The Australian Christian Lobby has welcomed the introduction of a new law in Victoria ensuring children conceived using donor eggs or sperm have the right to access information about their donors and heritage.
Prior to the introduction of the new law, which came into effect on 1st March, only people born from donated eggs or sperm after 1998 had an automatic right to identifying information about their donors. Donor-conceived people born before 1998 could only access the information with donor consent. The new law means all people now have the same automatic rights to information.
Jilll Hennessy, Victorian Minister for Health, said that for too long the rights of donor-conceived Victorians to access information about donors had been based on “arbitrary timeframes”. “This inequity was unfair, and that’s why we created one rule that applies to all.”
Dan Flynn, director of the Victorian arm of the ACL, said the State Government was correct to prioritise the rights of people conceived through donors to their biological heritage over those of the donors to anonmity.
“This would have been a hard choice for any government, but it’s a positive move which has recognised that knowledge of one’s mum and dad is essential to identity and mental health,” he said in a statement.
“As donor children can attest to, the use of anonymous donors to create children fractures essential identity links between genetic and social parenthood. The number of children with fractured identity issues will only increase if marriage was ever redefined.”
Mr Flynn added that as well as having a right to know their biological mother and father, children should, where possible, “be raised by them within their immediate and wider biological family”. “The loss of identity for the child born of a surrogate mother, surrendered to two men in the name of ‘marriage equality’ should give pause to those wishing to redefine marriage,” he said.
