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Latest Surrogacy News
Parents
denying the right to know who you are
February 2, 2004
Barbara Sumner Burstyn
New Zealand Herald
At first reading it seemed
like a breakthrough. In Britain, the Government has just
announced its plans to remove the right to anonymity for
people who donate sperm, eggs and embryos.
Under a
storm of protest from organisations fearing the
drying-up of sperm supplies, Melanie Johnston, the
Public Health Minister in Britain, said she firmly
believed donor-conceived people have a right to
information about their genetic origins.
Scandinavian countries have always had open sperm donor
files and most clinics in the US have the option of open
files, while clinics in New Zealand do not accept
anonymous donors, so the British move is very timely.
Except,
that is, for an entire generation of donor-conceived
people. For them Johnston's ruling is just lip service
because even if the new British regulations get
parliamentary approval, they will not come into force
until next year and are not retroactive, meaning that
the first time an 18-year-old will be able to find out
the identity of their donor will be 2023.
What does
this mean for people conceived anonymously before this
legislation takes effect? Ask most adopted people about
their genetic heritage and they'll describe their sense
of history as blankness, as a gaping hole that could be
filled with anything, good or evil.
They talk
of those who know their genetic history as being
complete, as having a starting point from which they can
create themselves. Adopted people inhabit negative
social statistics in disproportionate numbers.
From a
medical perspective the need to know has never been more
imperative. Genetics is becoming a major factor in the
prediction, diagnosis and treatment of all kinds of
disorders, from genetic mutations to cancers that stalk
generations of a single family. According to a paper by
James R. Lupski, MD, PhD, by age 25, 8 per cent of us
will be diagnosed with a disorder that has a major
genetic component. There are even organisations now that
will create therapies and preventative treatments
tailored to specific genetic make-up.
On the
behavioural side there is increasing evidence that the
old nature v nurture paradigm is heavily weighted in
favour of heredity. For instance, a report in the
journal Science suggests the reason jet lag hits some
travellers harder than others may lie in our mothers'
genes.
Other
studies suggest that for boys, aggressive antisocial
behaviour like bullying can be inherited through the
genes, while girls can inherit non-aggressive antisocial
behaviour like truancy and theft.
But none
of this seems to have touched the cloistered world of
anonymous sperm, egg and embryo donation, the foundation
of the reproductive technology industry in Britain.
It's as if
this branch of the scientific community is suffering
from a profound disconnect, a reductionism that ignores
the resultant life experience of the products of their
microscopes, Petri dishes and even the anonymous turkey
basters of Man Not Included, a company set up to service
the maternal desires of the lesbian community.
But
perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the whole scenario
is the response of parents. Research in Britain in 2001
showed that nine out of 10 parents whose children were
conceived using donor sperm have not told them the
truth. Many parents of 10- to 12-year-olds were too
scared about how the revelation would affect their
relationship with the child, and half said they had no
intention of revealing the secret even when the child
was much older.
Could
there be a more blatant or selfish example of misuse of
the parental role?
In New
Zealand, Professor Ken Daniels of Canterbury University
has written a book for those involved in the donor
circle. Building Families with the Assistance of Donor
Insemination is to be published later this year and
covers issues such as the secrecy, shame and fear
associated with creating families through technology.
Families
based in lies are not healthy, he says, and notes that
new legislation, due to become law in the middle of the
year, will see all donors registered, with the Registrar
of Births, Deaths and Marriages.
Every
clique has its hierarchy. In the world of reproductive
technology, people conceived and born the old-fashioned
way and then adopted now have the right to know their
genetic heritage. But while Britain attempts not to
override past agreements of anonymity with donors, while
it tries to keep up the supply of new donors, it is
failing miserably to protect the lives of those already
born and those who will be born over the next year.
To allow
technology to wilfully create an underclass of people
and to support parents in denying children their genetic
history is to continue the social, medical and emotional
disadvantages suffered for generations by adopted
people. To sustain that disadvantaged position through
legislation is profoundly unjust.
Oscar
Wilde said that one's past is what one is. He may not
have meant the hereditary past, but with science
dissolving the barriers between generations, his
sentiment stands. What further evidence does Britain
need?
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