Sperm donor children win right to trace their fathers

[melsy]

What are your thoughts on this .

I feel for the children that may trace their natural birth fathers, but how will it impact them if they are rejected by someone who doesnt want to be known. Or should you then not donate. It will now make a mans decision to donate that much harder. Why do families then have to suffer the consequences of loosing a child they may have waited a long time for.
I am interested in other views on this.

Lilibet, that's another really good argument for open sperm donation. ATM you can ask if you are genetically related to any future partner, but only if you know or suspect you are a AID child (ie have been told).
I think it is pretty unlikely but of course, a possibility. Not a nice one!

Why are we differentiating between eggs and sperm?

I don't know about anybody else, lilibet, but for me it's because the process is so different and has to be so carefully handled and controlled. Egg donors have to be under 35 for a start and I think there is some counselling involved? And don't parents of donated-egg children get this information anyway? Not sure.

(Some information about GIFT )

I meant about the anonimity of the donor Janh. I did look into egg donation when I was younger but as I have no medical history due to being adopted I couldn't be considered.

Oh, no, they don't - GIFT is covered by the same laws as AID apparently - but it mentiones disclosure of relationships.

Oh - I must be psychic, lilibet! Answered your question without even seeing it!

adoption and sperm donation may be different from the parents' point of view, but as far as the child is concerned, it's an issue of identity and it's up to them if they want to contact a biological parent, IMO. I know someone who had a donor sperm IVF baby (after multiple failed attempts with her husband's sperm) and would like to ask her about this, but I'm not sure if she knows that I know, IYKWIM.

IMO egg and sperm donation should be treated the same. I think it's a good idea about a registry though. I see the point in knowing whether your future spouse could be related to you in some way......

They are, fairymum. This is the bit about anonymity which I forgot to add:

Sorry, not had a chance to read all this but...I think it's a Good Thing. There was a tv programme a few years ago about the children of donors and how dificult if was for them to never be able to trace their fathers. No-one is claiming these men are 'dads' but the need to know who your own father is is very powerful - why do so many people enjoy tracing their own family tree? My daughter has met her father about 6 or 7 times but talks about him as though he lives in the same house! (sometimes).

There'll be no financial responsibilty towards these children and they can only trace their fathers once they get to 18. Any resonsible parents would have prepared their child for any future scenario that might occur surely?

The chance of donor children meeting each other and pairing up in adult life must be quite high. Donors are usually students, likely to produce intelligent children (I'm generalising here), these children are likely to go to university. We are often attracted to people with similar features to ourselves? Think this aspect is quite fascintaing, although still improbable.

As for a reduction on donors, yes, there may be but I do think the rights of the child about to be created must override the rights of the all the adults involved. The rules will be known before the child is created.

I think that, as usual with this kind of thing, a tabloid spin was put on this news - it was implied that sperm donors would have dozens of children forming a queue at their doors!

I'm still not clear how much information a child would be given though - would contact be made through a third party? The Times piece says the donors would not be forced to meet the children - so if all they had was a name, what would happen then? Knowing your father's name but nothing else wouldn't help much, would it?

As far as marrying a relative goes, the HFEA bit says "People aged 16 or over who ask can be told whether they could be related to someone they want to marry. Fulfilling this legal duty will not involve the disclosure of any information which could identify donors." Surely they all would ask? It would be mad not to.

JanH, the current prob is that most don't ask because they don't know they are AID children as there is no way of finding out unless they are told by their parents.

I agree with Aloha et al. I don't think there should be any secrets about our genetic heredity. Whilst it may cause a reduction in donations for now, I think being more open about donating would make it more acceptable in the long term. I really don't see why knowing the identity of the father (or mother) should be any more traumatic than knowing you were born by AID in the first place. Also, I don't believe we can make decisions for young adults about future scenarios; it's for them to make the decisions, hopefully with adequate support etc. Btw, I heard that the new rules come into effect in April 2005.

Message withdrawn

The new rules will apply to sperm, egg and embryo donations, Nicksie. BBC story .

