A Victory in Victoria

Bill Cordray

Well, for donor conceived people (DCP), we have had to accept these kinds of laws which have been enacted ever since Sweden banned anonymous sperm donation back in 1984. Nine countries in Europe plus New Zealand and four of the seven states in Australia have since outlawed anonymity in donor conception and recognize the rights of future DCP to identify their genetic parents. These are all “prospective” for future births from Assisted Reproductive Technologies and do not recognize our “retrospective” rights if we happened to be conceived before these laws were enacted. The rationale for this inequality of creating two classes of DCP is based on the presumed injustice to some sperm and egg donors if they lose their guarantees of anonymity, which must be paramount to the manifest injustice that all DCP suffer. These same jurisdictions have adoption laws that recognize rights to an OBC for all adopted people regardless of when they were born.

I admire the successes of the AAC in pushing for legislation for open records and wanted that for us as well but that will likely not happen in my lifetime. With little hope that we older DCP would ever receive the same retrospective rights that some adopted people enjoy, I finally decided to use DNA testing sites to get my genetic genealogy, with not much faith in that either. After four years, however, I succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. I now know who my genetic father was and have identified and met thirteen of my wonderful half-siblings conceived through him. Now I feel that fighting for legislation is no longer necessary, since many of my DCP cohorts worldwide are also succeeding with DNA testing sites. Why should we even bother with the humiliation of begging for DCP rights from state legislatures that are increasingly uncivil and dysfunctional?

This week, however, I was stunned to open an email from a DCP friend and very distance DNA cousin, Damian Adams from South Australia. He sent me this press release issued on Tuesday, February 23, 2016, from the Victorian Parliament in Melbourne:

 “All donor-conceived Victorians will now be able to access available identifying information about their donors and heritage from 1 March 2017 without donor consent.
“The Assisted Reproductive Treatment Act Amendment Bill 2015 tonight successfully passed through the Victorian Legislative Council without amendment.

“Previously, only people born from sperm or eggs donated after 1998 could automatically find out available identifying information about their donors when they reach adulthood.
“Changes to the law in 2015 meant donor-conceived people born before 1998 could access this information, but only with donor consent.

“The new law addresses this inequality and recognises that it is important for all donor-conceived Victorians to access information about their heritage, no matter when their donors donated.

“From 1 March 2017, the Andrews Labor Government’s amendments will mean that people born before 1998 will be able to access the same identifying information without the need for the donor’s consent.”
 
This was something I had suggested to a Parliament committee considering a prospective law on DCP rights back in 1993, when I was invited to speak about our issues to several groups in Victoria and New South Wales. I was there at the invitation (and cost) of Meredith Lenne and Pauline Ley. They are two Victorian adopted women, who had advocated for the rights of DCP since 1978, long before they met any. Pauline had heard about me from her cousin, an author of a book on DC in 1987, who I had met. I wasn’t brought there because I was the best representative of DCP but only because I was one of only a small handful of DCP speaking out at the time. I was not very persuasive about retrospectivity, as it turns out, primarily because I could not claim then that I spoke for the untold numbers of DCP. Victoria did create a law in 1998 due to the efforts of adopted people, a group of DC parents called Donor Conception Support Group who are strong advocates for openness, a few sympathetic donors, and some sociologists.
 
Since then, a large number of the children of the Donor Conception Support Group have grown up and become a powerful organization of DCP across Australia. Their voices have proven much more persuasive than I could have been 23 years ago. The best advocate was Narelle Grech, whose testimony in 2012, while in the last stages of cancer, was especially poignant. Former Premier Ted Baillieu was moved to enable her to meet her donor father two months before her death at age 30. In addition to these brave DCP were adoption activists from VANISH, including my friend Pauline, several parents from DCSG, several sperm donors, and international sociologists who all drove the passage of Narelle’s Law.
Victoria is now the first government worldwide that has granted retrospective rights to DC people.

Australia is also the only continent where all adopted people can find their original parents, with some of the states allowing limited kinds of obstructions.
Beacon - March 2016

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