ANONYMOUS DONATIONS of sperm and eggs have helped bring happiness to thousands of Massachusetts families with fertility problems. But behind the many successful outcomes is a tissue of unresolved questions about the legal rights and obligations of the parties involved, from clinics to donors to parents to the children themselves, many of whom are only now reaching an age to assert their legal interests.
Supreme Judicial Court Justice James McHugh, addressing the case of a mother seeking the identity of a sperm donor in order to obtain child support and genetic information, was right to call upon the Legislature to clarify these issues. The Legislature would be deeply remiss to allow a situation with such broad implications to be addressed through a patchwork of legal opinions. The state must act now to avoid uncertainty - and to preserve a fertility system that has worked well for the majority of those involved.
Any legislation must use as its starting point the reasonable terms - including a strong ethos of anonymity - under which all the parties entered into their arrangements, while imposing new common-sense requirements that address complications that may never have been envisioned when sperm and egg donations first became possible. A fair system of laws would impose some restrictions on all parties to the donation process.
Clinics must be empowered to preserve the privacy and anonymity of donors, but also required to build an appropriately extensive record of medical or genetic conditions that might bear on future offspring.
Would-be parents who use donated sperm or eggs must relinquish any claims to financial support or any other form of contact with the donors. The wall of privacy should be breached for only one reason: to protect the life of the child.
Donors, too, must give up any interest in the children produced through the fertility process, except in matters of life and death.
Children born under this system will have a natural curiosity about their biological roots. For some, the curiosity could take on the force of an impassioned search for identity. But such quests emerge from many types of families, of all configurations, and often reach frustrating dead ends. While recognizing the desires of children to know all aspects of their backgrounds, the state should nonetheless ensure that the identities of sperm or egg donors remain such a dead end. A breach in the wall of privacy under any but the most dire circumstances could jeopardize the whole fertility system. The greater good is clearly in encouraging the participation of informed donors and preserving their anonymity.
The only exception should be for life itself. In rare instances, otherwise fatal diseases can be cured by transplants from biological relatives. A child conceived through a sperm or egg donation should be able to seek help from people with biological connections. Cases could, conceivably, work the other way, from a donor’s family to a child born through a donation. In both situations, a court could appoint a master to contact the relevant parties and obtain consent while preserving anonymity.
Under such a system of laws, the case that prompted Justice McHugh’s request to the Legislature would have no success. The mother, known as Jane Doe, is seeking child support from a man whose sperm she purchased from a fertility clinic. The genetic information she seeks does not bear on a matter of life or death. Hers is precisely the type of case that wise legislation would foreclose, for the betterment of the majority.
Fertility advances have served to strengthen the bonds of parenthood and to extend the joy of family life. Anonymous donations have made many advances possible, and Massachusetts must do all it can to bolster a successful system. The happiness of thousands of families, and perhaps millions of children yet to be conceived, depend on it.
