Human Reproduction vol.11 no. 11 pp 2558-2563, 1996
Donor insemination programmes with personal donors:
issues of secrecy
Vivienne A.Adair1>3 and Alison Purdie2
'Education Department, University of Auckland, Private Bag
92019, Auckland, and fertility Associates, 131 Remuera Road,
Auckland, New Zealand
^To whom correspondence should be addressed
This study involved 46 recipients and donors in personal
donor programmes interviewed anonymously by postal
questionnaire and interview: 38% (30/80) of possible recipients responded. The total number of people told about the
donor involvement ranged between two and 78, with no
significant gender difference. Relationships had changed
for half of the participants hi the programmes with 75%
reporting that they had developed a closer relationship and
25% reporting a deterioration. Contact between couples
and donors was seen as being in the original role of family
friend or relative rather than as donor. An equal proportion
of recipients (63%) and donors (78%) agreed to the donor
being identified to any offspring although this was qualified
with regard to the age of the child. Reasons for identification
were given as avoidance of family secrets and the rights of
the child to have information concerning their conception.
Those who did not agree said that the child was better off
not knowing, or who wished to preserve donor anonymity.
The donor group was more likely than the recipients to
say that identification to the child was in the best interests
of the social parents because it allowed all those involved
to feel part of a single family group. It was found that for
both recipients and donors, the advantages given for having
a personal donor was openness within the relationship. For
the recipients, this focused on knowledge of the donor
background and, for related couples, having a common
genetic relationship. For donors, the advantages given
were: knowing the child's environment, having access to a
child and the ability to choose recipients. A disadvantage
for donors and recipients was the possibility of a change
hi the relationship and for donors an added disadvantage
was having to share in the emotional stress of the treatment
and negative outcomes. More men than women placed
importance on having a donor with a similar genetic
background.
Key words: AJD/donor/personal/secrecy/infonnation
Introduction
In treatment programmes with donor gametes, there are two
important issues to be discussed; will the child be told that it
was conceived by means of a donor and will the identity of
2558
the donor be disclosed to the child? There are several sets of
people involved in resolving these issues: the medical profession, the infertile couple, the donor and partner and the
children. All medical personnel involved in treatment are
bound by medical ethics to keep information confidential, thus
the children have access to information only at the discretion
of the parents and the donor.
With in-vitro fertilization (IVF), because the social parents
are also the biological parents, the decision regarding whether
or not to tell a child of the conditions of their conception is
relatively straightforward. Lasker and Borg (1989) reported
that almost everyone (96.4%) that they surveyed who had or
were trying to have a child through IVF, intended to tell the
child because, in general, they wanted the child to realize that
their parents went through a great deal to have them. However,
IVF may also involve the use of donor spermatozoa, donor
eggs or donor embryos. For any conception using donor
gametes, the issues are complex.
When children are genetically related to only one of the
adults whom they might reasonably regard as their parents,
the responsibility for deciding whether to tell the children how
they were conceived usually resides with the couple who are
parenting, but this is only one issue. Another is whether
information on the donor (identifying or non-identifying)
should also be made available to the child (Haimes, 1990). hi
the literature, there appear to be two points of view on
the desirability of maintaining donor anonymity: one which
proposes strict donor anonymity (e.g. legislation in Norway
and Belgium) and a second which proposes either nonidentifying information (Human Fertilisation and Embryology
Authority, 1990; American Fertility Society, 1993) or identification of the donor (Daniels and Taylor, 1993; Daniels and
Lalos, 1995). Even while recognizing that anonymity for the
donor may be desirable and may assist the recipient couple to
over-ride biological links in order to emphasize social parenthood (Smart, 1987), there has been recognition of the rights
of the child to information concerning at least their genetic
and medical history. Vetri (1988) has suggested that it might
be important that children resulting from donor insemination
(DI) should be able to trace uieir biological heritage for
physical, health and psychological reasons. One point of view
maintains that identification of donor involvement may be a
threat to family relationships because recipient families of
donor treatment may wish to be as much like 'normal' families
as possible (Glover, 1989). This has been recognized by
legislation in several countries which ensures the secrecy of
the relationship (Waller Report, 1983; Warnock Report, 1984)
although more recent legislation in the UK (HFEA Act, 1990)
© European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology
Secrecy and donor insemination programmes
gives the advice to inform children of their donor origin
without disclosing the identity of the donor.
