Some members of the British House of Lords argue that the use of donor eggs and sperm to create offspring should not be kept secret from those offspring.
Children born from donor eggs or sperm could have the information recorded on their birth certificates.
An influential group of peers yesterday called for a law change to force parents to reveal donor conceptions.
Under the proposals, a special mark next to a child's name would reveal whether he or she was conceived naturally or with the help of a donor.
Parents who tried to hide the truth from their children could be fined or imprisoned.
What do we have a right to know? Should parents get to know that their kids are not genetically from them while the kids get kept in the dark? If the kids are deceived this has at least one cost I can think of: the kids will be less able to judge what they might become because they will look the capabilities of their parents and tend to expect themselves to be similar in potentials.
But if the goal of knowing about your genetic parents is to provide useful insights about yourself then the rapid decline in the cost of genetic sequencing and testing will provide a much better way to do that by the time babies born today reach adulthood.
But knowing your genetic identity is less important than what constitutes that identify. I expect some people to object to what they've been given as their genetic inheritance. After all, what you get in your genes has huge consequences. Why won't some unhappy and angry children sue?
I see lawsuits over genetic inheritance probably in about 35 years. Once people gain the ability to choose genetic variations for their children those children will grow up, see what decisions were made for them, and sue their legal parents over the genetic choices of their parents.
By Randall Parker at 2007 December 19 09:42 PM Bioethics Reproduction | TrackBackHmmm...I'm not sure why donor eggs and sperm were singled out. Adoption and non-paternity are other modalities for creating family units with non-biological parent-child relationships. If this line of reasoning were applied independently of technology, wouldn't adoptive parents or mothers who kept non-paternity a secret from children be equally liable? Adoption and non-paternity have of course been around for many, many years. Is there precedent for children suing parents who keep these genetic secrets, I wonder? I suspect this might provide some insight into the future, if only as an indicator of behaviorial norms (less so for future policy environment).
As long as the donor is held liable for financial support ...
We have the right to know the basics about ourselves by the time we are 18. If bio-mom and dad killed each other in a gun battle, well we don't need to know that, parents can lie. If we dig, we will find the truth. But regarding our biology, yeah, there is a duty to truth there.
Moot point. Kids will be doing DNA testing in Jr. High chem lab within 10 years. If there's anything odd about their ancestry, they'll figure it out for themselves.
No doubt. Kids have already figured it out. It was 2005 when a 15-year old managed to unlock the identity of his anonymous father through his own devices.
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Jason is right in that all non-biological parents should be held to the same rules i disagree with warrior in that a sperm/egg doner should be held accountible for Aid. The person who takes sperm/egg from a bank should hold FULL responsibility for the DNA, thus said if i donate sperm 5 years later i should not be slammed with child payments on a child i did not opt to have. It would be the other parents Full legel child wich also would mean i should hold no responsibility if i so choose.