Could it be that deep down we are not that interested in the rights of children – especially if they interfere with those of older people?
PERFECTLY REASONABLY, John Waters asked recently why there was so little Irish interest in the story he wrote about a man who discovered that his partner was his half-sister. Through no fault of their own, their child was the product of incest.
Many other writers have wondered why the level of interest generated by any given story is so unpredictable. For example, 188 children have died while in HSE care. A sexual abuse case dealt with badly by a churchman 30 years ago is enough to spark calls for resignation. Where are the demands for resignations and accountability in the HSE?
Will it take another decade of plugging away by families directly affected by the deaths in HSE care, and patient work by journalists, before that slumbering beast called public opinion wakes up and begins to demand action? Could it be that deep down, we are not that interested in the rights of children, especially if they seem to interfere with the rights of older people?
Here’s another issue that will not clog the phone lines to Liveline, except perhaps to give out about people like myself who would seek to regulate it – assisted human reproduction. This whole industry is a minefield of unregulated practice.
Take, for example, a situation that has a great deal in common with the case outlined by John Waters. Much of the tragedy there came from the fact that two people could meet, fall in love, and have a child, completely unaware that they shared a father. Quite rightly, Waters lays much of the blame on a legal system that saw the right of a child to know and be raised by both parents, especially the father, as irrelevant.
In Ireland, when conception occurs through the use of donated eggs or sperm, or both, there is nothing to prevent children conceived in this way from meeting and marrying. The lack of legislation governing donor conception means that the State has learnt little in the decades since the case outlined by Waters was before the courts.
There is absolutely no way to vindicate a child’s right even to knowledge of a parent, much less the UN-mandated right to be raised, where possible, by your parents. Unlike Britain, we have no laws declaring anonymous donation to be illegal, nor any official records. Irish women are travelling to Spain and Romania to secure human eggs, and returning pregnant after cheap fertility treatment.
People shop for donor sperm and eggs the way people shop online on matchmaking sites, or for consumer goods. Certain donors are very popular, especially tall, blond, athletic types. A US group called Single Mothers by Choice set up a voluntary donor register when they discovered to their shock that several mothers had used the same sperm donor, and therefore their children were half-siblings. Some donors are so popular that when they are taken out of the catalogue, people advertise to buy any unused vials of sperm from other users. You are not allowed to sell a kidney, but we seem perfectly happy about selling half a person’s identity. Exaggeration? Well, in a study of people who should know, adults conceived through donor conception, 65 per cent of respondents agree, “My sperm donor is half of who I am.”
The study, by the Institute for American Values, is called My Daddy's Name is Donor(see www.familyscholars.org). The title comes from T-shirts and bibs marketed to the parents of donor-conceived babies, and these adults apparently find the concept a hoot.
Children don’t find it quite so funny, as the results of this survey of 463 adults aged 18-45 and conceived through sperm donation show. (There were similar-size control groups of adoptees and people raised by biological parents.) The study shows that on average, people conceived through sperm donation are hurting more, are more confused, and feel less trust in their parents. They fare worse than their peers raised by biological parents on important outcomes such as depression, delinquency and substance abuse.
Nearly half are disturbed that money was involved in their conception. More than half say that if they see someone who resembles them, they wonder whether they are related. Almost as many say they have feared being attracted to or having sexual relations with someone to whom they are unknowingly related.
It is important also to say that many are fine, and comfortable with the means of their conception. However, we don’t usually allow positive experiences to discount negative ones. To say that positive experiences outweigh negative would be akin to saying the fact that the majority of children don’t die in HSE care means that the whole system is fine. Will ending donor anonymity and limiting numbers born from one donor end all problems? Not by a long shot.
The need for kinship and shared heritage is deep in our bones.
Donor-conceived children in this survey were more likely than either adopted or biological children to feel that no one truly understood them. They wonder whether their donor’s family would want to know them.
Elizabeth Marquardt, one of the lead investigators of the study, will be speaking at a Linacre Institute International Conference in Maynooth, from June 16 to 18th, on the impact of the reproductive revolution on children.*
She wants to start a debate as to whether it is ethical for the state to support the deliberate conception of children who will never have the chance to be raised by their biological parents. It’s an important topic, but like many other areas involving children, it is unlikely to spark as much public interest as it deserves.
* The Linacre Centre is a UK-based Roman Catholic academic institute which seeks to engage with the moral questions arising in clinical practice and biomedical research.