The second point of view states that the right of a child to
information about his or her origins has precedence over the
rights of parents to keep the circumstances of conception secret
or the rights of the donor to be anonymous This arises from
research on adoption which has documented the need to know
the genealogical background for the development of mature
independence and a sense of identity (Walby and Symons,
1990). This need for information has been recognized in the
UK in Section 26 the Children Act (1975) and in New Zealand
in the Adult Adoption Information Act (1986). There are many
people working in the area of adoption who now advocate
free access to information by establishing a policy of open
adoption (Watson, 1988) and it is documented that some adults
resulting from DI conceptions are seeking their origins just
as adopted people have done before them (Coffey, 1987;
Sveme, 1990).
However, the most persuasive argument for openness is that
secrets in a family are destructive (Jones, 1990). Clamar (1980)
regarded the keeping of secrets within a family a 'potent force'
which controls and colours the lives of the people involved.
Both men and women in studies have told of the stress of
'living a lie' and of the relief in bringing it into the open
(Lasker and Borg, 1989). Snowden (1985) said that the 'costs'
of secrecy may be short- or long-term and may apply to
individual couples or be of general significance. These include
increasing difficulty in maintaining the secret as the child/
children get older, especially at times of innocent questioning
about family genetic history. There are also the guilty feelings
of a continuing deception of close relatives or the child, and
the continuing worry that the secret might be broken and
family members find out about the deception.
Even when physicians and other staff members in DI
programmes encouraged couples to keep it secret from everyone, most people had told someone (Manuel, Chevret and
Czyba, 1980; Lasker and Borg, 1989; Klock and Maier, 1991).
So, even when authorized, DI does not always remain secret
and evidence of children 'finding out' in ways which are
destructive to family relationships is documented (Geithner,
1988). On the principle that honesty is the best policy, Sweden
has enacted legislation which determines that information
about a donor is registered in a special record to be kept for
70 years and a child conceived by DI is entitled to access to
the special record about the donor once maturity has been
reached (Sverne, 1990). However, it is up to the parents to
tell the children of their DI origins. A practice which would
negate the need for legislative controls would be to follow the
trend in adoption practice and open the relationship so that
donors were introduced or personally provided (Daniels and
Taylor, 1993).
Haimes (1990) noted that the anonymity of the donor has
been presumed to be in his best interests, but the reasoning is
unclear. Rowland (1985) discussed a study which reported that
60% of donors would not mind if their DI offspring contacted
them after the age of 18 in order to discuss family background
She concluded that many statements in the past regarding
secrecy have neglected to obtain information from the particip-
ants themselves and believed that it was important that this
information was collected.
In a study of New Zealand couples embarking on a DI
programme, <50% women and <25% men who were recipients thought that the child should have access to the identity
of the donor eventually (Purdie et al., 1992). A larger number
of donors (68%) were agreeable to their identity being made
available to a child when that child reached maturity. A similar
result was obtained from the study by Mahlsted and Probasco
(1991) in which 60% of sperm donors said they were willing
to meet or provide identifying information to a child at age
18. Contrary to these results, a study by Shover, Collins and
Richards (1992) indicated that >75% of participants being
evaluated for entry into a donor insemination programme
believed, at that stage of treatment, that a child should not be
told the circumstances of their conception. Slightly fewer (64%
of wives and 70% of husbands) chose total secrecy from
family and friends as well. Similar findings have been reported
(Owens et ai, 1993; Klock et ai, 1994). In a study by Cook
and Golombok (1995) in which donors were asked how much
information they would like offspring to have about themselves,
only 9% wanted to be identified by name to offspring and one
third believed that this decision was 'entirely up to the parents'.
Similar results were reported by Lui et al. (1995) with 89%
of donors requiring guaranteed anonymity.
Information on the attitudes to having a known (identified
stranger) or personal (relative or friend) donor, is less available.
One study which asked about the maintenance of donor
anonymity with known sperm and egg donors (Bolton et ai,
1991) indicated that all subjects (recipients of gamete donation
and potential donors) were uncertain about whether the donor
should be anonymous. Sperm recipients were more in favour
of anonymity and were more against the donor's contact with
any subsequent child than were egg recipients. All subjects
were more in favour of donor anonymity for donor insemination
than for egg donation and were against a known donor keeping
in contact with the child.
The purpose of this exploratory study was to ascertain
the intentions of participants involved in donor insemination
programmes using personal donors, regarding donor identification and donor contact.
Materials and methods
The term 'personal donor' is used when a couple requiring insemination for a male infertility factor supply their own donor. These donors
are usually relatives or friends.
