The Australian state of Victoria is to allow all donor conceived people there to identify the egg or sperm donor involved in their birth.
Having lifted some restrictions at the start of July to allow for people born as a result of sperm and egg donations after January 1, 1998 to fully access donor details such as name, date of birth and ethnic origin, the state has decided to extend this right to those whose birth resulted from any donation made since 1988, in the wake of criticism of the seemingly arbitrary nature of the time
frame involved.
In answer to counter-criticisms that earlier assurances of anonymity for donors were now to be breached, the Victorian government acknowledged this but referenced the finding of a parliamentary committee in 2012 “that knowing your genetic heritage is critical to a person’s sense of identity, and [that] community views have also shifted in recent decades in line with this”.
The government sought to balance the concerns with an undertaking that donors will have the right to limit contact from their offspring, or to rule it out altogether.
Victoria’s move comes amid a debate for universal access to donor information across all Australian states. Such access, it is thought, could benefit an estimated 60,000 donor-conceived people in the country.
Speaking of the impact of discovering that one is born of an anonymous donor, Kerri Favarato, who was born in 1982 and has tried to find her donor parent told the Australian Broadcasting Company: “Every time I start my enquiries, people say, ‘Oh, why does it matter?’ It is half of my DNA. Of course it matters. It is such a stupid argument when they say that and that makes me really angry.
“I know some people that have struggled with it much, much, much worse that I have that have been through, you know, significant periods of depression and absolute heartache and relationship breakdowns.”
