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

I did this twice. Ask me anything and I'll give you an honest response!

If your child is naturally conceived you have no idea how they will feel about your choice to have them when you did and your life choices that impact them.

My good friend was born to a sixteen year old who refused a termination. While she is grateful to be alive, her mums choices guaranteed her a fairly difficult life that she is recovering from in her thirties.

@adviceneeded1990 good luck. Feel free to message me if you have any questions. There is plenty of support on Mumsnet in the donor conception forum.

If you are a parent whose children are adopted or donor conceived, you have no idea how your child will feel when they are older.
Honestly, how difficult is that to understand?

That is much clearer, I think where you went wrong was instead of focusing on why the means is morally dubious, you generated implausible terrifying ends.

I agree with you 100%. I have one more round with my own eggs in September then we are looking at Spain for DE IVF if that fails. While I’m lucky enough to have two friends who offered to be known donors, my clinic won’t accept due to their ages. I know two donor conceived people, neither have ever been bothered and just view the donation as a gift given to their parents as part of a necessary medical procedure.

She says pretty clearly that she tried own egg IVF which failed and then couldn’t afford known donor IVF in the UK. Not that she wasn’t bothered . There’s no need to be so nasty.

@LoremIpsumCici I was replying to this ^^ argument.

Have you considered that some of these children might not exist at all if there were no anonymous donation?

It is a ‘the ends justifies the means’ argument.

And no, the ends do not justify any means, just because the ends is the existence of a person.

Edited because I @-ed the wrong poster.

I don’t think it’s fair to say that couples struggling with infertility are going out of their way to orchestrate a situation where their child won’t know the identity of an anonymous donor. The situation only exists because

• they are struggling with infertility and dearly want a child
• infertility treatment is rationed by the NHS and prohibitively expensive privately
• more people volunteer to be donors when they can be kept anonymous, making infertility treatment via donor cheaper in countries where this is legal

The situation is a consequence of the multiple factors above, an anonymous donor is not the raison d’etre for couples pursing fertility treatment.

I don’t think you refuted it. You’d have to come up with a real life consequence to refute a proposition.

If I refuted the morally dubious argument for tourist space travel by saying that leads to humans turning into cyborgs who will come back to wipe out the entire planet, I’m not refuting anything. I’m just looking silly, and a bit tin foil hat.

To refute something morally dubious, you need to hit the mark on why it is morally dubious. So back to tourist space travel- it can be refuted by saying the carbon emissions from so many space launches will cause catastrophic climate and environmental damage.

Ideally ,it seems like a good option for people to know something if their bio father should they choose to.

But the idea of policing women’s fertility, legislating about the terms under which they choose to conceive, turns my stomach.

Educate, spread awareness sure.

But make it illegal? Really: what would you do? Introduce forced pregnancy tests for women returning from abroad? Demand that unless they can prove a contact to a named father they snort or get taken to court?

How else would this suggested law work?

Please: explain how it would work in practice.

I think not knowing who your father is can for some people be different from knowing your mother and father never even met.

It’s the difference between it happening accidentally or because of unforeseen circumstances and people planning on purpose to withhold the information from them.

Negative or possibly negative things happen to people all the time, but we don’t go out of our way to orchestrate them.

Countless generations of children have grown up not knowing who their fathers were (my own grandfather -b. 1905 - for one).

Why is this such a big deal?

@KimberleyClark in my (unfortunately vast) experience, Spain (where I convinced my child) is very highly regulated. I had to have more tests and health checks there than I did in the UK clinic. Some clinics in Eastern Europe or other countries may not be as regulated, but Spain are incredibly strict and donors and recipents are thoroughly checked and screened (physically and mentally). The vast majority of donors are rejected as they fail the criteria. My clinic also had strict age limits and the examples you have quoted would never have been allowed.

Different people have different opinions and feelings about things.

Just because a birth mother doesn’t consider it’s important for her child to know it’s genetic history it doesn’t follow that the child won’t.

@theeyeofdoe because it’s important that child has a genetic link. They might not be bothered but they should have the option

I don’t see the issue, the child’s mother is the one who grew it and then nurtured it after it was born. Not an egg donor.

That’s the point. They should have the option to be able to know their genetic link, and parents should not take this option away. If the child doesn’t want to find out fine, but the option should be there. It’s not for the parents to decide.

Anyway complicated issues and I don’t think it helps to link it to FGM.

This is definitely true.

Ive only known 3 adopted people as an adult, and their views were evenly split- one had no interest in finding out anything at all from her birth family, one did trace them and then was ambivalent about it and says now she is older she wouldn’t bother, and one found his birth mother and they now have a great relationship that enriches his life.

I don’t think ‘everyone’ feels one way or the other but I do think all donor conceived people should have the opportunity to decide for themselves.

I agree we don’t legjislate based on what a few people think but maybe when we get to larger numbers we do, ie basis of democracy alongside hopefully reasoned, research-supported arguments in courts and parliament.

I was deliberately speaking from ‘I’ not saying’everyone’ who doesn’t know their bio parents feels like this. I was putting forward my view as I feel it is under-represented.

I think that there is an understandable media bias towards people being apparently traumatised by not knowing their bio parents and that we therefore don’t hear from the people who are ok with it. Because it’s not much of a story.

Anyway complicated issues and I don’t think it helps to link it to FGM.

Firstly BunfightBetty, you are confusing me with someone else. Secondly, there’s nothing ‘high-pitched’ about what I am saying. I am refuting certain arguments.

If the ‘existence’ of people who would not exist any other way, justifies any means of conception, then Frizl could say his grandchildren would never exist if he hadn’t locked Elizabeth in the cellar, therefore his selfish cruelty was justified.

Existence is not a valid argument to justify any method of conception.

I don’t disagree, but my point was they are far cheaper. However good the reasons why, the fact remains that treatment in the UK is eye-wateringly expensive and out of reach for many. That is often why they go abroad for treatment. Even with flights and accommodation it can work out to half the cost and for many people it’s the only way they can do it.

As others have told you upthread, fertility treatments in the Uk are disproportionately expensive compared to other European countries and there’s a serious lack of donors, precisely because of the lack of anonymity. For many, travelling to Europe and using donor sperm or egg will be the only way they can have a child. If you don’t get that because it’s outside of your experience I would suggest you think yourself lucky.

Fertility treatments in other European countries are much less regulated than they are in the UK. They are not as bound by ethical considerations. They can do things that would be considered quite beyond the pale ethically here, such as getting a 65 year old mother of 13 and grandmother of seven pregnant with quads.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/15/science-65-year-old-mum-quads-danger-mother-foetuses

It’s great for you that you are happy with your situation and don’t feel any need to find your genetic history- you should have the right to make that choice.

Donor conceived children should also have the right to choose differently to you and trace their genetic background.

If all donors were known then each person could make the best decision for themselves.