Clinic staff from four fertility clinics and one obstetric practice in
New Zealand sent quesuonnaires to those patients who gave verbal
consent for this; in all, 80 out of a possible 102 surveys were
distributed. Respondents were asked to send parallel questionnaires
to their donor, and where applicable, to his partner. Only 44 (22
couples) were willing to ask their donor to participate. A total of 46
surveys were received, 30 (38%) from recipients of donor spennatozoa
(16 women, 14 men), nine from donors (41%) and seven from their
partner. Data from two members of one couple were regarded as
independent Respondents were offered the opportunity to take part
in a further interview to clarify answers given or to discuss issues,
27 agreed to be interviewed face-to-face and eight by telephone.
2559
VAAdair and A-Purdie
These interviews were conducted by the second author at the
respondents' home.
The questionnaire was designed to obtain information about the
experiences of men and women involved in donor programmes with
personal donors. A draft questionnaire was trialled with two couples
with children conceived in a DI programme using a personal donor
and with staff of an infertility clinic. Donors, donor partners and
recipient couples were asked about issues which were important when
making the decision to participate and issues present when children
were born; levels of contact between the two families; decisions
about identification and information shared among the families, and
advantages and disadvantages for all participants of being involved
with personal donation. Questions were either open-ended or followed
by a probe question.
The sections of the questionnaire to be discussed asked questions
about: (i) who had been told about the involvement in a donor
insemination programme; (ii) the relafionship and contact between
the recipients and donor family; (iii) contract regarding identification
of donor to any child/ren born from the insemination; (iv) the
advantages and disadvantages of having or being a personal donor.
All participants who indicated their willingness to be interviewed
were contacted. The interview was designed to allow for clarification
of answers already written on the questionnaire. The interviews did
not provide any additional information
For all questions there was a structured answer which was followed
by an open question to give opportunity for elaboration. Results were
analysed using one-way analyses of variance.
Results
Demographic analysis of participant information showed that
the donors {n = 9) had a mean age of 39.4 years (range 3 1 64) and at the time of donation eight donors had children of
their own aged 2-38 years. Of the three donors who had been
single at the time of donation, two have since married and
one of the married donors has divorced. Three of the donors
were asked to donate and the remaining six offered because
of a desire to help a childless couple. No more than two
children had been bom to any donor. Only one of the recipients
said they felt some degree of pressure to agree to use a
persona] donor.
Openness about donor
involvement
One donor and one recipient man had told no-one that they
were involved in a donor insemination programme, while one
couple with a very open policy had told more than 70 friends
and relations. A third (jn = 15) had told only two or three
people, and half (n = 24) had told up to seven people, with
the remaining three telling eight, 14 and 22 people. These
results are summarized in Table I. There was no significant
[F (1,34) = 0.41, P <0.6] gender difference in the number
of people told.
Contact between donors and recipients
Approximately half of the recipient couples (n = 14) said that
the quality of contact between recipients and donor couple
had changed since their involvement in the programme. Of
the men and women in the study, 35 (75%) said that the
involvement had led to a closer relationship between them and
11 said the relationship had deteriorated. The reasons given
2560
Table L People told of involvement in personal donor insemination
programme by donors or recipients
Relationship
Percentage of donors/recipients
Personal friends
Brothers
Mother
Sisters
Father
Workmates
Children
Religious adviser
Other
57
46
39
30
30
26
22
4
28
for the deterioration related to the donor's partner who in each
case had not been involved in the decision to donate. An
example of changed relationship was expressed by one recipient
man: 'My brother has subsequently married a woman I don't
like one bit They have recently had a child with developmental
problems. This has embittered my sister-in-law towards my
family and placed my brother in an unfortunate position. He
is forced to keep his distance.'
In answer to die question about the level of contact recipients
and donors would like the donor to have with any children
born, only a few respondents (n = 9) said they would like to
keep in contact on a regular basis, while the remainder of
respondents were unsure and said they would make that
decision in the future. Responses to the open questions showed
that for those who did want contact, both donors and recipients
wanted die contact to remain in terms of the original role.
That is, in terms of the social or biological role which would
have pertained before the donation. "The contact we want is
that which would be if die child were our own, i.e. that of an
uncle. Therefore diere would be quite a lot of contact'
(recipient man); and 'We will be in regular contact due to
friendship' (donor).
