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

[ZoeCM]

If the government can ban people from travelling outside the UK for FGM, why can't they ban this? It's absolutely appalling that clinics will destroy all records of a child's biological parent in this day and age. Yes, the child can potentially trace their parents through companies such as AncestryDNA, but there's no guarantee they'll be successful. It's a massive abuse of power.

Anonymous donation is all about what's best for the recipients and the donor, never the child. AIBU to think it should be illegal to travel abroad for this purpose?

My friend used a brilliant book series to help with this from Cryos International. I’m sure your boy will know how wanted he was. My first round of IVF failed in June, I’m gearing up for round 2. Nine is unimaginable and I’m sorry you had to go through that 🩷.

It’s not either or. You could use a donor that’s NOT anonymous.

The cost of this is unaffordable and always will be for many people in the UK. I agree it’s the better option, for what it’s worth. But when you are both working well paid jobs and still can’t get near it in the time frame you would need in order to be young enough to transfer, it isn’t an option.

As I’ve said already on this thread though, if you are offering us either an egg or the money to use a known donor please feel free to have an opinion on what myself and others choose to do.

It's worse than FGM. It lasts a lifetime. FGM can be surgically improved.

Not sure - be honest, tell him how much he was wanted - got a few years to think about it yet!

Thank you - I think it was Einstein who said that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result doesn't work so we mixed it up a bit at the end.

I wish you all the luck in the world in your next round - I don't think people appreciate how tough it is with the injections and the waiting and the living in hope

Well they can open up the vagina but they can't give you back your clitoris and all the sensations you will never have.

No it isn't really a consolation, sorry you were also an accident and presumably there are a lot of us about but I'd still rather have been planned and wanted.

You have no idea what other people are going through. You’ve made assumptions.

No-one has the right to have a child at all costs if that is to the detriment of the child. And you won't know how your child really feels about it until they are grown up. Just because they are happy now means nothing. Children live, generally, in the here and now - adults understand the implications.

You’re right. We’re all making assumptions, because it’s an anonymous forum. What we aren’t all doing is judging other people’s choices like you are. Because whatever you are going through, I would trust you as an adult to make the correct decision for you, your family and your future children. You don’t offer others the same.

It isn’t possible to know you are making the correct decision for your future children in the case of donor gametes

• you are hoping they won’t care or won’t care much, so that you can have a baby. You might be lucky and they will be happy with the situation, or you may be wrong and they will be very upset and angry with you.

Yes. In my opinion the same applies to any conception or adoption in any circumstances. No one knows if their future children will be happy with their decisions around their conception, birth or life. You do the best you can with the best of intention with the circumstances you have and hope for the best.

That’s why the most ethical route is always the best one- do your best to conceive a child in the most positive possible circumstances, including giving them the opportunity to learn about their genetic makeup.

I said one sentence on this whole thread and you’ve made up a whole scenario about my views and my judgement.
I am simply saying the options are not “terrible neglectful parents” or “anonymous donor”. Life is shades of grey. Very few people have children into a ‘perfect life’ because it does not exist.

I agree - but for some that simply isn’t possible.

I think I’m probably coloured by my own experience though because in 16 years of working with children who have experienced trauma, every single perpetrator but one shared the child’s genetic make up. I’ve also seen two adoptees trace their genetic make up - one ended up discovering hugely traumatic facts and another had a door closed in their face. On the other hand my experiences of knowing donor conceived people have been good - a small sample size but both respect and love their families who went to great lengths to get them here and don’t feel the need to trace their original genetics at all. They know the basic medical information that is needed.

However I can’t speak for everyone, no one can, and others know donor conceived people who have had horrible experiences and are angry at being denied the right to know their genetic roots in more depth, adoptions that have gone wrong, etc.

Personally I will do everything I can to have a child via IVF using my own eggs but there is an issue with both ovarian reserve and egg quality and I’m only 34. So it’s looking unlikely. We are discussing next steps which include adoption and donor egg conception.

I do know that known donor IVF in the UK is unaffordable for me and would financially impact my DSD, so I then need to weigh up the ethics of making a decision that is unfair to an existing child in order to potentially create another in a way that other people deem to be more ethical.

I’ve been told that donor egg IVF on the NHS is a remote possibility but that I will wait approx 4 years. When my husband will be 46/47. And no doubt people will judge my ethics in having a child with a man who is nearly 50.

Sometimes there are only a series of bad choices and we choose the least harmful. I don’t know what mine will be yet. But I’d never judge another persons choice in relation to having a family and how that family is made.

@adviceneeded1990

I really hope you get your miracle and are able to have children and that it brings you the happiness you deserve. 💖

“But I’d never judge another persons choice in relation to having a family and how that family is made.”

