An Interview with Peter J. Boni

Peter J. Boni credits his disruptive childhood, a college education from UMass@Amherst, decorated on-the-ground service as a US Army Special Operations Team Leader in Vietnam (coined his “Rice Paddy MBA”), love of his family and friendship circle, plus luck-of-the-draw DNA with making him the person he has become today—an author, advocate, and fun-loving grandfather living on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

During his accomplished business career (high-tech CEO, venture capitalist, board chairman, non-profit leader, award-winning entrepreneur, senior advisor), Peter has applied “lessons of leadership through adversity” from his life-altering experiences—themes found throughout his first book, All Hands on Deck: Navigating Your Team Through Crises, Getting Your Organization Unstuck, and Emerging Victorious.

In Uprooted, Peter intimately shares his personal odyssey and acquired expertise to advocate for regulatory oversight of the multibillion-dollar reproductive industry that conceives hundreds of half-siblings from a single gamete donor—children and adults who are unaware of the existence of their half-siblings.

Peter enjoys an active physical regimen, entertaining and boating with friends and family while at his Cape Cod residence, and traveling with his wife to, among other locales, San Francisco and New York City to visit their growing family.

Who/what made you want to write? Was there a particular person, or particular writers/works/art forms that influenced you?

Imagine discovering, like me at age forty-nine, or at any age for that matter, that you are not what you thought. You were not a blood relative of the person you called “Dad” (or “Mom”). You were among an unknown number of people conceived under a cloak of secrecy from a vile filled with an anonymous stranger’s life-giving seed. Your birth certificate says one thing; your DNA says another. After the initial shock (yes, traumatic), it is only natural to wonder who gave you life.

Through twenty-two years of relentless research and the eventual availability of DNA analysis, I uncovered my truth; my donor’s identity, my actual genetics, my paternal health history, and several half-siblings. But I still have a need to know. How many siblings do I have, really? That hangnail leads to more painful questions. Did we ever meet, date, or more? There is no way to know for sure.

To heal from this identity trauma, I had to reveal. In January 2022, my book Uprooted: Family Trauma, Unknown Origins, and the Secretive History of Artificial Insemination debuted as my advocacy vehicle…a deeply intimate memoir and a tell-all exposéon the scandalous scientific, legal and sociological history and evolution (from early Biblical references until today) of what has become the multi-billion dollar Assisted Reproductive Technology industry.

Tell us the story of your book’s title. Was it easy to find, or did it take forever?

The working title I used for my book was “Artificial Bastard?” (yes, with a question mark), the same title as a 1945 Time Magazine article about the legal status of a child conceived via an anonymous sperm donor, according to the Superior Court in Cook Country, Illinois. The court had granted the husband of a woman who had a child via a sperm donor (because the husband was infertile) a divorce on the grounds of adultery. The child was declared to be “illegitimate.”

My publisher, Greenleaf Book Group Press, was instrumental in running a focus group over about a six-week period to select, in their view, a more commercially appropriate title. Uprooted made the final cut. Discovering (as an adult) that one or more of your parents aren’t biological can be, well, uprooting to your core identity; traumatic! I wrote the book both as an intimate memoir and a tell-all exposé about what I had learned about the fertility industry. Breeding puppies enjoys better regulatory oversight.

What is one thing you hope readers take away from reading your book? How do you envision your perfect reader?

Not one thing, but three. I established three goals. First, to positively impact the practice of Assisted Reproductive Technology. Second, the influence of the legislative agenda for regulatory controls, which I have labeled “The Donor-Conceived Bill of Rights.” Third, to speak to the needs and emotional well-being of all people who have learned that they are “misattributed”…meaning that their birth certificate and their DNA are not aligned, Experts estimate that some 4% of the Western population is misattributed. Consumer DNA technology is setting up a large surge of trauma, for which the therapy community is underprepared.

What was the most rewarding/meaningful part of publishing your book?

Uprooted has thus far been recognized with four different awards: Best Book, Narrative Nonfiction; Gold Metal, Nonfiction Audiobook; an Indy Excellence Award; and International Impact Book Award, Memoir. It has also earned Amazon Best Seller status. All very humbling. But I have found reader feedback that my story resonated to help such a large group by far the most rewarding

What new writing projects are you currently working on? Or, other projects that are not writing?

My book is my platform to influence regulatory change. I have been contributing all proceeds earned thus far to two advocacy organizations working with me to enable legislation for the Donor-Conceived Bill of Rights: Known donor only; required donor genetic testing and release of health history; limits to the number of offspring per donor; a sibling registry; mandated donor and recipient counseling regarding the needs of the donor-conceived, and legal consequences for blatant fertility fraud.

Are you a writer, too? Submit your manuscript to Atmosphere Press.