tto think it should be illegal to travel abroad for anonymous egg/sperm donation?

Or you were unwanted and unplanned after a seedy ONS where your mother didn't even bother to get your father's name versus your mother and father wanted you so much they invested time and money to get you, your mother went through painful and invasive procedures to have you and a kind woman/man donated an egg/sperm to make it all positive. You have always known you much you were wanted and are loved.

@Jjiillkkf the poll is about making it ILLEGAL. Which apart from anything else is impractical.

The poll does not indicate whether or not people believe it is advantageous for children to be able to trace their parentage.

Comparing the two is like comparing apples and oranges, and you'll just Alienate people. I'm not entirely sure how it would even be possible to make traveling across for anonymous donation illegal. When we travel we follow the laws of the country we're in. Saying this, I don't disagree with you about anonymous sperm donation being unethical.

My husband is infertile and we'll need to use a donor. We've spent almost 2 years delving deep to find as much information as we can because like most parents, we want to make sure we maximise the chances of good outcomes for any children we have.

The majority of studies, and the majority of donor conceived children say that a known donor is the optimal route because donor conceived children have better outcomes if they can access their genetic mirrors, their medical history and where possible their donor/donors relatives to maintain biological links and answer questions as they come up. Obviously this can't always happen, and lots of places like the UK do make information and the option of contact accessible from when a child turns 18.

For what it's worth, I personally think it's unethical, and cruel for a parent using a donor to actively prevent a child from accessing basic information about themselves. I think the bare minimum should be open ID once the child turns 18.

However while I do hold these views
The much bigger issue is the lack of donor regulation in some countries. Lots of countries have absolutely zero limits on how many families a person can donate to. In the UK a donor can donate to a maximum of 10 families. Donor's also lose anonymity when the child is 18.

In the USA on the other hand, there is no limit to how many families a man can donate to, and a donor can remain completely anonymous. This opens up the potential for issues such as accidental incest. There have been stories where men haven't been told that their donations will be split into multiple "straws". So one donation can be split into 4-8 straws. There was one man who has fathered something like 90 children due to the unethical and unregulated practices. I personally feel there should be an international regulation of how many families a man can donate to via a clinic. It's something that should be the same across the board for ethical and safety reasons. Obviously it wouldn't prevent out of clinic donations but it would be a start in addressing major issues in the donation industry.

And no, I don't feel like any of this is anything like FGM.

Apologies for the huge essay. Like I said, this has been our journey for the past two years, so I have done and still do a lot of reading and research

‘Genetic history’ isn’t the correct term to use for biological mum and/or dad.

The rhetoric is off the chain. What’s next lambasting English parents that have and raise their babies outside England because they’re “orchestrating the creation of a person cut off from their ethnic history?”

Do we all need to be like the Virgin Mary and make sure we get to our husbands’s place of birth to have our own DCs?

So I can order a dna test online and it will give me the name and contact information for my genetic parents? Wow. Excellent science magic.

Allowing adults the opportunity to find out about their genetic background isn’t teaching children that genetics matter above all else. That’s just daft.

Its 100% possible to bring up your donor conceived children to love you and understand you are their parents, and they your children-loved just as much as genetic children would be- and also let them know they have some genetic links with someone else.

I don’t think I’ve said anywhere to make it illegal.

i would want full bio history though ti be available as a minimum.

No one is ‘cut off from their genetic history’ in this day and age.
DNA tests are commercially available at a very reasonable cost.

Protecting your feelings about what other people do that doesn’t affect you isn’t a good reason to pass laws.

All this palaver about the imagined rights non-existent children may or may not even want is only a smoke screen for some people’s personal (judgey) feelings about what other people do for fertility choices.

Some people do go down that route on purpose precisely because they want an anonymous donor.

If they don’t do it specifically for that reason they are still orchestrating the creation of a person who is cut off from their genetic history.

Well that’s your choice. Personally I’d be deeply uncomfortable about making an active choice to birth a child knowing that their background had been purposely erased.

Why? The DNA of a genetic parent doesn’t matter compared to your own DNA. My grandmother and mum both had the BRCA genes but I didn’t inherit them.

The only DNA a child needs screened is their own DNA

My concern about anonymous donation (and destruction of information about bio parents) is what screening has been done about genetic conditions etc.

A donor is not the child’s parent.
There are ways to ensure that heritage is known without providing identifying information. Medical history, family history, occupation, hobbies, why that person chose to donate etc etc is all information that could be provided without actual personal details of the donor being disclosed.
I imagine being told that a donor just isn't interested in being in contact with you is the most harmful.

Not necessarily, if you have lived experience and it leaves a hole for you, fine. But I don’t feel a hole not knowing my genetic father’s name etc. So I don’t think it’s accurate to state categorically that it does

Still more important that the child’s rights come first rather than a person’s right to become a parent by whatever means. That is what has been learnt now about adoption and that ethical thinking should follow through with other things like donor conception.

I wouldn’t put it quite like that, more that a potential child’s right to know their own heritage is more important than their potential parent’s money-saving and convenience.

However, I don’t think parents who do not use anonymous donors are prepping the child to advocate for that value. The values most parent’s pass on are things like work ethics, moral conduct, self-knowledge, health, wealth, love, which would include the importance of family, etc. Very few parents are sending their children out into the world to be ambassadors for their own questionable choices.

I can immediately tell you have not lived with the devastation of infertility and have very little clue as to what you're talking about. In answer to your question, yes you are being utterly unreasonable.

This

It leaves a massive hole in your life if you never knew your parents and something of your culture, background etc.

People aren't thinking of the children though, it's just a case of having their needs fulfilled.

I'm sure many people commenting have never known or experienced the agony of infertility.
Why would you think that we hadn't?
I'm an adopter. I know if you give birth to a child from donor gametes you can pretend they have no other heritage than yours but we don't have that luxury (though I have seen some adopters try to pretend this).
How many times do you need to be told - it's not about you, your pain, your long journey to be parents, your spurious "right" to be a parent.
It's about your child.
Why do my children have a right to know about their biological heritage but yours don't?

If people want a genuine debate, then using hyperbole and accusations of evil and abusive practices, is really not the way to go about it.

@Jjiillkkf I can assure you that I am my child's parent. I grew, birthed and fed him. He is from a very kind lady who donated her eggs to me, but I am his parent. I'm not commenting or checking this post anymore as there is a lot of nasty comments on here and I'm sure many people commenting have never known or experienced the agony of infertility.

‘Evil’?! Wow. That’s strong terminology. Do you have a religious perspective on this?

@adviceneeded1990 its not that genetics matter above all else but that they have the right to know their genetics.