Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for School Education and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy President Barnett. It is perhaps appropriate that you are in the chair at the moment because I speak this evening about the rights of children—the right of a child to know who they are and where they come from. It is a fundamental right, so fundamental that I imagine it is something we rarely consider. I know my biological mother and my biological father and that gives me a strong sense of my genetic, social and cultural heritage. That is the case for the overwhelming number of Australians and rightly so.

What about the estimated 60,000 donor conceived children in Australia who have been denied access to that basic information—our ‘genetic orphans’ as they have been called? Information about their family, their roots, their medical history and their identity is important. As one donor conceived child reflected in recent Senate hearings:

Everybody is entitled to know who their parents are, but we are not.

I would at this stage commend Senator Barnett and Senator Crossin for the recent inquiry addressing this very important issue because sadly not everyone agrees that children have a right to know their biological parents.

On Christmas Day last year, 63-year-old Sir Elton John and his partner had a child, proudly boasting that they do not have a clue which man is the biological father. ‘Neither of us care,’ partner David Furnish said. ‘The important thing is that he is healthy and happy and loved,’ he said. ‘We’ve already got a couple of great children’s books about how families come in many shapes and sizes.’ Maybe Sir Elton John and his partner do not care, but we can be sure that one day little Zachary or similar children will be asking questions such as, ‘Where did I come from and who and where is my mother?’ Sadly, Zachary will never know, with Sir Elton and his partner proclaiming that they wanted to ‘respect’ the anonymity of the biological mother.

Closer to home, the Australian magazine recently ran a cover story about same-sex families. One couple comprising two men used an egg from an anonymous donor in India to have their daughter Rani, who will never know her biological mother. The magazine reported:

Silver anklets in Rani’s name are the only clues to an exotic heritage.

The two men say that they have chosen anonymity ‘to limit problems and confusion for their daughter’. In the same article, Megan Peters and Leanne Ferguson explain how they created their son, importing sperm from a US donor after an online search through thousands of profiles, settling for a blond-haired, blue-eyed professional whose identity might never be revealed to the son he’s fathered.

It is clear that in this brave new world of reproductive technology anything might go. As the Australian reported:

Tales of creation are mind-blowing. Insemination is being done at home with syringes of sperm provided by friends or strangers; eggs and wombs are being sourced on the internet through the international fertility market; extended family members are responding in innovative ways.

But amid this murky so-called ‘creation’ of children, and society being told to accept genderless parenting and families of ‘many shapes and sizes’, the wellbeing of children has been lost. Children are guinea pigs in a dangerous social experiment where the only ‘rights’ that are being considered are the ‘rights’ of adults.

Recently the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee published its report entitled Donor conception practices in Australia. The first people born through the use of these technologies have now reached adulthood and have used the inquiry to call for change. The report is disturbing reading. It is an important report and one the government and state governments must act on for the sake of our children. We live in an adult world and the focus in the world of reproductive technology has been on the so-called ‘rights’ of adults to a child, completely ignoring the rights of a child to a mother and a father and to know that mother and father.

In the report Ms Elizabeth Marquardt from the Centre for Marriage and Families in America says:

Donor conception … functions much more like a market. Rather than being an institution or centred on the best interests of the child …. donor conception operates around the desires and rights of parents to acquire children.

The report concludes that the current system of regulating donor conception practices in Australia is failing donor conceived people. It called for these children to have access to the identity of their donor parents by means of a national register. As the Donor Conception Support Group of Australia put it:

It is a basic human right to know of one’s origins. Every person should have a right of access to information and to contact … those who make up their biological and social heritage, enabling them to complete a picture of themselves and their identity.

It is appalling that in Tasmania, Queensland, the ACT and the Northern Territory there are no laws at all regarding donor conception practices. Even in situations where records do exist, such as Victoria, many donor conceived children are unable to access these records. In Victoria donors were anonymous before 1988. Donor conceived children born between 1988 and 1997 have the right to access information about the donor if the donor agrees. Only those born after 1997 have an absolute right to information.

Twenty-one-year-old Victorian Riley Denham is one of the lucky ones. At 18, Riley’s parents gave him paperwork that indicated his biological father, Roger Clarke, would be interested in meeting any of his offspring. For Mr Clarke there was never any doubt that he would tick the ‘yes’ box about whether he would want to meet any eventual offspring. He told the Age last month:

I believe children should always have the right to know their biological beginnings.

Victorian woman Kimberley Springfield, aged 27, is not so fortunate. A mother of two young boys, Ms Springfield is unable to know about her biological father because prior to 1988 sperm donors were completely anonymous. The only ‘rights’ were the donor’s right to anonymity. How wrenching for Ms Springfield, who told the Age last month:

“This is information I want to share with my boys. It is a part of their history, but it’s also tens of thousands of Australians who have been put in the position of having a vital part of who they are locked away in a clinic file. It really just feels like a violation of human rights.”

Similar sentiments can be found in a submission from an 11-year-old boy who said:

The only reason I may never know who my dad is, is because someone in the government doesn’t understand how important it is or just can’t be bothered ... There are many times that I cry as I need to know who my biological father is.

Notably, it is not only the availability of information that is the issue but the right to access it. I would stress here, because of a recent Victorian case, the capacity to proactively access rather than rely on bland administrative processes that cannot be flexible enough. Whilst preserving anonymity where appropriate, they should still allow that donors understand there is an interest from offspring that they may have produced.

I support the committee’s call for a national register of donors and donor conceived people. I also support recommendations for a limit on sperm donations and I strongly believe that jurisdictions which do not already have legislation should legislate to protect the rights of donor conceived people. The United Kingdom has passed laws giving children the ‘right to know’ at 18, and so should we.

As academic Margaret Somerville, from the Centre for Medicine at McGill University in Montreal, stated in a 2008 paper entitled ‘Brave New Babies: Children’s human rights with respect to their biological origins and family structure’:

It is one matter for children not to know their genetic identity as a result of unintended circumstances. It is quite another to deliberately destroy children’s links to their biological parents, and especially for society to be complicit in this destruction.

I agree absolutely. The issue of donor conception has been neglected for long enough. Knowing who you are really does matter. The 60,000 donor conceived Australian children should have the right to access information about their family, their background, their identify and their place in the world. To know who your biological mother and father are is not an entitlement but a right that should extend to all children no matter how they are conceived.