News

1st April 2005

End of anonymity for sperm donors

People donating sperm and eggs will no longer have the right to remain anonymous under a new law which comes into affect today.

Children conceived using donors will now be able to identify their genetic parent when they are 18, although the law is not restrospective so people who have already donated will not be affected.

Around one in seven couples in the UK experiencing fertility problems, and almost 7000 receive treatment using donor sperm and eggs. It is estimated that 2000 babies are born using this technique.

Around 500 sperm donors and 1,500 egg donors are needed each year and experts fear that the removal of anonymity will deter donors from coming forward in the future.

And the British Fertility Society has warned that couples who do want eggs or sperm from anonymous donors may choose to go to unlicensed 'backstreet' clinics, or travel abroad to countries with less strict regulations.

The change in rules mean that children born using donor eggs or sperm will be able to trace their genetic parents in the same way as adopted children can.

They will have to ask the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority to release the information and will have no financial or legal claim against their genetic parent.

The donor will never be able to trace the child.

Health minister Stephen Ladyman said, "We think it is right that donor conceived people should be able to have information should they want it about their genetic origins and that is why we have changed the law on donor anonymity."

Laura Witjens, from the National Gamete Donation Trust, said evidence from other countries, such as Sweden, which had already removed anonymity rights, showed it was no longer young students who donated.

"There is an initial fall. But then the profile changes. Instead of young single men who do not have children, it tends to be older men, who do have children and who see that what they are doing is creating a family, who come forward."

Dr Ruth Curzon, of the Assisted Conception Unit at Kings Hospital in London, said, "We are going to have to change the way in which we recruit donors. Sperm donation has been seen as 'smutty'. It's time we changed that."

But Dr Alan Pacey, of the British Fertility Society, warned, "There is now serious concern in many clinics about the future of infertility treatments using donated gametes. "We have evidence that more and more patients are being denied treatment because of a shortage of donor gametes."

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