The number of children conceived by donors in the UK has more than tripled in the past year. Julia Chain, chair of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, says that they now account for one in 170 births. The recent increase in the use of donor sperm has been driven by women in same-sex relationships and solo mothers.
New routes to having children are wonderful. Donor conception, the practice of using donor sperm, eggs, or embryos to create a family, has become more common, leading to ethical problems. The changes happening this year will allow donor-conceived children to have access to identifying information about their donors.
Over the past 30 years, attitudes towards donor conception have changed. Since DCN was founded in 1993 there has been a shift in opinions about how to manage information about donation.
It definitely feels like this. She used donor sperm in a fertility clinic to have Henry, a six-year-old boy. She has been talking to Henry about the method of his conception since before he spoke. Henry understands that a kind donor helped to make him and it is something they discuss a lot.
Research findings show that new family forms don't cause fear or suspicion, despite concerns over how children will handle the absence of a father or lack of a genetic connection to a parent. Susan Golombok, a professor of family research at the University of Cambridge, has been studying donor-conceived families since the 1980s, and her work is reassuring for anyone who is interested in donor-conceived children's welfare. It shows that new family forms are just as good and sometimes better than traditional families, and this has been used as evidence for regulatory change in several countries, making it easier for same-sex couples and solo parents to receive fertility treatment.
The quality of relationships within a family is more important than the number or gender of the parents, their sexual identity, or whether they are genetically related to their children, according to her. She says that the desire to be a parent goes a long way in forming these families.
Children who know about their donor conception from the beginning tend to adjust well, but that accidental or unintentional disclosure later in life can wreak havoc in families. Her organization has seen many difficult cases of donor origins revealed, including deathbed confessions, disclosure during acrimonious divorces, and more recently genetic tests. These types of situations are destructive for the whole family and leave donor-conceived individuals feeling their life has been built on a lie.
Many people argue for an individual's incontrovertible right to information about their origins due to stories like these and the destigmatisation of donor conception. The regulatory change in the UK in 2005 which ended donor anonymity and introduced "identity release" donation means that once donor conceived persons turn 18, they can request the name, birthdate, and last known postal address of their donors from the HFEA. The children who were born after that change will be the first to decide what they want to do with that information.
Many will face a range of novel situations that are hard to prepare for and some relationships may fare better than others. For the first time, donor-conceived people will be able to choose how much information they want to know about their genetic origins and the people who helped to create them.
When I ask how she feels about Henry finding out the identity of his donor, she says she isn't thinking that far ahead because it's very hard to imagine him being 18 She wants to make sure she manages his expectations as he grows up. She says that it will be his decision to make and that she will support him.
A fertility consultant, an authority member of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, and a lecturer in women's health.
There are changes to some names.
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