Maybe pretty darn important, according to University of Texas researchers Karen Clark, Elizabeth Marquardt and Norval D. Glenn:

Each year, an estimated 30,000-60,000 children are born in this country via artificial insemination, but the number is only an educated guess. Neither the fertility industry nor any other entity is required to report on these statistics. The practice is not regulated, and the childrenís health and well-being are not tracked.

In adoption, prospective parents go through a painstaking, systematic review, including home visits and detailed questions about their relationship, finances, even their sex life. With donor conception, the state requires absolutely none of that, and the effects of such a system on the people conceived this way have been largely unknown.

We set out to change that. We teamed up .   .   . to design and field a survey with a sample drawn from more than 1 million American households.

Our study, released this month by the Commission on Parenthoodís Future, focused on how young-adult donor offspring ó and comparison samples of young adults who were raised by adoptive or biological parents ó make sense of their identities and family experiences, how they approach reproductive technologies more generally and how they are faring on key outcomes. The study of 18- to 45-year-olds includes 485 who were conceived via sperm donation, 562 adopted as infants and 563 raised by their biological parents.

The results are surprising. While adoption is often the center of controversy, it turns out that sperm donation raises a host of different but equally complex issues.

Two-thirds of adult donor offspring agree with the statement ìMy sperm donor is half of who I am.î Nearly half are disturbed that money was involved in their conception. About two-thirds affirm the right of donor offspring to know the truth about their origins.

Regardless of socioeconomic status, donor offspring are twice as likely as those raised by biological parents to report problems with the law before age 25. They are more than twice as likely to report having struggled with substance abuse. And they are about 1.5 times as likely to report depression or other mental health problems.

As a group, the donor offspring in our study are suffering more than those who were adopted: hurting more, feeling more confused and feeling more isolated from their families. (And our study found that the adoptees on average are struggling more than those raised by their biological parents.)

Some feel like a ìfreak of natureî or a ìlab experiment.î Others speak of the searching for their biological father in crowds, wondering if a man who resembles them could be ìthe one.î Still others speak of complicated emotional journeys and lost or damaged relationships with their families when they grow up.

Life is complicated.