Vincent Brès, President of the association Procréation Médicalement Anonyme has published an article in Le Monde, calling for everyone to be able to access their biological parents’ identity. His article is in response to the President of the CECOS Federation[1] who proposes access to non-identifying data (physical appearance, profession, age, etc.)[2]. Vincent Brès sees this proposal as “dangling a carrot to donor children, but not resolving anything”. He explains: “We want more than that when we look at ourselves in the mirror or when we, in turn, pass on our genes to our children”.
What he wants is a “better understanding of where we come from or a medical history”. He even lashes out at “the injustice of a system that confiscates […] information on heredity”. He recalls that people born through gamete donation do not come from “interchangeable reproduction material” and that “denying this by sequestering information on the identity of the donor is unfair and contemptuous”.
Although the association Procréation Médicalement Anonyme does not wish to question the link of parentage, considering that people born through reproductive donation “already have parents who have raised them to become the people they are”, it strongly insists on the fact that access to one’s origins “is simply the pre-requisite to finding out who you really are by knowing where you come from. Knowledge of one’s origins is inextricably linked with the way in which every human being perceives their personal identity”.
For further reading:
70 young adults born through gamete donation try to trace their origins
Gamete donation: claims of the association PMAnonyme
[1] Centres d’Etude et de Conservation des œufs et du Sperme humains (Centres for the Study and Preservation of Human Eggs and Sperm).
[2] Gamete donation: partial lifting of donor anonymity?
Le Monde, Vincent Brès (15/05/2018)