To think that if you’re prepared to travel to an IVF clinic outside the UK in a country where fertility treatment is not as tightly regulated as here then you need to accept the risks?

[KimberleyClark]

Obviously it’s awful that this has happened. But nobody is forced to go abroad.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c74v5jd5zkjo

More psychological risks to children born from donors than from the categories listed in the previous post?

I doubt that.

That’s incorrect. Under post 2005 HFEA rules, donors accept that any children born can contact them. They have to provide verifiable contact details. We also have details of all siblings.

@HoppingPavlova’s scenario is not what has happened in the U.K. All prior to the 2005 law change have sealed records so parents can only be accessed via DNA databases.

Who knows? You’re not comparing like with like. All things being equal, children do better with two parents who are well educated and earning well. If you take away any of that or add in other deficits - an unknown genetic parent would be one - then you’re reducing the likelihood of your child doing well.

My child is an adult and is doing pretty well. Would they be doing better if they had blood relatives on both sides? Probably. Would I do it again knowing what I know now? Probably not.

A lot can happen in 18 years and while donors have agreed to potential contact in theory there nothing to compell them to respond to contact.

Of course. But knowing the name of your father is a lot better than knowing (or he was supposed to be) eg a Danish man with blue eyes who enjoys football which is what anon conceived children get.

Well, you made the comparison, not me!

I think it is frankly ridiculous to suggest that children born with a donor parent - not even necessarily an unknown donor - might be as disadvantaged as children born to parents who abuse drugs.

We could spend all day concocting the perfect parenting scenario and beating ourselves up for not being those parents, but it's a daft thing to do.

Absolutely, my original point was that anyone who thinks they are donating anonymously in this day and age is naive in the extreme. I'm sure the vast majority of registered donors will be ready for future contacts and will be happy to have at least minimal contact but those who donated past thinking it was something that could never catch up with them have potentially been caught out by DNA developments and could be tracked down at any point which is something they couldn't have anticipated back in the day.

I didn’t say that. But I do think it’s interesting and useful to consider how we could be better parents.. I’ve made myself think about it a lot, even though it’s not been that comfortable. I think/hope it makes me a better parent. But as they say, you do you.

Well, sorry, but what are you saying? I sound a bit frustrated but I did ask you to clarify whether or not you were making that comparison with respect to the categories described in the previous post, precisely because I thought it would be very odd to say that donor-conceived children were worse off than the children of drug addicts.

Not to be rude - genuinely - but did you perhaps misunderstand me, or lose track of which post you were replying to?

Obviously, like all parents, I think it's interesting and useful to consider how we could be better. But I think that is very different from breast-beating about things we can't sensibly change. Yes, it'd be lovely if we all raised our children in happy, wealthy, well-educated two-parent households: but how is that useful to a single parent now? Yes, you might regret choosing an anonymous donor, but honestly, if at the time you went into that situation thinking you'd done your best, then I don't think you should beat yourself up about it endlessly. And I think you should expect that your medical care would be what you paid for.