The "Genius Babies," and How They Grew

The "Genius Babies," and How They Grew

The "Genius Babies," and How They Grew

Exploring the "Nobel Prize sperm bank."
Feb. 8 2001 3:00 AM

The "Genius Babies," and How They Grew

Help Slate tell the story of the Nobel Prize sperm bank.

Click here for the editor's explanatory introduction to this new Slate feature.



David Plotz David Plotz



Graham intended the repository to be a prototype for genius sperm banks all over the country, producing "creative, intelligent people who otherwise might not be born." The children would be future intellectuals, scientists, and leaders and, Graham predicted in a giddy moment, "may stimulate [humanity's] ascent to a new level of being."


So, in the late 1970s, Graham persuaded several Nobel Prize winners in science—either three or five, depending on who's talking—to give him their sperm. Later he recruited dozens of younger scientists for his bank. Graham advertised for mothers in a Mensa magazine. Women had to be married to infertile men, well-educated, and financially comfortable. Soon he had a waiting list. He mailed out a catalog that advertised men such as "Mr. Fuschia," an Olympic gold medallist—"Tall, dark, handsome, bright, a successful businessman and author"; and "Mr. Grey-White … ruggedly handsome, outgoing, and positive, a university professor, expert marksman who enjoys the classics." (The repository revolutionized the sperm bank industry by—oddly for such an avowedly elitist institution—democratizing it: It took donor choice away from doctors and gave it to mothers. Instead of settling for a doctor's paltry offerings, mothers could be demanding customers, requiring as much [or more] accomplishment from a vial of sperm as from her flesh-and-blood husband.)

When the Los Angeles Times publicized the repository in 1980, a furor erupted. Eugenic ideas like Graham's had been mainstream in the United States for the first half of the 20th century. (Graham had even borrowed the idea of a Nobel sperm bank from a scheme proposed by respected Nobelist Hermann Muller in the '30s.) But by the time Graham opened the repository, eugenics had been utterly tarnished by Nazism. It was considered at best elitist, at worst racist and genocidal.

Graham was pilloried and mocked, accused of trying to create a "master race." Critics dubbed it the "Superbaby" program and compared it to Nazi eugenics practices. Ethicists denounced it as a cold, utilitarian approach toward children and an alarming step toward "designer babies." Only one of Graham's Nobel donors, transistor inventor William Shockley, would admit to having contributed sperm. That did not help matters. Shockley's views on race, genes, and intelligence had made him a national pariah, and his association with the repository confirmed suspicion that it was a dastardly racist plot. Demonstrators picketed Graham's Escondido estate. He hired security guards to protect the sperm.

The media's attention soon wandered, Graham stopped talking to the press, and the repository sank from sight. But the babies started arriving. The first birth was heralded in the National Enquirer in early 1982. Soon "genius babies" were being born at a rapid clip. By the time Graham died at age 90 in 1997, the repository claimed 229 offspring, all over the United States and in half a dozen countries. None of the children, despite the bank's reputation, were fathered by Nobel Prize winners: Early on Graham decided Nobelists were too old to be effective donors and relied on his younger scientists.


In the beginning Graham intended the repository to be an experiment and showpiece. He tacked pictures of the children to his office walls. He had parents agree to answer periodic surveys about their children. But he came to learn that his clients did not necessarily share his fascination with eugenic theories. When he mailed a survey in the early '90s, most of the parents ignored it.












A Critical Note About PRIVACY


We hope to publish your own accounts of your experiences, interviews with you, any other method that can convey your story. We will also maintain what we hope will be a vigorous discussion forum about the repository and the ethics of fertility science in " The Fray."

Please contact me at with any questions or comments. And please feel free to e-mail this article to a friend, listserv, bbs, or Web site that might be interested.

The Seed Series

Part 10: The donors

Click here for Michael Kinsley's explanatory introduction to Seed.

Join the Discussion

5. Eugenics, Privatized
