Examination of Witnesses (Questions 260
- 272)
WEDNESDAY 30 JUNE 2004
MR WALTER
MERRICKS, MS
MICHELLE SNEADE,
MR DAVID
GOLLANCZ AND
MS BECKY
GARDINER
Q260 Dr Harris: If ending donor anonymity
makes it more likely that the secret will be kept, which many
people feel it will, then actually the damage might be greater
to the children because there will be more secrecy.
Mr Gollancz: That is fantasy.
Certainly judging from what my own parents and some other parents
I have met or whose words have been reported to me, parents actually
feel it more difficult to disclose to their children that they
were donor conceived if they are then forced to say they are afraid
they cannot tell them the identity of the donor. I think that
makes it harder not easier.
Q261 Bob Spink: I should like to
address the issue of the source of the gametes. You seem keen
for the child to know of the donor. Do you think it would be a
good idea if donors were, for instance, family members?
Ms Gardiner: No, I think that
would be a very bad thing indeed. It would be a very bad thing
indeed because the relationships between the family members, the
relationships between the infertile man who was bringing up the
child and the fertile family member who had donated the sperm,
for example, would become very complicated and difficult and that
would impact on the child.
Q262 Bob Spink: Does anybody disagree
with that position?
Ms Sneade: No. I had, not really
a committed offer but a kind of offer from a family member and
I do not think it would have worked.
Mr Merricks: We have a number
of members who have had family members who have donated, mainly,
eggs to assist in treatment. What they have needed to do is to
be clear about who the mother is and who the aunty is and what
they are going to tell their child. It is possible to go ahead
with that.
Ms Sneade: That was a personal
decision for me.
Mr Merricks: It is something for
which people need a lot of preparation, a lot of care.
Q263 Bob Spink: Do you think that
society should move down the track, which you have already started
to do with that answer, of designer donors, so that we get the
right donor, that is we can check out to the ultimate, can we
not, and look for tall, athletic, clever, blonde, etcetera? Should
we be doing that or not?
Mr Merricks: The most important
thing with donors is that they are people who are prepared to
be identifiable and to understand the limited but responsible
role that they need to play if they are contacted in later life.
We should not go down the road of trying to design who these people
need to be.
Q264 Bob Spink: Do you think that
society should discourage some types of donors, such as people
who have a particular level of IQ or particular physical attributes?
Mr Gollancz: Should society discourage
them? I am afraid I have rather a practical mind. I am thinking:
how would society do that? No, not particularly, not really. There
may come a day when we know so much about how genetic inheritance
and the rest of it works that that makes sense, but although the
changes in the last decade or so have been absolutely astonishing,
at the moment we would not be sure of doing anything in particular.
Mr Merricks: Donors are screened
under guidelines from the HFEA at the moment for a variety of
genetic disorders so that some screening does take place in relation
to donors; compatibility with the potential recipients as well.
Q265 Bob Spink: Are they screened
for criminal proclivity?
Mr Merricks: This is not something
I should be answering, but I understand that clinics are encouraged
by the HFEA to make family enquiries about the donor. Yes, some
background information is sought from the donor.
Q266 Mr McWalter: One of the provisions
in the Act is that there needs to be explicit concern about the
welfare of the child that arises from donation. If you are fertile
no-one says a child is going to do badly in this setup, whereas
if you are infertile people do come snooping around and making
those kind of enquiries. Michelle, you are nodding. Do you think
that is discriminatory against infertile couples?
Ms Sneade: Yes, I do; definitely.
Q267 Mr McWalter: Should that provision,
that there needs to be this explicit taking into account of the
welfare of the child, be removed from the Act?
Ms Sneade: No. Obviously the welfare
of the child is important, so I do not think that should be removed.
Q268 Mr McWalter: Do you want it
kept there as a legal requirement?
Ms Sneade: I suppose the thing
is that when a couple who are not infertile are just going off
to have a child, nobody else is involved. At the point where you
are infertile lots of people become involved. That is why the
protection comes up.
Q269 Mr McWalter: You have enough
to put up with and then you have some other people coming along
and saying they are not quite convinced you are the kind of family
they want to have a child. You are a bit dim, you are not very
well off, you do not live in a place where there are many opportunities
for children to play.
Ms Sneade: It depends what "welfare
of the child" means.
Q270 Mr McWalter: People can make
those judgments under the current Act.
Ms Sneade: It depends how far
that is taken. Your house is not big enough. Is that the welfare
of the child? You have a criminal record. I suppose it depends
what "welfare of the child" means.
Ms Gardiner: I am slightly muddled
about the question. I feel that if we are talking about donor
conceived children, for me the big problem in my own life, and
having met a lot of other people in their lives too, has been
the secrecy surrounding it. The question of anonymity is very
closely related to the question of secrecy; I do not think they
are separate.
Q271 Mr McWalter: They are additional
stresses.
Ms Gardiner: Yes. What David said
is that if the donor is not anonymous it is much easier for the
parents to tell the child because they have something to tell
them. It is quite a difficult thing to tell a child when you are
telling them there is nothing. If you are talking about the welfare
of the child in that very limited sense that the child is much
better off knowing, yes, that should remain central to the Act.
Q272 Mr McWalter: It was not specifically
about knowing, it was that the Act allows you to take into account
the whole situation around the welfare of the child. We want to
know whether to get rid of that or not.
Mr Merricks: I appreciate that
the Committee is concerned with the law, but I would encourage
you to look at the whole climate and culture in which all this
is taking place. We have moved on a lot from the time when the
Act was originally passed in terms of assuming that everybody
needed to treat things incredibly confidentially. There is still
movement needed to move the culture and climate on to one where
people are relaxed and take all the secrecy stuff well away. The
Committee can play a role in that. That is more important than
trying to decide whether or not that particular provision in the
Act should stay or go, because provisions in Acts do not actually
tend to drive real change. The culture and climate can play a
really important part and I hope the Committee are going to be
able to play its part in that.
Chairman: I am sorry, I am sure we could
go on for hours and I should like to, but we have to respect the
people who are coming after you. We will write with some other
questions and you can put in written answers to them if you like.
If there are things you wish you had said, please write in and
say "I wish I had said this". I know that always happens.
You are very, very welcome to do that. We want to get this report
right. Some of the questions you have answered very openly and
honestly too will be really helpful in developing what I hope
will be a really starring report. Thank you very much.
| 
