Conceiving Humans is Less Regulated than Breeding Puppies. I'm an Example
Peter J. Boni
Award Winning/Best Selling Author, Keynote Speaker, Donor-Conceived Rights Advocate, EY Entrepreneur of the Year, Retired Venture Capitalist, Former High Tech CEO
How do we get to be who we are? We all have a story. I thought I knew mine.
But...I got dealt the shock of my life (at age 49). My DNA and my birth certificate didn’t jive. I was an NPE,?“misattributed in a Non-Parental Event. And a compounded shock! I had plenty of company. The experts believe that some 2% to 4% of us are?misattributed. Others believe that number is even greater.
How can that be? Late-discovery adoption, an extra marital affair, a one night stand, sexual assault, raised by another family member (for instance, "Mom" is actually Aunt Martha and Cousin Mary is really "Mom”), abducted or switched at birth. All could be reasons. Or, like me, "semi-adopted" in a hush-hush process where parents were fully complicit...artificial insemination by an anonymous donor.?I was sperm donor-conceived.
That surprise revelation propelled my more than two-decade search for the truth of my genetic identity that ultimately made me feel whole. So that others can benefit from what I had learned, I put my research in a book,?Uprooted:?Family Trauma, Unknown Origins and the Secretive History of Artificial Insemination,?which is due to be published on January 4, 2022. Part memoir and part expose`,?my story unearths the history and practices of what has become the multi-billion dollar Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) industry which conceives dozens, if not hundreds, of half-siblings from the same gamete donor (sperm, egg, embryo) without their knowledge. Over one million people are donor-conceived, and most of them don’t know it.
The breeding of puppies enjoys greater regulatory oversight.
An added shocker is that 21st century DNA technology from the likes of 23andMe and?Ancestry.com?has revealed that at least 2% to 4% of their 50 million current customers are “misattributed.”?Join the DNA over the internet craze and you, too, could find that you are an NPE and uncover a long-buried family secret.?Go back three to six generations and you may well find that everyone you know is misattributed to someone in their family tree.
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Science generally races well ahead of sociology. This is an evolving ART story with shattering consequences. The fertility rates in the Western World have decreased by 50% since 1980, while the population of donor-conceived people has catapulted by 50% just inside of the last ten years.
I invite you to:
Buckle up and enjoy the ride. Thank you all for your support.
Peter
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