Fair enough, I’m not saying it has to be *the same* for everybody. Obviously it varies from person to person. I agree culture is far more important than mere biology, no question. In fact, biology can have little or even nothing to do with ethnicity per se, as a cultural community. Then again I take this all for granted because for me biological, cultural, social origins have been one and the same.

But if I’d been conceived via IVF, born to a white anglo family in a Scottish village, well, just a look in the mirror would leave me a bit curious to say the least.

From my perspective, the tyranny of ethnic determinism is already overbearing, so I rarely see that it’s a “good”? thing to encourage the concept of ethnic identity. I certainly don’t see it as being essential.

Well, I don’t know what you mean exactly by “tyranny of ethnic identity”, to me it’s simply part of personal identity. I don’t pretend everybody to feel the same about that, but I also wouldn’t want someone to decide for everybody that it doesn’t matter *at all*.

Barbara, I don’t see that kind of slippery slope argument applying here at all.
If I donate egg or sperm, it’s my specific choice, and for instance laws in UK now specifically require me to renounce anonymity; I can either accept that condition and donate, or refuse it and not donate. No one forces me to do anything.
If on the other hand someone takes my name, address, phone number, medical history, job history, family members names, and all kinds of other private information about me and publishes it somewhere public without telling me and without getting my consent, that’s not a choice I’m making, that’s a breach of privacy.
Requiring donors to not be anonymous is not a breach of privacy, because donating is an action one knowingly takes, with full knowledge their name will be disclosed if required. Being unwillingly subjected to a breach of privacy is not the same thing as knowingly consenting to something where they tell you upfront that part of the deal is that your anonymity is not granted.

(Besides, anonymity and privacy are not exactly the same thing. Consenting to the requirement that your name may be disclosed is not the same as granting full access to your private life and facts about you, or even granting the demand to meet you in person. Even with the new UK law, as far as I know there is no legal requirement for donors to interact with the children at all.)

For instance, I don’t have a right to see my parents’ or grandparents’ medical records, and if they are ashamed about some aspect of their medical information (like, I don’t know, having given birth to a child with an inherited disease who died young and who I don’t know about, or a family history of mental illness) I can’t force anyone tell me no matter how useful it is to me.

True, but again, that’s a different situation from the one we’re talking about. First, I think that by medical information about donors what’s meant is, normally, what is already being asked before the donation process will suffice; in case there should be an extra specific need that arises later, I guess the clinic will have the possibility of tracing the donor and providing more information. I’m not sure how laws differ on this.

However, in any case, again it’s not something being forced on anybody, it’s something that will be established quite clearly *before* making the donation, and the consent will be required *beforehand*.

It’s completely different from the example you’re making.

It’s up to them because in a civilized society, all relationships are, at their core, voluntarily accepted by parties to the relationship.

Indeed, but what about the other party in question in this specific situation - the children? The donors voluntarily relinquish any legal rights on them, which is only fair; they also have a right to refuse any personal contact, which is again fair for the situation; but if you allow anonymity, then the children are being forced to relinquish even that minimal right to know about the identity of their biological ancestry - a right or wish that, again, you or I or anybody may consider entirely futile or illogical or biased, but one of the arguments that led to the UK change of laws is that we cannot impose that decision a priori on everybody. It has to be voluntarily decided by the individual children (some will want to satisfy that right, some won’t); and it is also voluntarily *consented* by on the part of the donors, who are being asked beforehand.

I’m not defending retro-active removal of anynymity, by the way. Just so it’s clear.

The issue is, what is that legal obligation, what kind of information would be subject to mandatory disclosure, and how and when would it be imparted? But don’t say that there is no legal obligation under discussion. Of course there is, that’s the whole point.

Well you can’t say “of course there are obligations”, if you’re still asking the question of which obligations precisely are being set…

In the UK, the only legal obligation, under specific prior consent, is to have your name disclosed when required later. I am not aware of *any* extra legal requirement apart from that. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but since donors are not legal parents, I don’t think it would even be legal to require anything more than the identity to be revealed. Here’s a link:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4397249.stm

The change in the rules means that children conceived using donor eggs or sperm will be able to trace their biological parent in the same way as children who are adopted.

While children will be able to access more information about the donor’s genetic origins, they will have no financial or legal claim.

