Unexpected kinship: The life-changing discovery of over 200 half-siblings
This video uncovers the emotional and medical journey of Jaclyn Frosolone and her newfound half-siblings, all conceived by the same sperm donor.
He is the founder of Telegram. He was arrested in France. He also claims to have fathered at least 100 children.
Pavel Durov, the elusive and often shirtless founder of the fully encrypted messaging app Telegram, is back in the news after he was arrested and detained on Saturday following an arrest warrant issued against him by France’s OFMIN, which is responsible for protecting minors from violence. The agency accused Durov of failing to crack down on criminal activities – including drug trafficking, promoting terrorism and fraud – on his platform, AFP news agency reported.
The 39-year-old Russian-born billionaire often keeps his private life out of the spotlight, but he has revealed that although he has never married and prefers to live alone, he has fathered at least 100 children through anonymous sperm donations – a controversial practice.
“Of course there are risks, but I do not regret being a donor,” Durov wrote in a Telegram post last month. “The shortage of healthy sperm has become an increasingly serious problem worldwide, and I am proud to have done my part to alleviate it.”
Sperm donation has enabled many people to start families who otherwise would not have had the opportunity. But the anonymous practice has also drawn critics, including those conceived through sperm donation. Those people spoke to USA TODAY about the emotional distress they felt when they learned they had, in some cases, hundreds of half-siblings.
“The only people who understand what we’re going through are the ones who are literally going through it,” Jaclyn Frosolone, who found out after a 23andMe DNA test that she was conceived through anonymous sperm donation and has at least 200 siblings, previously told USA TODAY. “Even though it seems like there’s no one out there, there are actually too many going through the exact same thing I’m going through, and it’s terrifying.”
More: These women discovered they were siblings. Then they found hundreds more. It took its toll.
Why did Pavel Durov father over 100 children through sperm donation?
Durov spoke on Telegram about his decision to become a sperm donor, saying he did it out of a sense of responsibility to help more couples have children.
“The head of the clinic told me that ‘high-quality donor material’ was in short supply and that it was my civic duty to donate more sperm to anonymously help more couples,” Durov wrote, adding that his sperm had so far helped over 100 couples in 12 countries have children. An in vitro fertilization clinic, he said, still had his sperm frozen and available for anonymous use.
Durov stated that he plans to make his DNA “open source” so that his biological children can find each other more easily.
“I also want to help destigmatize the whole idea of sperm donation and encourage more healthy men to do it so that families who have difficulty having children have more options,” he wrote. “Despite conventions – redefine the norm!”
Who is Pavel Durov? What you should know about the Telegram owner of Russian origin arrested in France
The problems with anonymous sperm donation
However, critics of anonymous sperm donation say that the practice brings with it a number of problems and complications that people conceived through sperm donation have to deal with throughout their lives.
One of the main criticisms of this practice is that donor anonymity makes it difficult or impossible for donors to learn about their health status and treat genetically-related medical problems. Even if donors know the identity and contact information of their donor, there is no guarantee that the donor will respond or tell the truth.
Additionally, most sperm banks in the U.S. are not required by law to keep records of siblings or limit the number of families that can use a particular donor. As a result, people conceived through sperm donation with many siblings often live in fear of accidentally having children with one of their half-siblings, or even having children with their own father, if they choose to use sperm donation.
““I have some gay siblings who would need donors to have children,” Jamie LeRose, one of Frosolone’s half-sisters, previously told USA TODAY. “I would rather die than find out one of them is having a baby with our father because they didn’t know.”
She added that fear of incest has also affected her dating life: “I’m 23 and the last guy I was with was 40, because I literally look at people my age and find them disgusting.”
More: AncestryDNA and 23andMe introduce you to new relatives. Now the nightmare: They don’t offer any medical history.
Jana Rupnow, a licensed psychotherapist in Dallas who has counseled children conceived through sperm donation for 14 years, previously told USA TODAY about the identity crisis these people often feel when they learn about their family history.
“Our health is part of our identity,” said Rupnow. “You have to deal with the shock of finding out that your family history is different than you thought, while also dealing with the fear of the unknown.”
Now Frosolone and other people conceived through sperm donation are committed to sharing their stories so that future generations born through anonymous sperm donation have more access to information and protection.
“It’s definitely messed me up a little bit, but I’m trying to get through it,” Frosolone previously told USA TODAY. “From now on, I just want to help people.”
Contributors: Eric Lagatta and Katie Camero, USA TODAY; Reuters