Relationship between donors and recipients
Those sets of couples who were related had chosen this
situation because of the genetic inheritance and the 'closeness'
of family members. Significantly more [F (1,27) = 9.84,
P <0.01] men than women wanted a donor from the same
genetic pool as themselves. As one recipient man stated: 'One
of die main reasons that I prefer family members as a donor
is that I would be genetically closer to any children. I think
that is a big difference to using a friend.'
However, diose who were in a friendship relationship saw
disadvantages in having a family member as a donor because
of die possible obligation to donate, die closeness of the
situation and die complexity of relationships which would be
created. This situation was expressed by a recipient as: 'We
had a discussion widi one of my husband's brothers and he
admitted he would be unable to detach himself from the child;
on diis basis I feel a friend would be a better choice.'
As well, diere was concern dial if problems arose widi
related donors, it could affect the whole extended family
relationship and make difficult issues harder to deal with. A
significant issue for more women than men [F (1,27) = 4.74,
Secrecy and donor insemination programmes
Table IL Main reasons given for identification
Group
DonOT
Donor partner
Recipient wife
Recipient husband
Avoid secrecy
Children 's rights
%
%
n
44
29
36
25
4
2
6
4
56
43
29
50
n
5
3
5
7
P <0.04) was how to approach and ask a family member or
friend to be a donor.
Agreement to donor identification
Seven of the donors (78%) and 29 recipients (63%) agreed to
the donor being identified to any children born. The reasons
given were to avoid family secrets and the rights of children
to know their genetic background (Table II). Those who did
not agree to the identification said that the child was better
off not knowing about the involvement of a donor in conception
and this would retain confidentiality for both donor and parents.
The possibility of confused family relationships was given as
the main reason for not telling children. However, six of the
recipient women and two recipient men said that they would
accept any condition the donor wished to impose. There was
some ambivalence illustrated by one recipient who, although
agreeing to the donor being identified, did not think the
decision was in his own best interests: 'I'm not sure what my
best interests are. This decision (to use DI) brought short-term
benefits to my relationship with my wife but I think our
relationship is subtly compromised by my infertility.'
Agreement to sibling identification
Ten donors and their partners (63%) and 17 recipients (57%)
said that any children of the donor family should be told of
their half-siblings. Reasons given by recipients for not telling
children were that this was at the donor's request, that they
would have a relationship already (e.g. niece, cousin), to keep
family units separate and for legal reasons such as estate
settlement in the event of death. Of those who were unsure
one woman answered: 'I haven't really thought of this at all.
Never occurred to me and I don't really feel that they're
related at all.'
Advantages and disadvantages of a personal donor programme
The advantages for couples of having a personally known
donor were overwhelmingly that they knew the personality of
the donor, liked them as a person and already had a relationship
with them. Being known to each other meant that there was a
depth of knowledge available and the opportunity to work
through issues before the child was bom The very practical
advantage was the faster admission to an insemination programme.
For the donor, the advantages appeared to be the knowledge
of the family and the environment the child would be bom
into, and information about the child's development with
ongoing access to the child if that was the agreed relationship.
As stated by one donor: 'The responsibility of your actions is
much clearer, and there's the option of some rich lifetime
relationships if that's the way it works out. Your children are
not going to unwittingly marry a half brother or sister. You
know whether or not a child resulted; you know what happens
to them.'
The disadvantages suggested for recipients fitted into three
categories: the relationship may change, loss of privacy for
recipients and the donor making claims on the child. Both
donors and recipients said that there was a potential for the
recipients to feel that they were 'being watched over while
they raise their children' or that they may prefer anonymity
especially if conception did not occur and they felt guilty
towards the donor. There were some idiosyncratic responses
to this question which asked about the disadvantages for
recipients of having a personal donor which point to insecurity
in the relationship: 'When the child grows up she might want
to leave and live with the donor'; to 'If a couple is insecure
and bonds poorly to the child, I can see the possibility of
problems'; and 'For a husband—why did my wife pick this
person?'
Half of all those who answered the question asking about
disadvantages for the donor could see no disadvantages for
him. Those respondents who identified possible disadvantages
focused mainly on the ongoing 'responsibility' and involvement for the outcomes both in terms of conception and life
development and responsibility for any inherited defects or
illnesses. These feelings were expressed by one donor as:
'Having to share the misery when it doesn't work out, i.e
there's no baby, and being irretrievably involved in the process
of the child's development since we expect to remain close to
the couple.'
Discussion
In the interests of children, fertility clinics in New Zealand
have encouraged couples in donor programmes to give children
knowledge of their donor conception. To ensure that children
can have access to their biological background most programmes bank spermatozoa only from donors willing to be
identified. There is, however, no legislation to ensure that this
occurs and no national register to ensure that records of
conception are available, so the decision on whether to tell a
child resides with the recipient parents.