Because the law only applies to people who donate from Friday, the first time children born in this way will have the option to ask for the identity of their donor will be when they turn 18 in 2023.

They will have to ask the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority to release the information.

The donor will not be able to trace a child.

A donor who changes his or her mind and wants to find the biological child who doesn’t want to be found has no legal right to do so.

Agreed, and that’s what the UK laws also acknowledge, and I think it’s fair.

Now, you can say, at least that donor made a choice at the outset, and that’s true, that’s a difference, however, the reason why I keep talking about the donor is because that was the issue under discussion.

Well yes, but it’s impossible to separate talking about donors from talking about children conceived via donation.

The whole point of the discussion on anonymity is about both parties involved…

But if you ask me, then clearly, the child who doesn’t want to be found is also exercising a choice, and that choice should be equally respected, no matter how compelling the need for his or her information.

Absolutely, I agree. (I guess you thought I’d disagree on this, but I really do agree!)

But that difference you acknowledge, that a donor made the choice to donate while the child didn’t choose to be born from donation, is fundamental. The situation is not specular. The laws deny the donor the ability to trace a child because the donor already has made her or his choice when donating, they already consented to relinquising that ability. But obviously children never consented to relinquishing the opposite ability, of at least being able to trace the identity of the donors.

So you have a disparity. Which can happen even in other parent-children relations that have nothing to do with IVF. A father can disappear and never be traced again, if the children are adults, he has no obligation. A child can be told his father is someone who isn’t his actual biological father, and if he doesn’t find out, he’ll never know. This can be a big deal or not, depending on the specific situation. Laws don’t enter into this territory because it’s personal. No law forces a parent to reveal the identity of the other biological parent of her child. With IVF from donors it’s still personal, but it is different, because it is a situation where the biological parent is by necessity, deliberately and openly, another person from the actual legal parent right; it doesn’t just happen, it doesn’t only happen between two or three individuals; it happens between two or three individuals and a clinic and doctors and a whole process that is already being legiferated upon. So it’s fair for laws to take into account the situation of the children.

. If you press me, I think that there may be ways to make the practice much less objectionable (like waiting until the child is age 18, divulging no more than would be on a birth certificate, which is to say, name).

But that is *exactly* what I’m talking about, Barbara, no more than that. And it is exactly what laws in UK establish. Only a name, and only after children turn 18.

But if I had my preference, I would stick with voluntary exchanges, and I would even strongly encourage such exchanges, and require affected parties to facilitate them when requested to do so. I think they would be more meaningful while still balancing the rights of parties.

That’s a good point, and I agree if by “exchanges” you mean something involving an actual meeting, I do believe that has to be entirely voluntary.

As for disclosing only a name, however, even if on the outside it may seem pointless, well I think if the principle is to apply at all it has to apply for everybody. It would be unfair otherwise.

Besides, the whole process *is* still voluntary at the root, and if a donor’s objection to disclosing one’s identity is stronger than the desire to donate, then they will simply not donate.

There is an interesting quote on that link from the BBC site where they mention the effects in Sweden, which had already introduced a law similar to the UK, revoking anonymity for donors - they saw initially the rates dropped, then the profile of donors simply changed, from younger students to older men who already had children. It’s still early to tell about the effects in the UK.

The “basic notion” is not at all the same. Ex post facto laws are prohibited because they’re simply a way to punish people who obeyed the law at the time. Changing the rules even though people may have depended on them, reasonably or not, is not illegal (and when you think about it, shouldn’t be).

Barbara i am not on this crusade because of my own personal pain and loss, it was the initial spark, however i am active in this area because i feel that we owe it to future generations to think more carefully into how we bring them into the world. I do not and will not ever understand the justification on purposefuly creating another human being whom i know may have any of the feelings that i do. Amongst all the donor conceived people i have spoken to, met, read about, seen on tv, (i would say around 50+) we all want more information and i would say that the majority of us disagree with anonymous sperm donations. Policy in this area should reflect the best interests of the unborn child.. even though it supposedly does already. I disagree that it is a bad thing to limit people’s choices in this area. There should be no choice. And i believe that this current trend around the “right to reproduce” is not one at all. No one’s rights should take away another person’s rights out of wants and needs… what i mean is that the ‘right’ to reproduce and have children, should not interfere with a person’s birthrite to know of their own origins.

