“I wanna be the very best like no one ever was. To catch them is my real test, to train them is my cause, Pokémon!” Oh. Eh-hem. Well, that was mildly embarrassing, yet not totally unrelated to the rest of this article.
Recently in WR100 we’ve been learning about sperm donations. Not really the science part of it (I got enough of that in eleventh grade health, thank you very much), but rather the ethical parameters of college athletes becoming sperm donors. I question the amount of thought put into making the decision to become a donor, the reasons behind the decision, and, most of all, the maturity level of the men who decide to do it.
In our fast-paced, take-it-to-the-limit world, people often look to be the biggest and the best. So it’s no, surprise that parents want “the best” for their children. As pro athletes such as David Ortiz and Tom Brady make a living off of being the biggest (in Ortiz’s case) and the best (in Brady’s case), the correlation between success in athletics and success in life seems clear.
So when parents can’t conceive the good old-fashioned way, they are suddenly presented with a plethora of options through sperm donation. They can have a child who will grow to be tall, who has a knack for playing the trumpet, or has a better chance of getting into Harvard. Yet what seems to be most important these days is creating—yes, creating—a child who is athletic.
This is where college athlete sperm donors come in. NCAA football players can make up to $900 a week making donations. Couples can then read about these donors and even listen to their voices before making their choice. This is a nice, albeit more than a little creepy, option for people who can’t contribute their own genes to their child.
However, I doubt that college athletes are making sperm donations for the same reason people look to receive them. People call on sperm donors as a sort of last resort to have children. College athletes donate sperm as a quick and easy way to make money. Let’s face it: for $900 a week I might eat a bowl of nails. Doesn’t mean there won’t be consequences.
Technically, some sperm banks allow one donor to father up to 25 children. Forget “Nineteen Kids and Counting,” this puts the Duggers to shame. Although most recipients don’t expect any support from their donors, I wonder if, down the line, these young men will look back and wonder where their children are. Maybe they’ll wonder if they made the right choice. Fathering a child is not a decision to be made lightly, even if you plan on never seeing said child.
Children, no matter the circumstances, are a part of you. They shape your identity as much as you shape theirs. And using your sperm for the primary purpose of making a cool 900 Benjamins is, at the very least, shallow.
Liz Boccolini is a freshman in the College of Communication and a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. She can be reached at lizboc@bu.edu.
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