I'm dreading the debut of the Fox TV series Almost Family on October 2. In it, Julia Bechley discovers that her dying dad, a famous fertility doctor, had made dozens of personal DNA donations that are now millennials, at least two of whom have unknowingly hooked up.
Many of us in the donor-conceived (DC) community have already seen the series as the Australian show Sisters on Netflix. I hope the new incarnation changes the ending, which was the worst since the supposedly-dead Bobby Ewing appeared in the shower in the 1986 finale of the TV series Dallas and revealed that the entire season, in which he'd died, had been a dream.
The 2013 film Delivery Man preceded both versions of Dr. Bechley's misadventures. In it, Vince Vaughan is the befuddled father of 533 twenty-somethings, thanks to long-ago sperm donations. A lot of them.
The danger of unintentional inbreeding.
To continue reading, go to Genetic Literacy Project, where this post first appeared.