The right of the donor to information about children conceived from his or her gametes

Abstract

The field of gamete donation for medically assisted reproduction purposes is evolving. While anonymous gamete donation was long the preferred practice, a new focus on the rights and interests of donor-conceived children has led a number of countries to shift towards an open-identity system. However, this evolution appears to overlook whether information exchange could also be of interest to the other parties involved, in particular the gamete donors. In this article, we analyse the question whether donors should be granted a right to some information about the offspring conceived by their donations. We constructed five arguments which donors could use in support of such a claim: (i) It can be of great importance to the donors' and their own children's health that they receive medical information (in particular, evidence of an unsuspected genetic disease) about the donor offspring; (ii) basic information (such as whether any children were born) could be a way to acknowledge donors for their altruistic behaviour; (iii) general information (information about the child's wellbeing) about the donor offspring could ease the donors' potential concern about and sense of responsibility for the offspring; (iv) basic information could provide an important enrichment of the donors' identities; (v) identifying information would be useful for donors who want to contact the donor offspring. No strong arguments in favour of granting donors the right to identifying information were found. An exchange of this type of information should only be accepted when all parties agree. Taken together, the four first arguments form a strong case for granting donors a right to several types of anonymous information about the donor offspring.

Attitudes towards disclosure and relationship to donor offspring among a national cohort of identity-release oocyte and sperm donors

“…Providing gamete donors with basic information about the outcome of their donation (e.g. the number of donor offspring) has been argued to provide positive feedback (Raes et al , 2013). In addition, information about the number and age of offspring also enables the donor to prepare for potential future contact with donor offspring, as stated by the Ethics Committee of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine (Ethics Committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, 2009): ‘This information can provide psychological closure to the donor, caution the donor that contact may later occur, and give donors who already have children the opportunity to consider the impact of future contacts on their children and/or partner’ (p. 26).…”

Proposed legislative change mandating retrospective release of identifying information: consultation with donors and Government response

“…Recent studies suggest that some donors are willing to join a voluntary register in order to be potentially identified by their donor offspring (Crawshaw et al , 2013), and among donors who joined a US-based international registry that facilitates contact between donor-conceived offspring and donors, most are open to contact with their donor offspring (Daniels et al , 2012) and about half want to know the outcome of their donation, including identifying information about children conceived as a result (Jadva et al , 2011). Debate about the right of donors to gain access to information about their donor offspring is emerging (Raes et al , 2013). …”

‘We’re not related in any way, only by blood’: Danish sperm donors and (imagined) relationships

“…New reproductive technologies have created new challenges, both on the personal and the institutional level. Debate about donor offspring's 'right to know' their genetic origins (Frith, 2013, Lalos et al, 2007, Raes et al, 2013, Turkmendag, 2012, Daniels and Taylor, 1993, Hargreaves and Daniels, 2007 have led to a turn towards legislating for openness in sperm donation in many parts of the world, including the UK in 2005 (Blyth and Frith, 2009). Until 2012, Danish law mandated the use of anonymous sperm for donor insemination i ; this law was changed to allow both donors and recipients to choose anonymous or identity-release donation.…”