It has been suggested (Daniels and Taylor, 1993) that the
provision of a personal donor would ensure mat issues of
secrecy would not occur. But, as the present study shows, the
situation is complex. For the adults involved, knowledge and
indeed selection of donor and recipient is beneficial. The
selection characteristics were mainly psychological but especially that they liked each other. The importance of choice for
both recipients and donors was expressed and, in concurrence
with Rowland (1985), Daniels (1987) and Haimes (1990), the
donors and their partners wanted to know the quality of the
parenting which any child bom from the donation would
receive.
Choice in selection was theoretically important, but the pool
of possible donors appears to be very limited. Because of the
2561
V.A-Adair and A.Purdle
difficulties in attracting appropriate donors from the public
sector, for some couples the provision of a personally contracted
donor was the only opportunity to enter a programme. For
some men, inheritance of similar genetic material was so
important that a family member was the only donor who would
be acceptable. This further limited the possibility of selection
and resulted in two women agreeing to a family donor when
they felt uncomfortable with the relationship. In general,
recipients expressed a considerable debt to their donor and
half of the recipients were unwilling to jeopardize that relationship by asking their donor to be involved in the research. This
sense of debt was very strong and resulted in some recipients
accepting conditions from the donor such as maintaining
anonymity.
Counsellors in most New Zealand clinics recommend that
couples are open with their children about the involvement of
a donor in their conception, and 75% of donors and recipients
agreed to children being told about donor involvement; however, information to adults was selective even within families
and even when a family member was the donor. In particular,
parents of the couples were less likely than siblings to be told
of a donor involvement, and friends were likely to be told
when members of the family were not. This has consequences
for children who are half siblings when they are perceived to
be cousins.
Having a family member as a donor has the potential for
confusing family relationships and has been given as a reason
for not telling the child of the donor involvement so that
family units would be kept separate. Some of the donors were
comfortable with keeping the pre-donation existing social
relationship or the original biological role. This fulfilled their
need to know about the development of the child, to participate
in the child's life events but to maintain distance from the
parenting role. For children with a family friend as donor, the
possibility of confused relationships is also present There is
the expectation that the friendship will continue, and so the
children of both families are likely to spend time together.
With 30% of these families opting not to tell their children
about the relationship, there is again the potential for difficulties
if in later life children are attracted to each other.
Although there is a clear genetic relationship between half
siblings, the possible denial of those relationships is still
present. This raises some interesting issues. Given that the
subjects were already pregnant, had children or were in a
programme using a personal donor, it can be seen that the
biological links between children may be ignored in adult
decisions to protect their relationships with children. Personal
donation may satisfy the adult requirements for information
while ignoring any rights for children to have knowledge of
their genetic links.
While acknowledging that the sample is small and self
selected, the results indicate that the best interests of the child
are not necessarily the grounds under which decisions are
made, especially when deciding who has access to information.
Although openness between the adults involved is regarded as
advantageous because the obligation to a personal donor is
very strong, and given that the shortage of donors is likely to
remain, identification may be determined by the donor rather
2562
than by the parents. What is clear is that having a donor
known to the adult recipients does not necessarily mean that
children will have access to that information.
In the best interests of the child, the adults involved in
treatment by donor insemination need to be open not only
about the involvement of a donor, but to be able to satisfy a
child's natural curiosity with details of the donor. Particularly
during adolescence, when identity development is a salient
task, having full access to information about one's genetic
inheritance may be important and, for some adolescents, the
opportunity to know the donor's identity may also be important.
There seems no disadvantage to facilitating this, provided
opportunity during counselling is given for discussion of the
parental roles of the social parents, the role of the donor is
clarified, the legal responsibilities are clear, and ongoing
counselling support is available as required. It does not appear
that the future contact by genetic offspring is problematic for
donors (Mahlsted and Probosco, 1991; Daniels and Lalos,
1995), but it may require an understanding by recipients that
the bond between children and parents resides more in the
quality of parenting than in genetic ties (Golombok et al.,
1995).
Acknowledgements
Thanks are given to Fertility Associates, National Women's Hospital
Fertility Clinic, Artemis Clinic and Wellington Women's Chnic, New
Zealand, for contacting patients for this study which was made
possible through a grant from National Women's Centre for Reproductive Research.
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Received on December 13, 1995, accepted on September 9, 1996
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