Source CTVNews
MELBOURNE, Australia – For Peter Peacock, fate arrived in the form of a registered letter.
The letter looked to be a bit of a letdown. Peacock had gone to the post office expecting an aviator jacket he’d ordered online. The Australian grandfather tore the envelope open as he walked to his car – at which point he stopped dead in his tracks.
Source Ottawa Citizen
Erin Jackson did not learn that her biological father was a sperm donor until she was 35. Until then, her parents had kept it a secret, as the doctor involved had advised.
That information, when it arrived, put Jackson’s entire life into a new perspective. “It was shocking, but it also made complete sense to me. It was probably the most transformational life event I have experienced,” said the Toronto native who now lives in California.
The first question she had after learning the truth was about the donor. And that is where Jackson, like many people who were donor conceived, hit a brick wall. There was no donor number, no health information; her mother didn’t even remember the name of the clinic she used.
“I wanted to know where I came from.”
Source: news.com.au
MEN who donated sperm in Victoria in the 1960s and 1970s for “research purposes” may not have been aware that their donation was being used for conception, according to a new report.
Research by the Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority (VARTA), set to be released later today, reveals meticulous records kept by donor clinics and approximately 40 interviews with clinicians, sperm donors and recipient parents who were involved in the early days of the fertility industry.
The report states that men who donated in the early years of the program may not have been aware that their semen was being used for conception purposes.
Source: BioNews
The UK’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority has said that it will halt funding for the Donor Conceived Register from the end of May.
The register has facilitated voluntary contact between people in the UK conceived through donated sperm or egg before 1991 and their donors, allowing them to exchange information or get in touch if they wish.
‘We have carefully considered the options and on reflection, we now feel there are alternative ways in which support groups can form, removing the requirement for a central body to coordinate the group,’ the HFEA wrote in a letter to the National Gamete Donation Trust (NGDT), the charity that runs the register.
