Journalist Suing for Sperm-Donor Dad's Identity

JeanneSager — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 19:51:00 GMT

Oliva Pratten knows her dad was stocky. He had brown hair like her and blue eyes. She even knows his blood type. What she doesn't know is who his or how he came to deposit a cup of sperm at a bank in her native Canada. Now she's suing to find out.

Pratten, a twenty-six-year-old journalist who now lives and works in New York, is suing on behalf of the spawn of all sperm donors in British Columbia, hoping to protect sperm bank records from a shredding of Arthur Anderson proportions. The goal, she says, is to end the practice of destroying medical records after six years practiced by many fertility doctors. The suit has already ensured a temporary injunction against destroying the paperwork in British Columbia, laid down by chief justice of the BC Supreme Court.

Currently adoption records in a number of Canadian provinces, including British Columbia, are protected. Pratten says that protection should apply to the children conceived by gamete donation because they too have a biological parent mystery to be solved. The fertility doctor who helped her mom get pregnant respectfully disagrees. He says he'd be violating the man's confidentiality, and without a signed release he'll give her no more than the basic medical facts.

I'm a big proponent of open adoptions, and I'd say that would extend to gamete donations. Kids should get the full story if everyone agrees to share it. But that's a very personal if. If a guy walks into a medical office today with the full knowledge he might have a kid knocking on his door in 18 years, that's one thing. It's why I think all donors today should be subject to having their identity shared with their "kids" down the road. For the kids' sake.

But for the medical student who yanked off into a cup to help pay his tuition twenty-six years ago, thinking he was doing so under a shroud of anonymity? Is anything more than disseminating medical information to the products of his donation a violation of his privacy? Or should a guy going through med school have been capable of seeing this coming?

Image: Vancouver Sun

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Rachael Brownell (Redsy) — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 14:08:00 GMT

Social workers in British Columbia removed three babies after the parents refused to allow their children to undergo blood transfusions on religious grounds (they are Jehovah's Witnesses). They have since sued the B.C. government claiming provincial authorities had no right to intervene in this matter.

The family had sextuplets in January, Canada's first, and two of the six children died soon after their premature birth at 25 weeks gestation. The blood transfusions are forbidden in Jehovah's Witness religious practice, even in times of medical emergency. After their babies were removed from their custody, the parents attempted to request a hearing, which was denied. The babies were returned to their parent's custody after receiving transfusions and remain in good condition.

It is well established that plenty of people make poor judgments as parents, even life endangering ones. The Canadian government effectively argues that the well-being of the child trumps parental beliefs and decisions. And I tend to agree.

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