Couples 'facing donor trauma'

Jan 22 2004  By Sophie Blakemore, Birmingham Post

New laws removing the anonymity of sperm and egg donors will have a devastating impact on childless couples desperate to conceive, two of the country’s leading fertility experts said.

Dr Gillian Lockwood, director of the Midland Fertility Clinic, and Professor Christopher Barratt, scientific director of the assisted conception unit at Birmingham Women’s Hospital, said the Government proposals would worsen the existing donor shortage.

Public Health Minister Melanie Johnson announced yesterday that donor-conceived children will be able to find out the identity of their donor when they turn 18 and access important information about their genetic origins.

If the proposals get parliamentary approval, the new regulations will come into force from April next year.

It will mean that the first time an 18-year-old will be able to find out the identity of their donor parent will be 2023.

The new rules will not affect those who have already donated sperm, eggs or embryos or those who do so before April 2005. As now, future donors will not have any financial or legal obligations towards the child.

However, Dr Lockwood, who runs the Aldridge-based clinic, said the ruling would deter potential donors. She also voiced concerns about the emotional impact on either the donor or the non-biological parents of a child 18 years down the line.

“It is the opinion of most of the clinics that this will have quite significant consequences on reducing the supply of sperm and egg donors,” she said.

“It will have a greater impact on egg donation which is a far more intrusive and intense method than sperm donation for men and there is a greater shortage of eggs.

“We are concerned and disappointed this has been introduced in a blanket way. We would prefer options so people could decide if they wanted their details released.”

The majority of the donations made at the Midland Fertility Clinic are eggs. Last year about 120 eggs were donated, 114 of them by “egg share” in which women undergoing IVF treat-ment donate some of their own eggs to other infertile women.

Dr Lockwood said she expected the number of these women donors to be “decimated” by the new legislation.

“We know the majority of children conceived as a result of donor gametes are never told.

“As a result the ruling means we will have a situation where many couples will be unable to have treatment because of a shortage of donations, while the number of donor children who will benefit from it will be very limited,” she added.

Prof Barratt, who is also head of the reproductive medicine and genetics research group at the University of Birmingham and a member of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, said he could see “both sides of the fence”.

“There is a widely held view that we cannot withhold genetic information from a child, that is unacceptable,” he said. “But the difficulty is the impact this will have on the fertility clinics by reducing the number of donors and as a clinic we are worried about it.”

The assisted conception unit handles about 100 sperm donations and 150 egg donations each year.