Donor conceived children are suffering a loss of identity and a falsification of birth records in much the same way as adopted children suffered in the past, according to a psychologist, Emma O’Friel. She told Mary Wilson on RTE Radio 1’s Drivetime last Friday, that the fertility industry is, like the Church of old, powerful, wealthy and doing some good, but it is also inflicting on donor-conceived children today the same kind of harm that was inflicted on adopted children of the past.

“Adoption occurs in Ireland and all around the world, particularly after the Hague Convention, as a last resort, so it is to protect children. But in donor-conception and with illegal adoption you have children who are really removed unnecessarily from their genetic family, and irrevocably, with no access and no rights to access their parentage, and to know who they are and to know who their parents were. And again you have donor-conceived children being born today with falsified birth certificates, so it is really identical.”

She described the pain and anguish suffered by people in both situations as being similar as they feel the loss of something ‘intrinsic’ to who they are: “people describe it as a hunger and donor-conceived children and perhaps adoptees get quite cross when people say its more a curiosity. Its not, its like having a loved one behind a door and you can never get behind that door, you can never access them. And the fact that its systematic, that its set up that you will never be allowed this.”

She also said that in 2008, a full thirty years after the first use of anonymous sperm and eggs in Ireland, it was estimated that 95% of donor-conceived children in the country had no idea they were donor-conceived. Even now, years after a greater awareness of the importance of such matters has arisen, she said the majority of people in Ireland born through donor conception still do not know that they are donor-conceived.