Courtney Megan Cahill

Universalizing anonymity anxiety

The empirical study byMargaretNelson, RosannaHertz, andWendyKramer on stakeholder attitudes toward gamete donor anonymity and limits on gamete donation, ‘Gamete Donor Anonymity and Limits on Numbers of Offspring: The Views of Three Stakeholders’ (hereafter Gamete Donor Anonymity),1 is commendably particular on one level yet noticeably vague on another. It approaches the anonymity issue2 at a level of particularity not typically seen in discussions about anonymity but does not identify with sufficient granularity either the harm of anonymity or the precise meaning of anonymity’s antidote: non-anonymity. In addition, ‘Gamete Donor Anonymity’ does not raise what this commentary argues is a central question: whether the law ought to regulate amarginal reproductive practice in order to fulfill a normative ideal— genealogical knowledge, familial connection, or both—that is by nomeans guaranteed for any of us, regardless of the mode of our conception. Part I offers some general observations about ‘Gamete Donor Anonymity’s’ treatment of anonymity. Part II then turns to this commentary’s principal observation regarding anonymity, namely, that anonymity anxietymight be part and parcel of a larger apparent phenomenon—origins anxiety, which denotes the fantasies, curiosity, and anxiety that many individuals appear to have about their roots—even as it emerges in discussions about anonymous gamete donation as the distinct discourse of a minority group. Part III uses the observation made in Part II to question the desirability and constitutional validity of regulating the practices of alternative reproduction in order to fulfill normative ideals about family, identity, and their interrelationship.