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Latest Surrogacy News
Families in donor
follow-up
Stresses caused
by keeping family secrets about donor insemination are
the focus of follow-up research at Canterbury
University.
05
January 2004
By AMANDA WARREN
Stuff
Fifty-seven families created by donor insemination were
studied 15 years ago. Now those same people will provide
answers about how the conception of their unique
families has affected their lives.
Canterbury University associate professors of social
work, Ken Daniels and Victoria Grace, have a $352,000
grant over 21 months to hold the follow-up study.
Daniels
said the new study would delve into the secrecy which
often surrounded donor insemination. The overwhelming
message that came from the earlier study was that
families were pleased to be a family because of donor
insemination.
"But
they had some concerns about how they would manage the
issue in relation to their family, their friends and
their children," he said.
When
the first study was done in 1988, a large number of
couples said they did not plan to tell their children
how they were conceived. With the aid of Otago
University's Wayne Gillett, an obstetrician and
gynaecologist, the follow-up study will learn how
secrecy has affected the health and well-being of
families.
"Often
the families have felt isolated and marginalised.
Marginalised because of social attitudes (toward donor
insemination) 15 years ago, and isolated because the
secrecy of the time meant you didn't talk about donor
insemination.
"A lot
of parents believe they are protecting their child, but
secrecy is not a protection for the child. Kids pick up
at a very subtle level all sorts of interesting
material. When there are secrets in families that
usually creates pressures," he said.
But
attitudes to donor insemination were changing, he said.
New Zealand was one of the most advanced countries in
the world in taking a family approach to the issue.
Although seven countries already made it mandatory for a
donor father to provide contact information, attitudes
to those laws were not as liberal as in New Zealand. New
Zealand practices were influencing other nations, such
as parts of Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom,
which were reviewing donor insemination laws.
"We've
changed our attitudes and we're following up with a
change in law."
Most
New Zealand fertility clinics require donors to record
their details, and allow children to contact them down
the track, but this disclosure is not yet law.
Legislation before Parliament's health select committee
would probably change that after being debated early
next year.
It is
expected to address the need for information to be
recorded at a central register, instead of individual
clinics, and the offspring's right to access that
information, probably at age 18. It is unlikely that
donors will be able to access information about their
offspring.
About
1200 children have been born from donor insemination in
New Zealand since the late 1980s. About 60 have been
born from the more recently available egg-donation
programme.
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