Kids of sperm donor dads ask Canadian court to stop destruction of records
Posted by Marcy Darnovsky November 7, 2008
Biopolitical Times
The daughter of an anonymous sperm donor has filed a class action suit in British Columbia to prevent doctors from shredding medical records that contain the identity of her biological father.
Lawyers for Olivia Pratten say it's discriminatory to prevent children conceived with third-party gametes from obtaining the identities and medical histories of their biological parents. Currently, British Columbia law allows fertility doctors to destroy all information about gamete donors after six years.
The lawsuit - the first of its kind in Canada - is based on the guarantees of equality and security of the person in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It's been covered by most Canadian newspapers [1, 2, 3], but has gone unmentioned in the U.S.
Pratten, who is now 26 years old, commented, "Farmers have kept better records on the artificial insemination of cattle than the physicians in BC have kept on people like myself."
The Adoption Council of Canada's vice president, Wendy Rowney, argued that "every Canadian adult has the right to truthful information about his or her origins…It does not matter whether we are adopted or conceived by gamete donation; we all have the right to this information."
The UK's Human Fertility and Embryology Authority (HFEA) ruled donor anonymity impermissible in 2005. Critics of the policy claim the change has caused sperm shortages, but the HFEA says this is not the case.
Donor anonymity is the norm in the United States, but has become controversial in Canada and the UK. In recent years, "donor offspring" have begun forming organizations, setting up registries, and publicizing their case.
This has the looks of a debate coming soon to the U.S., the Wild West of reproductive technologies.
Lawyers for Olivia Pratten say it's discriminatory to prevent children conceived with third-party gametes from obtaining the identities and medical histories of their biological parents. Currently, British Columbia law allows fertility doctors to destroy all information about gamete donors after six years.
The lawsuit - the first of its kind in Canada - is based on the guarantees of equality and security of the person in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It's been covered by most Canadian newspapers [1, 2, 3], but has gone unmentioned in the U.S.
Pratten, who is now 26 years old, commented, "Farmers have kept better records on the artificial insemination of cattle than the physicians in BC have kept on people like myself."
The Adoption Council of Canada's vice president, Wendy Rowney, argued that "every Canadian adult has the right to truthful information about his or her origins…It does not matter whether we are adopted or conceived by gamete donation; we all have the right to this information."
The UK's Human Fertility and Embryology Authority (HFEA) ruled donor anonymity impermissible in 2005. Critics of the policy claim the change has caused sperm shortages, but the HFEA says this is not the case.
Donor anonymity is the norm in the United States, but has become controversial in Canada and the UK. In recent years, "donor offspring" have begun forming organizations, setting up registries, and publicizing their case.
This has the looks of a debate coming soon to the U.S., the Wild West of reproductive technologies.
