The international media has been full of stories about the granting of the Nobel Prize to Dr Robert Edwards, one of the scientists behind the development of in vitro fertilisation (IVF). But there are a couple of dirty little secrets about IVF which all the happy media stories don’t reveal.

The treatment is controversial for a number of reasons. For example, the Catholic Church has always opposed it, because it breaks the link between sex and reproduction, and because one of the side effects is the creation of a large number of “surplus” embryos, most of whom end up being destroyed.

But there is another reason why IVF technology is problematic. The treatment was used to help to conceive children in circumstances where one of the biological parents would be purposely anonymous. Sperm and egg donations were sought by clinics from donors who were to remain anonymous.

Now, more than 30 years later, the first generation of children born to anonymous sperm donors are closing in on middle age, and many of them have questions to ask. Questions like “Who is my father or mother?”, “Why has this information been kept from me?”, “Who am I?”.

Dr Joanna Rose, who is one of this first generation of children, has spoken to the Iona Institute on a number of occasions about how finding out that her father was not her biological father affected her, and how not knowing who her biological father affects her now. She has discovered that she may have as many as 300 half-siblings.

Joanna was the first person to bring a court case to change UK law to ensure that sperm and egg donation can no longer be anonymous there.

In 2005, she took a case to the High Court in the UK. Donor anonymity was found to breach the rights of a child to an identity, and donor anonymity was banned. Joanna believes that sperm donation is wrong, and that the law should enshrine the right of children to be reared, where possible, by their own mothers and fathers.

Donor conception, she says, unlike say, adoption, is not a last resort. It is the purposeful and knowing separation of a child from one of his or her biological parents. Ultimately, it is adult-centred rather than child-centred, as it places an adults felt “need” for a child to whom he or she has a biological link above the need of a child for its natural mother and father.

Last year, the Iona Institute launched a paper written by Irish Times columnist Breda O’Brien, entitled Making Babies: Regulating the AHR industry.

The paper is in response to proposals made by the Government-appointed Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction (CAHR).

The Commission, although it urged legislators to ensure that donor-conceived children could find their donor parent, also recommended that any type of couple, married, cohabiting or same-sex, should be able to use such treatment.

By contrast, Making Babies recommends that the Government limit the use of IVF to heterosexual married couples “as abundant research shows that this is the family form with the best outcomes for children”.

The document also recommends that donors “should be screened, not just for medical conditions, but for maturity and the ability to cope with the prospect of offspring wishing to make contact”.

Overall, it urges that the law governing IVF and donor conception should be child-centred, rather than adult-centred. Otherwise, generations of children will be scarred by the dirty little secret of the infertility industry.