Identity crisis

Since 2005 clinics have required donors of eggs or sperm to accept that their identity may be disclosed to the resulting children once they are 18.

Unfortunately there has been no corresponding requirement for the donors to be open with family and friends about an activity which for the women is brave and for the men seemingly risible.

This means that contact from the children may be profoundly embarrassing and unwelcome. Such a reaction risks psychological damage to thousands of donor children, while a sense of having been deceived may harm the donors’ ‘own’ children.

This could be addressed through a public database of donors so that there isn’t a temptation to let initial reticence fester into a guilty secret.

Past donors could be included so that current ones don’t feel so conspicuous, with the information kept off-line until there are sufficient volunteers to dilute the impact of any negative reaction. Once it has become established it can be made mandatory for future donors.

A similar problem arises

with private sperm donation. The reform proposed in Petition to Parliament 220763 would pave the way for disclosure to become the norm there also.

JOHN RISELEY Harcourt Drive, Harrogate