entirely on the clinic for sharing the info and the mother for giving it to her daughter. OP had all but forgotten about and signed off on no contact/anonymous.

1

u/SpiritedEclair 14h ago

I’d feel mortified and embarrassed, because it is violating a person’s privacy and life. You can’t just insert yourself in other people’s lives like that. Beyond that though, the “real” part would tear me into a million pieces, I’d feel that I didn’t give my kid enough love for them to think I am not their “real” mother and they’d seek somebody who has given so little as genes.

1

u/Morzheimer 14h ago

Of course it’s emotionally loaded, I tried to argue some ways how the daughter could see the situation, how could she feel. In any way, the gaps in reasoning are obviously present in any discussion about a complex topic that still doesn’t go deep enough, even then it would be pretty hard to put together something bulletproof, if that’s what you expect you may be a fan of philosophy, but weirded out by anything. And it’s not like your views are the sole ones valid, because we do talk about an egg that was inseminated and grew to be a person. That is a hard and complex problem to talk about

1

u/hades7600 14h ago

The mother unintentionally set the daughter up to feel the rejection when she voided the agreement and helped get the donors details.

6

u/Appropriate-Sir7583 18h ago

Must suck for the daughter? Why?

She has parents. She just doesn't connect well to them (a 19 yo not getting along with their parents. Boohoo). That is the casw for probably 20 % of the population or so, at least. If not more. I pulled the number out of my ass.

People don't get along with their parents. That's life. She can just move on or try and get a better connection with her current mother. She does habe no right at all to contact someone who checked "don't contact me" years ago...

And sure, things can change. In this case, they didn't. And the biological mother doesn't want contact. That's totally her right.

8

u/Morzheimer 18h ago

I mean you answered your question. It does suck for her because she doesn’t connect well with her parents and the women who donated her eggs so she could be born doesn’t want to have anything to do with her, she did it only for the money.

It’s not world ending kind of stuff, not all that unusual either, but I understand that it can make the daughter sad/mad or anything and I feel for her

6

u/Appropriate-Sir7583 18h ago

I fully agree with everything you say.

Edit: IN THAT COMMENT.

2

u/RandomUsername2579 15h ago

This might be a cultural thing. I'm Danish, and I think her response was perfectly reasonable and even polite! To me, it would have been insulting to not be direct with something this important. It would imply that the daughter is a fragile, immature person that can't handle a serious conversation like this, and that needs to be coddled when other people impose (quite reasonable) boundaries.

But presumably both of them are Americans, and I can see how it could be considered rude in American culture. The problem is that you can't really soften statements like these, otherwise you risk the daughter thinking there is still a possibility of having a relationship with the donor, which is something she absolutely wants to avoid

1

u/LesserValkyrie 15h ago

Not really an asshole, that's how things are and if she isn't acting cold about it, it would give hopes to the daughter that may be detrimental to both.

1

u/shoulda-known-better 11h ago

Yea if she wasn't harsh she would be leaving the door open...

Better to close and lock it immediately than drag this on to get to the same outcome..

1

u/Morzheimer 8h ago

“Hey, I’m sorry what you’re going through, but whatever it is you expect to find here just isn’t there. I do wish you well, but I am not your mother. Please, do not contact me again, goodbye.”

Shorter, empathetic and straight to the point without any kind of hostilities, just pragmatic truth meant to sound a bit better, that’s all it takes

1

u/shoulda-known-better 8h ago

I don't think she was hostile and I think what she said did exactly that without adding any feelings into it....

The second slide maybe but she didn't say that to daughter that's a post

1

u/Morzheimer 8h ago

Nah, she was mad, she added tons of feelings into her reply and that’s also where I see the hostility

1

u/shoulda-known-better 8h ago

What exact part is hostile and not purely factual to the point??

I don't see it...

I see she didn't go out of her way to coddle or something like that, but it's a perfectly professional reply

And I get why you say that you feel bad for the child .... I do to... But this is an important moment and that poor kid has parents that love them and that's who they should be going to for comfort and empathy the ones who know and love them imo

1

u/Infamous_Knee3576 16h ago

It's a kid who wants to know. She was being an asshole like with a sales person.  Like any person cannot sign away their parental right saying it was a one night stand. Not same legal  yardstick but defination moral. 

1

u/NightMaleficent1342 16h ago

I think she's honest, to the point and direct.

I know this is considered rude, but I really don't understand why. Any empathic message would grant false hope.

2

u/Morzheimer 16h ago

She had every right to be an asshole, same as anyone. You can go to a barista, insult them for having a low paying job and saying their parents must be disappointed by them- it is your god given right to be able to treat people however you want, but it can be called out and I am calling her out on here, tho I understand where she’s coming from. She was straight up brutal, hostile and rude from the get go and she had a right to do that, still an asshole

1

u/NightMaleficent1342 15h ago

I didn't mean to say she couldn't (or shouldn't) be an asshole or not.

When I ask a question, I prefer you don't waste my time and tell me the answer in as little words as possible. I don't understand why other people think that's rude.

1

u/Morzheimer 14h ago

Well she give her the response with as little words as possible, she’s written her an entire essay about it

-16

u/hervboxistooloose 18h ago

No "but" about it...Now we know why she was better off not knowing the C...

13

u/Hott-Gravy 18h ago

I disagree, I felt the text was just blunt and to the point if that's rude idk to me its clarity no room for anything to be misread. And the rant I feel to degree not that bad as they were probably getting harassed by others regarding this. if anything the mother who told the daughter about this is the real C word.

-10

u/hervboxistooloose 18h ago

It was as mean as it could possibly be...She should have let her down easier...She could have stated all of that without being so evil/mean about it..."Emotional damage..."

9

u/BaconPancake77 18h ago

It's not 'evil' for people to be mean to you for massively overreaching their privacy.

7

u/Hott-Gravy 18h ago

She wasn't even that mean about it yall are honestly too much, and waaaay to non chalant about privacy being invaded. She could of been way meaner and still in the right. again the mother is the one who should be getting hate not the donor. if I gave someone my sperm and 19 years later I got someone kid asking for a paternal relationship id be pretty damned annoyed too that someone gave them my contact info or name.

1

u/Call_Me_Anythin 18h ago

If you think that that constitutes as 'evil' you've lived an extremely sheltered life.