Presumably egg donors haven't been mentioned much so far because there are so few relatively.

aloha, is it really true that most parents of AID children don't tell them? I was naively assuming that most would...but then you probably wouldn't want it widely known, would you, and you would have to wait until the child was old enough to understand the technology (unlike with adoption which is a much simpler concept for a small child) and pick your moment carefully etc etc.

And then the older the child was the more of a shock it might be to them so people could just keep putting it off - I can see how it could happen that many people just never quite get around to it, rather than making a conscious decision not to. Some parents find it impossible just talking about sex, after all!

Oh - I just found this bit on suedonim's BBC link:

"Currently, under the 1990 Human Fertility and Embryology Act, children can be told if they were conceived using donor sperm, eggs or embryos at 18."

Does that mean they cannot currently be told before they are 18? What if they get pregnant or want to get married at 16 or 17?

And the Health Minister is quoted as saying:

"The change will be that eventually a child might come forward and knock on the door, but we're hoping to set up a mechanism so it won't be a complete surprise to them."

We're HOPING to set up a mechanism? Well, that's jolly encouraging.

Some of these pieces raise more questions than they answer.

I think women are much more open about their infertility. It seems to strike at men's whole identity more which might account for some of the secrecy, I suppose. In the article I mentioned, there are a couple who advocate for people who have children by donor, and they have two children this way, and they have always, ever since the children were tiny, told them about a special man who helped to make them. The girl would like to contact her bio-dad, and the boy wouldn't. Interesting stuff I think.

On the news on Radio 2 early it said that people will be given details at age 18. I don't think the information about the donor's identify is given beforehand, int he new proposals for Uk anyway. Not sure what happens abroad.

The BBC article reads: "The changes, which will also apply to egg and embryo donors, will come into force from April 2005, meaning the first time donor children will be able to find out their parent's identity will be in 2023."; so it would assume that it will be at age 18 at the earliest.

Later is says: "They can also ask if they are related to someone they want to marry" but no time scale or age is mentioned for this.

And then: "The regulations will now be extended so that children can find out more biological information about the donor parent.

It's like adoption - it helps some people who are adopted to know who their parent is

Laura Spoelstra, National Gamete Donation Trust

'I'd happily be identified'
'I just did it for the money'
'I don't know who my father is'

They will be able to have 'pen portraits' of their parent, which would detail their eye and hair colour and their occupation and religion.
". Which I read to mean that before 18 they will have this type of information; after 18 the actual identity of the man/women involved.

Ooops - not sure how the middle bit - adoption quote and stories - got there; sorry.

HB, it was these 2 paragraphs that threw me:

"Currently, under the 1990 Human Fertility and Embryology Act, children can be told if they were conceived using donor sperm, eggs or embryos at 18.

They can also ask if they are related to someone they want to marry."

This implies that they can't be told anything until they're 18. Maybe I'm just reading it wrong but that's what I meant about the piece raising more questions than it answers - not written nearly clearly enough.

Also, the current proposal is that AID babies conceived after the initial changes come in (April 2005) will be able to have the "pen-picture" at 18 - then at some unspecified future time a further amendment will allow them to get the name and turn up on the doorstep of the man who may have been notified in advance if Ms Johnson gets her act together by then.

However this can't happen until 2023 at the earliest so plenty of time to sort it all out. Possibly!

I meant to say that they currently can't be told anything until they're 18. (Still, at least I don't get paid for confusing writing!)

I'm also with aloha et al on this. I think the urge to find out more about your bioloigcal parent must be overwhelming for some people, I'm quite sure I would be desperate to know. It's also worth noting that although the sperm donors may fill in questionnaires about their genetic background, there are any number of diseases that don't manifest themselves until late adulthood, presumably well beyond the age of most sperm donors. Some of these I would definitely want to know about if I was conceived in this way.

Here is a possibility, sorry if I am echoing anyone on here.

Say a person is born through sperm donation, falls in love and marries another person born from sperm donation. There could be a chance they share a father, how would this be found out or sorted?

I have an over-active imagination!