Readers, including sperm donors and a recipient, on the potential consequences if the fertility watchdog recommends that the law is scrapped
With respect to Dorothy Byrne and her family’s lived experience (I agreed to my sperm donor’s anonymity – now I see my daughter has a right to know who she is, 31 May), I disagree. Dorothy’s daughter, like my son, has no father. Father is a title that we give to a man who is intimately involved in a child’s life. My son’s sperm donor is simply the other half of his genetics. While I remain profoundly grateful to the anonymous Californian who took time out of his life to make it possible for women like me to become mothers, as far as I am concerned, our relationship began and ended with three test tubes of sperm.
I am all in favour of offering donors and children counselling and support with the knotty question of whether to search and what to do if you find. That said, genetics are not destiny. I am not yet old enough to have forgotten the sense of being at sea and wholly unsure of the boundaries of one’s adult identity that comes with being in one’s late 20s. The urge to latch on to a single unknown to explain that uncertainty is understandable. But as parents, part of our role is to help our children understand that all they need to know about who they really are is already within them.
Alison Smith
London