I am currently studying social work so that i can go on and help in the support people like myself do need. I feel very passionately that donor conception is a very bad experiment, whose consequences will appear times a million one day.. with any movement, it takes the voices of many, many whom tell of their anguish before anything is really addressed. (eugenics was thought to be a great idea back in the day, but it wasn’t a good idea, was it?) This i believe will be the sad story of those conceived via anonymous ‘anything’.

www.tinpot.org/rel

It’s up to them because in a civilized society, all relationships are, at their core, voluntarily accepted by parties to the relationship. The only exception here is parenthood, guardianship, or spousal relationships, in which the parties voluntarily assumed legal obligations. Even these can be relinquished. So when you say that anonymity and legal obligation are different things, you are both right and wrong. They may not be the same, but they are closely related. One wouldn’t even be discussing the policy of breaking anonymity if one did not accept that there is some “obligation,” however limited or inchoate, that the anonymous person assumed by choosing to donate that transcends his or her interest in maintaining anonymity. The issue is, what is that legal obligation, what kind of information would be subject to mandatory disclosure, and how and when would it be imparted? But don’t say that there is no legal obligation under discussion. Of course there is, that’s the whole point.

And, in fact, it is not only up to the donor. A donor who changes his or her mind and wants to find the biological child who doesn’t want to be found has no legal right to do so. Now, you can say, at least that donor made a choice at the outset, and that’s true, that’s a difference, however, the reason why I keep talking about the donor is because that was the issue under discussion. But if you ask me, then clearly, the child who doesn’t want to be found is also exercising a choice, and that choice should be equally respected, no matter how compelling the need for his or her information. For instance, more than one donor might be motivated to find a “lost” biological connection if the donor subsequently had a child who developed a disease requiring the donation of tissue from a close family member. Or the donor’s child might be motivated to find that sibling (a sibling who also didn’t make a choice). And so on.

So I would respect a choice of anonymity by both donors and their offspring, if that wasn’t clear, and further, I would definitely respect mandating all donors to provide information on ethnicity, medical background, and so forth, at the time of donation. But I don’t accept that divulging identity is unrelated to the concept of legal obligation, however de minimis we choose to make it. If you press me, I think that there may be ways to make the practice much less objectionable (like waiting until the child is age 18, divulging no more than would be on a birth certificate, which is to say, name). But if I had my preference, I would stick with voluntary exchanges, and I would even strongly encourage such exchanges, and require affected parties to facilitate them when requested to do so. I think they would be more meaningful while still balancing the rights of parties.

As for the biological construct of race and ethnicity, well, the point is that ethnicity is a social and cultural construct. Like I said early on, I am related to hundreds of people in an Eastern European country with whom I have less in common than my colleagues at work who share nothing of my biological ancestry. From my perspective, the tyranny of ethnic determinism is already overbearing, so I rarely see that it’s a “good” thing to encourage the concept of ethnic identity. I certainly don’t see it as being essential.

You may think the potential motives to want that other option to know about the donor are futile, or wrong, or get on your nerves, but that’s a bit of stretch from saying the law should establish that for everyone.

I am quite sympathetic to biological parents who don’t wish to meet the children they gave up for adoption.

Yes, absolutely, but for one thing, as you said yourself, adoption is different, and anyway, for both adoption and donation, information about identity doesn’t necessarily have to mean being legally required to *meet* the children.

The law recently introduced in the UK to remove anonymity, for instance, does specifically exclude any legal or financial obligation (and it’s not even retroactive).

It simply works the same way as for adoption, people will be able to trace the identity of their biological parents but if the latter don’t even want to meet them, then they won’t have to.

Your parents (real or whatever) can refuse to have anything to do with you once you are an adult.

Yes, but for instance where I live legal parents, biological or not, are legally required to support their children financially until 18 or until the children are self-sufficient. It’s also illegal to disown a child. But that is only for parents legally recognised as such, so it doesn’t apply to biological parents in adoption or donation. Donors and birth parents do not have any legal status as parents.

But as for the right to refuse to have anything to do with children in terms of meeting them, that applies to birth parents too, even when you revoke anonymity.