This above sentence isn’t possible though. We all judge to some extent. We are humans. If I said “oh I have some concerns about anonymous donors” I would say I have personal reasons for my view. Equally, you could say it is a judgement of the situation. I would hate to judge people outright and I wouldn’t say to a parent of an anonymous donor conceived “oh but what if Freddie wants to know X” because that’s horrible.

There are some people who do choose to make families in very difficult circumstances. So, I don’t think we could say we would never hold an opinion.

Thank you. 🩷

You’re right, my wording was poor, we do all judge internally and I’ve definitely judged people I’ve met through my work where they’ve chosen to have children in awful circumstances and the children have suffered badly. I suppose I mean I’d try hard not to judge someone creating a family with the best of intentions. But we do all judge it’s human. We’re all doing the best we can with the cards we’ve been dealt I suppose.

It’s a very emotive issue.

People desperate to create a family will always go to whatever lengths that technology, market forces and the law will allow them, within their means.

The fertility scientists are driven by the urge to push the limits of possibility. The potential parents are driven by a desire to exhaust all possibilities until they get a child. The market forces are driven by a greed to exploit them.

Without ethical limitations, the rights of the child are obliterated. We need laws to provide those ethical limits and those laws should not be written by curious fertility scientists, the fertility industry, or desperate parents who will go to whatever lengths possible to have a child.

Sounds a bit like the old men in USA who think they are best placed to decide whether or not women should be allowed to have abortions.

The laws in this country were decided after consultation with interested parties & the general public. Unfortunately the number of donors dropped massively when the law changed to remove anonymity.

@Shelby2010 but in this case it is what is more important for the child, same as with adoption. Or do you think we should go back to the old ways with adoption where it was only the adoptive parents who were considered and never the child.

And he will never know his genetic mother and some day may ask you why you did that. I love my raising patents but I am bitter that they deliberately withheld the truth about my genetic dad. But that was the 70s, I understood they were told to hide the truth in those days. You will have no such excuse, the research is out there, hundreds of dcp on the Internet are crying out for rps (recipient parents) to understand the potential damage but you have ignored it and now smugly post on an anonymous forum about how much you love your child. If you love him, try to understand from people who have been there hos important knowing your genetic heritage is. Apologise for the damage that has been done to him in denying this by using an anonymous spanish donor. Try to explore what he wants to know. Don't play down the role of his genetic mother and any and all feelings he might have about that.

This whole thread makes me so angry. I'm a donor conceived person (dcp as we refer to ourselves). Conceived in the 70s in a clinic in Harley street, no records. I have actually by chance found my biological father but most of my peers born around the same time have not.
I had a happy life, love my now elderly parents but discovering this age 43 was a terrible shock, a trauma that lots of people who are posting on this thread seek to downplay. I could not look in a mirror for 6 months as I could not stand my face. I didn't know where it came from. I used to look up every time someone came into a public place thinking maybe this is him, maybe this is my bio father. It was horrific for a while.
Many DCP talk of similar experiences and it makes me very cross when people (especially recipient parents (RP)) downplay this. The HFEA not only has banned anonymous donation but it also provides a free counselling service for DCP traumatised by their upbringing which is a huge number. Numerous charities exist to support us but according to the majority of you its not that bad to not know your biological parent.
Lots of support exists for adopted people (rightly so). It is acknowledged that it is traumatic for them not to know they are adopted and not to know who their parents are. Somehow those same rights are not afforded to DCP. The main focus seems to be on the expense/difficulty of conceiving a child by donor in the UK (as if it is some kind of right for people to have children using others gametes) as opposed to thinking about why it is like that.
The focus of the conversation needs to shift dramatically towards the needs of the child rather than the wants of the parent. I think it will do soon - sadly as a result of the multitude of children currently being born by donor conception to parents who are not thinking about them/their needs. the thing is there is a lot of information out there - the donor conception network among many other charities making it clear that this is an issue. People sadly ignore it because its too expensive/takes longer.

I feel for you and your experience of finding out so late must have been terrible. I don’t think anyone on this thread has belittled that or downplayed your trauma. Many adoptees born and adopted in the 60s/70s faced the same trauma and it’s terrible, everyone should know the story of how they got here and no child should be lied to.

I think what people are trying to point out is that there are ways of doing this that aren’t as extreme as what you experienced, such as giving children age appropriate information and making sure they understand the role of their donor in their story. Medical information, education, characteristics, etc are available even via anonymous donor, so there is some information available. I think as others have said though, people who feel as deeply as you do will be naturally “louder” and keen to share their experiences. Many donor conceived people are perfectly fine with it. And there will be many reactions that fall somewhere in between. Similar to adoption - some adoptees will trace their genetic family and it’ll end well, for some it will end badly and some won’t be interested in doing so.