July 28, 1999
Dear Adoptee-rights advocate,
We need letters to UK papers and news services supporting the right of
those born from donor gametes to have access to their heritage information,
if they so choose. Below are *2 EASY WAYS* you can help: 1) By filling out
an online BBC questionnaire, and 2) by writing a letter to the
Daily Mail
opposing an article which claims that there will be cataclysmic sperm
shortages and which links human rights to the establishment of alleged
"psychological problems", thereby muddying the issue of inherent rights.
Both can be done online, but postal letters also help a lot! Please
redistribute to concerned parties. Thanks so much.
Cheers, Damsel Plum.
LONDON (AP)(7/25/99) As the world's first test-tube baby celebrated her 21st birthday Sunday, the government announced plans to give children born from donated sperm or eggs the right in adulthood to trace the donors. Full story: http://news1.thls.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_403000/403116.stm
Read below to vote and take part in the BBC's online debate. BBC poll: Should test tube children be able to trace their biological arents? (warning - this link wraps. Make sure the WHOLE thing is pasted into your browser) http://news1.thls.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/talking_point/newsid_403000/403945.asp Please also submit your comments to their site after taking the poll. Thanks.
The following is an article from Monday's Daily Mail. Please make sure to note in your letters that the presence or absence of alleged psychological problems arising from being a donor (or adoptee) in no way should impact the decision to respect equal rights for gamete donees. This is another case of the government sanctioning private agencies which take people's genetic history hostage. Claiming people are nuts or maladjusted and thus deserve rights is a wrongheaded, not to mention losing argument. Contact address and email are at the bottom. :-)
From "The Daily Mail", Monday, 26 July 1999, p. 10 (A British newspaper, hence the reference to open records for adoptees)
"This foolish threat to the gift of life" by Professor Robert Winston (subtitle: "As ministers plan to end anonymity for sperm donors, Britain's leading fertility expert issues a warning...") [insert: large photo of a fetus in-utero with the caption, "Do some 'test-tube' children suffer because they do not know their biological parents?"]
The Government is reported to be considering whether to give many thousands of so-called "test-tube" children the right to trace their biological parents.
Quite right, too, you may think. There is nothing shameful about being a donor or the child of a donor. Indeed, the act of giving sperm or eggs ought to be seen as noble and selfless, and the fact that the legal parents went through such effort to have a child is a strong signal that the child was desperately wanted and is deeply loved.
You do not have IVF children by accident. So why the cloak of secrecy? What is there to hide?
The legal reformers also point out that ours is an age of openness, and that children who have been adopted were given the right to trace their biological parents many years ago. Most of us think this was a wise and humane decision. So why not extend it to IVF children?
But, as someone who has worked in the field of infertility, using donated sperm or eggs for many years, the prospect of a further change in the law fills me with concern. Without the most careful assessment first, a change in the law could damage the chance of many people to have a family, and cause more distress than it would cure.
Many donors give their sperm or eggs only on the strict understanding that their generous act will remain anonymous -- a guarantee which we can give them today in good faith -- though, since 1991, clinics have been forced by the Government to keep records on donors.
For understandable reasons, few donors relish the prospect of a young stranger accosting them years later and possibly demanding an explanation, or even a relationship with them. Some fear that the Child Support Agency might start chasing them for money.
If we cannot guarantee potential donors that cloak of anonymity, then undoubtedly these donors would be harder to find. And if the right to trace biological parents were to be made retrospective it would be an utterly deplorable breach of confidence.
These are not hypothetical worries. When similar legislation was passed in Sweden in 1984 the number of donors -- sperm donors, in particular -- dropped sharply, though I accept that figures eventually began to pick up again.
Anything which scares off donors without very good reason is surely to be deplored at a time when demand for fertility treatment is growing. Every day hospitals, including my own, have to turn away serious and responsible would-be parents because the necessary sperm or eggs are not available. We should not make this sorry situation worse unless we can clearly show that children born from these relationships are emotionally damaged by not knowing their donor parents.
Why should society impose further and unnecessary delays on couples desperate for children?
The answer we are given is that many children born as a result of sperm or egg donation are growing up desperately anxious to know who their biological father or mother was. If this could be proved, it would be a powerful argument.
I know that, for me -- as a practitioner -- the feelings of the child are overwhelmingly important. I do not want to bring a generation of unhappy, damaged and disturbed children into the world. That is not part of my job description. It was not why I chose to specialize in the treatment of infertility. If solid evidence were ever produced which persuaded me that this was what I was doing, I would stop.
But the truth of the matter is that those who want to change the law have virtually no academic evidence to support their emotional or ideological case for openness. The research simply has not been carried out.
Of course, the reformers can tell of the odd case of a child who is unhappy about not being able to trace the sperm or egg donor who made his or her birth possible. It goes without saying that any such case distresses me deeply. But I can match them ten to one with stories of happy families and contented youngsters who feel no sense of loss or deprivation.
As long as the legal parents explain gradually and positively the circumstances of a child's birth, from an early age, there seems very little evidence that there should be a problem.
This is the point at which those who favour a change in the law fall back on an attempt to make comparisons with adopted children, some of whom undoubtedly want to find their biological parents.
Indeed, it was largely because of the driving determination of Phillip Whitehead (then an MP, now an MEP) to trace his biological parents, that the law was changed in 1975. We all remember the delight of both Clare Short and the son she gave up for adoption when they were reunited last year.
So perhaps blood (or genetic material) really is thicker than water. Perhaps donor-insemination children feel as disturbed as some adopted children apparently do by not knowing their biological parents.
But there is no real parallel between adoption and sperm or egg donation. Indeed, there is a vital difference. Adoption can often involve deep psychological feelings of guilt and rejection. The mother who gives up her child after much agonising, in the strong and correct belief that she is doing the right thing for her baby, may still feel guilt and a sense of loss.
The child who is happily adopted into a family he or she loves and trusts, may still feels distress about being "rejected" by his biological mother.
Those feelings may only be assuaged by a meeting between biological parent and child. I do not find it easy to accept that IVF treatment carries the same psychological baggage.
So I say to the Government: there is no need for rushed legislation which will undoubtedly make it more difficult for childless couples to have donor treatment.
Instead, it is time for some serious research into whether "test-tube" children face special problems. Then, and only then, should we consider changing the law.
Robert Winston, professor of fertility studies at the Royal Postgraduate Medical College at London's Hammersmith Hospital, was talking to John Torode.
Contact The Daily Mail at:
Daily Mail Letters
Northcliffe House
2 Derry St
London
W8 5TT
email: letters@dailymail.co.uk
Must include full postal address and phone number in letters.
Damsel Plum
Co-founder and Publications Chair
BASTARD NATION http://www.bastards.org/
Ringmistress, The Adoption Ring
http://www.plumsite.com/adoptionring/
Bastard Nation Alert! http://www.bastards.org/alert/