A couple of IVF-related stories are in the news today, and since that world and the adoption world easily and frequently overlap, we'll take a look.

This from Boston focuses on the children created from donor sperm, with a young woman who is determined, "... finally to learn the missing half of her genetic heritage."

Wondering if she shares physical traits with the man whose sperm contributed her missing half, she was looking for information from the clinic where her mother had been inseminated, but got only a few of the most basic details: race, hair and eye color, height, blood type.

She had hoped for more. A lot more.

... donor offspring are following a path already forged in past decades by adoptees, arguing that they have a right to know their whole genetic identity. Armed with the Internet, scraps of information and easily available DNA tests, they are tracking down their sperm-donor fathers and their half-siblings.

Seems some donors are uncomfortable with the idea of no longer being able to hide their identity, and those whose sperm was especially popular ... one man has been linked to 63 children ... may worry about issues of support.

Some of the men who donated ... admittedly usually thinking only of the $30 to $60 per sample, not the resulting human beings ... however, are curious themselves, including one 63-year-old who donated about 400 sperm samples for one clinic over a ten-year span.

Presently, there are lobbying efforts in Canada for a system of open donation to be put in place as already exists in part of Australia, in New Zealand and in several European countries including Britain and Sweden.

This, from Catholic.org also looks at the "troubling consequences of artificial reproduction."

Addressing more the issue of older mothers relying on IVF, like the 60-year-old who gave birth to twins in May, and ethical questions over a mother donating eggs to her sterile daughter, saying, "... that if Flavie eventually decides to use the ova and becomes pregnant, she will be give birth to her genetic sister and Melanie Boivin will simultaneously become mother and grandmother."

Focusing primarily on potential problems and controversial aspects of IVF like offering services to help gay couples become parents, surrogates unrelated to the child they're carrying opting not to relinquish upon birth and the issue of what to do with unused frozen embryos, the Church is saying that these are not "morally neutral" issues.

... when it comes to the question of transmitting human life, it is not permissible to ignore the special nature of the human person. From the moment of conception, the instruction insisted, the life of every human person must be respected. In addition, the gift of human life should be carried out in the context of acts by a husband and wife.