So don’t confuse lack of anonymity with legal obligations - the two do not go together.

No matter which side pervails, case by case determination would be a nightmare. Society really needs to decide up front.

Exactly, but what I meant by “cases will vary” was simply that some children will want to know the identity, some others won’t. But again take the laws in UK, they do not allow for any case by case determination in *legal* terms. They simply give the option to the child to have the identity of donors disclosed, no more than that. There is no room for any other legal demand.

Also, the idea that you need to know in order to know your ethnicity, okay, if there’s anything that REALLY bugs me more than the biological construct of parenthood it’s the biological construct of race and ethnicity.

First, I didn’t speak of “race” but ethnic origins; secondly, while it’s obvious that parenthood is something you do, not just or necessarily something you are, so biology doesn’t have to do anything with it, ethnic origins do have an obvious element of inheritance, and if I was born in a white anglo family in a predominantly white anglo environment, because I’m not a white anglo, I may want to know about my ancestors a bit more. And I don’t care if you think that’s a futile wish, many people have it, many people on the other hand won’t; we cannot decide for everybody that “it ought not to be the standard” to be able to research that information. We should give that *option* to choose to the person directly affected, no more and no less than that.

“Ex post facto is most typically used to refer to a law that applies retroactively, thereby criminalizing conduct that was legal when originally performed. ”

The keyword for me is ‘retroactively’, as in “the State revoking a promise”. It might not be about criminalizing conduct in this case (although I can imagine situations where it could lead to effective ‘criminalization’), but the basic notion is the same: changing the rules of the game after some people already placed their bets.

Doing away with closed adoptions (or anonymous donations of reproductive tissue) is a question of policy; one can agree or disagree with such a policy (change). Doing away with closed adoptions (or anonymous donations of reproductive tissue) _retroactively_ is a travesty, IMO.

[For some strange reason my IE 6 doesn’t display the little help about embedded codes for italics/bold etc.; could someone put them in a post? please?]

http://www.law.cornell.edu/lexicon/ex_post_facto.htm

I do think that a voluntary exchange would be a good thing — people who want to know each other should be able to find each other more easily. In that framework, a child would have the right to obtain certain types of genetic and medical related information, possibly other background information, but the donor would not be truly outed unless he or she agrees. I can even imagine requiring clinics or other custodians of information to agree to make an effort to contact a donor with such a request, so it doesn’t go into a black hole. But a refusal would be respected absent a really compelling reason (like medical need). Although even then, I’m not sure I think the latter would be a good idea — after all, if the donor isn’t required to help (which he or she is not) even in pressing medical circumstances, a refusal would be unfortunate but not illegal. And truth be told, I am quite sympathetic to biological parents who don’t wish to meet the children they gave up for adoption. Your parents (real or whatever) can refuse to have anything to do with you once you are an adult. Surely we don’t intend to give donors and birth parents fewer rights, when they relinquished or never even agreed to assume any right or obligation with respect to the child? (Of course, children also have the right to reject parents, much to the consternation of many parents.)

No matter which side pervails, case by case determination would be a nightmare. Society really needs to decide up front. Also, the idea that you need to know in order to know your ethnicity, okay, if there’s anything that REALLY bugs me more than the biological construct of parenthood it’s the biological construct of race and ethnicity. That it would be interesting to know — okay, no argument there, but for heaven’s sake, that ought not to be the standard.

Barbara, I can think of another kind of need to know aside from medical reasons. Biology is related to ethnic origins, too. The search for one’s roots is one of the reasons people may feel the need to embark on searching biological parents they never met, or even just go researching their ancestry. Maybe this is less of an issue in egg and sperm donation. I don’t know. But it’s a possibility.

In any case, none of us can say for sure which ‘need to know’ motive is more or less important to the person who feels that need. (Aside from medical reasons).

You made good points about the difference of emotional investment between giving a child up for adoption and simply donating your sperm or eggs to a clinic, and the fact that parenting cannot be reduced to biology. I agree on that.

However, you are only considering the point of view of the donors. What you criticise in Narelle’s comments, you’re doing it from the opposite position.

