Would you lift anonymity for eggs donated before the 2005 law change?

[Momoftwoscallywags]

Help, dilemma.

If you donated eggs before the change of law in April 2005, when it was clearly explained to you that you would always be an anonymous donor but you have now found out that you could actually give permission to have that anonymity lifted.

Would you do it? and why?

As an adopted person I would. Every child has the right to know even if they don’t end up tracing their genetic roots

Yes. It’s very unethical to deny people knowledge of their origins.

Victoria in Australia has retrospectively removed anonymity for donors.
aifs.gov.au/research/family-matters/no-98/donor-identification

@needastrongone did you not think about the resultant child?

Anonymous donors have lost their anonymity, not officially but the DNA cat is out of the bag and it's not going back in. You can't stop your second cousin once removed putting their DNA out there and it only takes a few distant relatives on each side to build a profile that leads to you. You can of course choose not to respond to anyone that approaches you but you can't choose to be untracible.

Thank you for what you did. It was the law at the time and recipients like myself knew and were extremely grateful. And to answer a pp I did think of the child. Mine has always known their origins. Yes DNA availability and access has changed this landscape. But I still think the uk regulated egg sharing arrangements of pre-2005 were and are so much better than the current let me go to Spain/Cyprus and buy anonymous embryos bought from poor women, used to be ukranian or Russian.

Thank you. It was a very easy decision to make at the time as I wanted to help others. I had counselling as well, so I went into the situation with my eyes open.

But, I made that decision based on my guaranteed anonymity. I knew that any resultant child would never know me as a person and that was the saddest part of all, but I still decided to do it.

For the PP's who say think of the child. I am thinking of the resultant child/ren (I don't know if there was any).
If you have always been told, that by law, you can never know/contact your Donor, you don't have to make a decision about contact when you are old enough to decide do you? It's basically out of your hands.

But if I lifted my anonymity, my decision is now directly impacting on this child/ren. That's the dilemma.

Edited for spelling

Agree, I would always feel uncomfortable in any new relationship with the thoughts of “what if we are related” unlikely and dramatic I know but always there!

@Momoftwoscallywags the reason they have changed the law is that it has caused distress etc for children/adults to not have accessibility to this information. They are the most important people here.

I was adopted at a time when tracing birth parents wasn’t a possibility, the law was changed retrospectively when I was a child when people realised the harm not knowing can cause.

It’s taken authorities a bit longer to realise that children born via sperm/egg donation can suffer similarly. Unfortunately some countries aren’t as enlightened and I wish people wouldn’t use donations from those countries to ensure anonymity is kept. Really not thinking about the best interests for their child

Hmm wonder if people will stop donating as a result.

Not sure why it's unethical. It's only extremely recently anyone knew for sure who their dad was... And to an extent, who both parents were, due to technology.

Why is it suddenly a right to know who your birth parents are?

But you can test yourself / your partner. What does this have to do with egg donors?

Because people finally acknowledge that it is important for people to know.

And what if your parents dont tell you they bought you as an egg?

This is completely bonkers and backwards.

Of course people feel a bond to their kin. It’s basic biology. That’s not to say that non-genetic relationships can’t be loving.

And of course most people know who their parents are. The exception proves the rule. If we hear of someone who discovers they’re not the child of their parents (usually their father) we feel for them and realise what a profound shock it is.

I would never donate eggs, for a variety of ethical and personal reasons, but...if I had donated eggs, I would remain anonymous at this point. You went into it on the grounds that it would be completely anonymous, and there's nothing wrong with maintaining that status quo.

You're not obligated to give up your privacy and be potentially sought out by a child you didn't want, have had nothing to do with, and thought you would have anonymity from. Their right to know who their biological mother is doesn't outweigh your right to privacy (and this clash of rights is one reason why egg donation is an issue).

I think the same about adoption – if I'd ever been in a position where I'd had to give up a child, I'd want total anonymity. Otherwise, you'd have the worry that the child might contact you one day hanging over your head forever, like the sword of Damocles.

@OtterlyAstounding and that would be absolutely shit for the resultant child. So good you don’t want to donate your eggs.

I can see why transparency is desirable going forward (and imagine that will reduce the number of donors greatly), but to remove anonymity from donors who only donated on the grounds that they would remain anonymous...? That seems hugely unethical.

Problem was donating anonymously was unethical (if legal). Unfortunately no-one thought about the resulting child

I'm not sure why knowing your biological mother's name would be wonderful, if you also discover she also wants nothing to do with you? It sounds like it would just be opening the door to an entirely different form of distress.

But yes, I have many ethical issues with egg donation and surrogacy, so I would have never done it. This kind of clash of rights being one of the issues. I don't think OP should feel obliged to waive anonymity though. What if a child contacts her,and/or her relatives, and wants to form a relationship? She needs to consider how she'd feel about that, and how it would impact on her life.

I think for many people it will be having knowledge rather than a relationship, so what do they look like, what they do, medical history, family, and not just a snapshot on the donor records. And some will never trace, but it’s important that they have the option.

Some people who trace relatives tend to have relations with the siblings rather than the parents (a couple of friends have done that, one friend was adopted, another had a shit dad, both going through various methods tracking family, ancestry.com, Facebook etc they have unearthed a multitude of siblings who they now keep in touch with, but don’t have relationship with parents)

Some biological mothers might not want biological children they gave up for potentially deeply painful reasons, or biological children conceived thanks to egg donation when they were young and assured anonymity, to be in contact with their family, and their children.

If they acted on the grounds that anonymity was assured, it's unethical to give up their information to strangers they don't want anything to do with – sure, promising them anonymity might have been unethical, but to try to fix it by doing something else unethical just compounds the issue.

The breach of privacy makes my skin crawl.

To make it transparent going forward makes sense, but I don't think OP should feel ethically obliged to introduce a potential new child/children into her life, when that was never part of the agreement.