Biological dads on edge as sperm donor veil lifted
FOR Peter Peacock, fate arrived in the form of a registered letter.
The letter looked to be a bit of a let-down. Peacock had gone to the post office expecting an aviator jacket he had ordered online. The Australian grandfather tore the envelope open and stopped dead in his tracks.
The letter began: “Dear Mr Peacock. The Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority (Varta) has received an enquiry of a personal nature which may or may not relate to you. The matter concerns a record held in relation to a project you may have assisted with at Prince Henry’s Institute.”
Prince Henry’s? The Melbourne clinic where he had donated sperm nearly 40 years ago? He thought someone out there, had come to life through his donation.
How could this person know who he was? He had been told his donation was anonymous.
And for decades it was, until a new law in one Australian state gave the offspring of sperm and egg donors the legal right to know who they were, despite promises of anonymity.
Which is why a week after receiving that letter, Peacock found himself staring at a photograph of a woman named Gypsy Diamond, whose face looked like his own and he felt an instant connection.
“I looked at it and I thought, ‘bloody hell. I can’t deny that girl’. She was my child from the start,” he says.
Behind Victoria state’s donor identity law, which took effect last year, was a quest for the truth by people whose lives began in a lab.
In its early days, the spermand-egg donation industry was swathed in secrecy, leaving some children desperate to complete the puzzle of their identity. They wanted to know their family medical histories.
Some countries, including Australia, have now banned anonymous donation. But Victoria is only the second jurisdiction in the world to impose a law retroactively stripping away anonymity without the donor’s consent.
Switzerland was the first to do so in 2001, but many donor records were destroyed.
Under the law, donors do have the right to demand that their offspring not contact them. Anyone who violates a contact veto can be fined A$7 900 (R78122).
Ian Morrison, one of Victoria’s 2 000-or-so donors who were assured anonymity, is angered by the law, and worries that the people seeking their donors have not considered the feelings of those who raised them.
“If they’re expecting to get two big happy families, that ain’t going to happen,” he says.
Diamond’s quest to find her donor began when she was 21, after her mother told her that her dad was not her biological father. For years, the curiosity about her heritage gnawed at her.
One day in April last year, her phone rang. It was Kate Bourne, a counsellor at Varta.
“Are you sitting down?” Bourne asked. “I’ve just got off the phone to your donor.”
Peacock, a divorced 68-yearold, had no idea whether contact with Diamond would alter his peaceful life. He had become a donor in a bid to help others have the child they had always wanted.
He donated about eight times, received $10 a sample, and used the money to buy a new set of power tools.
“I gave because I thought I was going to do some good somewhere,” Peacock says.
He was curious, so he agreed to email correspondence with Diamond.
Bourne called Diamond to deliver the news. Diamond found Peacock’s Facebook profile. She had never seen anyone who looked so much like her. She sent an email and two photos of herself.
Peacock, too, was stunned by their similarities. Both love Shiraz and antipasto, cheer for the same football team, and share a cheeky sense of humour.
“I can see so much of yourself in me… especially the eyes,” Diamond wrote. “I’ve never felt anything like it.”
He asked her if Gypsy Diamond was her real name. She assured him it was.
Both worried about how the news would affect their families. Peacock’s older daughter eventually struck up a friendly correspondence with Diamond.
One question still nagged at Diamond: was Peacock also the biological father of her brother?
Diamond asked Peacock to find out from Varta whether any other children had been created with his donations.
In August last year, his phone rang. Bourne said: “There are 16.”
Besides Diamond and her brother, there were another 14 adults with his DNA. Legally, he could request their identities. Most children conceived from anonymous donations are never told about their heritage. Peacock decided that if any of his offspring came looking for him, he would welcome them but he would not seek them out.
Peacock and Diamond met in March at a car show. Both were jittery. Peacock told Diamond to search for the good-looking bloke with the red and white umbrella. If she walked on by, no hard feelings.
When Diamond spotted him, she steeled herself, then made a beeline. Soon, they were chatting like old chums. Diamond’s husband and sons eventually joined them. She did not tell her children who Peacock was. At 8 and 5, they were too young to understand.
But for her, Peacock is family, even if she can’t define his role. Peacock feels the same. – Associated Press/African News Agency (ANA)
Are you sitting down? I’ve just got off the phone to your donor