The ideal solution is to find a balance between their position and that of the children born out of donations. For instance, I don’t think revoking anonymity has to entail an absolute legal obligation to provide anything specific; cases will vary and it’s no use trying to find a rule to fit all. In any case, legally the donor would have no duty and the children no right to demand anything, because the donors are not the actual parents, from a legal point of view, as well. So there’s no need to imagine scenarios where children, once grown up, would demand or impose anything on the donors. Maybe most would not even want to even know anything at all about who their donors were. But it’s fair to consider if that possibility should be given to them. Adults can choose wether to donate their sperm or egg at all. Children don’t choose to be born via donors. So it can be argued that the laws that deny anonymity are correcting an imbalance.

In vitro fertilisation does create potential issues like this, and laws have to take these aspects into account, by taking all parties involved into account, not just one.

The definition of an ex post facto law

To back up, Robert, I have never intentionally misrepresented you. (If you’re not willing to give me credit for integrity, at least give me credit for not being dumb enough to use such a lame and easily-spotted rhetorical trick.) I am certainly willing to apologize for any occasion where I’ve unintentionally misrepresented you, but again, I think you are stretching the definition of ‘misrepresented’ here.

But if donors are willing to be contacted in the future, I certainly have no issue — right now, there are egg recipients who will only deal with donors that they can meet, and who are theoretically willing to be contacted, and vice versa, but there are many who feel the opposite, and others who are theoretically willing, maybe, someday, but not at this time. Some women are willing to meet prospective parents but don’t want further contact.

I don’t necessarily agree that an individual has an ironclad “right” to know — well, I don’t even exactly know what — this has all been so abstract — about the source of the egg or sperm. Medical information seems important, but you don’t need a name for that, what else should someone have a right to know? To a current address and phone number? Is it just a name? Because the donor’s name will never occur on a birth document, it’s not like adoption, where there is an original birth certificate with the original parental information.

And most of all, it bothers me that this whole subject seems to exacerbate the unfortunate tendency to see parenthood in terms of biology. When we argue every which way upside down and backwards in many other contexts that it’s not about biology. A lot of male and female donors donate because they don’t plan to have children themselves and figure that they shouldn’t waste their potential if someone else can use it but they don’t see themselves as becoming parents so much as lending someone else the tools to become parents. Actually, it’s kind of an interesting subject to study, the psychology of donors. They almost certainly don’t see parenthood the way Narelle sees it.

Yes. And it would be interesting to study the effect of choices of ‘open donor’ policies on people’s willingness to use donor eggs and sperm. But it’s no more sensible to predict doom for donor disclosure policies than it is to say (as some have) that open adoption will lead to record numbers of abortions.

Of course they are not identical, but neither are they totally dissimilar. If egg donors willing to be contacted doesn’t destroy egg donation, how can we assume that openness will destroy the ability of same-sex couples to have biological children?

And I do think it would be interesting to study the effect of open adoption on a parent’s willingness to give children up for adoption. In all likelihood, so many other changes have occurred over the last 30 years (legality of abortion, acceptability of single parenthood) that it would be difficult to do. Arguably, open adoption increases the likelihood that a woman would agree to give a baby up for adoption, because it doesn’t feel so irrevocable and gives her a greater degree of control, even if she doesn’t “use” it.

Donors of sperm and egg are less likely to feel the same emotional investment in the project than a biological mother who actually gives birth. Donors are probably, overall, somewhat altruistic, though typically they are paid. This is all just to say that there are some meaningful differences between donation and adoption so the two shouldn’t be viewed as identical.

And, at least as far as the recipient is concerned, so far as I know, many assume that some day the anonymity of the process may be thwarted. Egg donors, at least, are explicitly asked if they are willing to be contacted in the event of medical need. Many say yes.

Is the following “an irreversible guarantee”?? If so, is it “wrongly given”?

“No […] ex post facto Law shall be passed. “

Requiring the unveiling of identity of sperm and egg donors, either past or future, would have definite policy implications, particularly for gays seeking to give birth (as a class), and it would basically obliterate the possibility of sperm and egg donation as a fertility treatment for nearly everyone, gay or straight.

Well, refusing the unveiling also has policy implications. That’s kind of a non-argument. I don’t see how it would ‘obliterate’ sperm and egg donations, any more than open adoption ‘obliterated’ adoption as some predicted it might.