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The Debate Over Sperm Donors

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Sperm banks are suddenly big in the movies. We look at the real life debate over test-tube daddies.Hollywood is suddenly all over the subject of sperm donors.

Jennifer Lopez and Jennifer Aniston are both in sperm donor stories - The Back-up Plan and The Switch. Annette Benning and Julianne Moore have the big one right now – “The Kids Are All Right” – with them as lesbian moms and Mark Ruffalo as the donor guy. Does that make him the dad?

For some, that’s the issue. Culture war conservatives are looking skeptically at the sperm donor business. So are some donor kids. Hollywood has its own view

This hour, On Point: test-tube daddies, real life, and the big screen.

Guests:

Debora Spar, president of Barnard College and author of "The Baby Business: How Money, Science, and Politics Drive the Commerce of Conception"

Katia Hetter, freelance journalist. She used an annoymous sperm donor to conceive her daughter.

W. Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia. His op-ed "Daddy Was Only a Donor" appeared in the Wal Street Journal

This program aired on July 14, 2010.

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