GESTIÓN EN SALUD PÚBLICA: Donor anonymity legislation

sábado, 19 de marzo de 2016

Donor anonymity legislation – a moral quagmire

Donor anonymity legislation – a moral quagmire

by Xavier Symons | 19 Mar 2016 |

Ethicists and doctors have slammed recently passed legislation in the Australian state of Victoria that will revoke the anonymity of sperm donors.

Under new regulations specified in the The Assisted Reproductive Treatment Amendment Act, children of sperm donors born before 1998 can access the information about their donor, including their name, date of birth or ethnic background, without the donor's consent.

No anonymous donations were permitted after the 1^st of January 1998; before then donors could chose to donate on the condition that their information would be withheld from potential children.

Guido Pennings, professor of ethics and bioethics at Ghent University, decried the changes, calling them ‘disrespectful’, ‘unfair’ and ‘immoral’:

“Retrospective legislation on donor anonymity is morally wrong because…it implies that the donor is solely used as a means to serve someone else’s interests…in essence, it is a form of abuse of power by the government…the autonomy of donors and recipients is expressed in their informed consent. Unilateral changes afterwards violate the donors’ and the recipients’ autonomy. It makes their consent null and void.”

Tony Bartone, the Victorian president of the Australian Medical Association, said the new legislation undermines patient confidence in informed consent procedures:

“These patients underwent a medical procedure – donating sperm and eggs – and were given explicit and implicit assurances that their donations would be anonymous”.

Victorian health minister Jill Hennessy said information about identity could make a huge difference in the lives of donor-conceived Victorians.

"We believe all donor-conceived people should have the right to know about their genetic heritage, no matter when their donors donated. This information can make a huge difference to the lives of donor-conceived Victorians. If this information is available, it shouldn't be kept from them."

- See more at: http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/donor-anonymity-legislation-a-moral-quagmire/11806#sthash.xhIYsEgK.dpuf

Hi there,

Next week the staff of BioEdge will be celebrating Easter, so there will be no newsletter. We shall resume early in April.

This week's issue contains a familiar but still sobering story about experiments by Nazi doctors during World War II, this time with an Australian twist. In dusty archives historians have uncovered the experiences of five Australian POWs captured in May 1941 in Crete. They were infected with hepatitis by an SS physician, Dr Friedrich Meythaler, to see how the disease was transmitted. Luckily none died of the disease.

This is just a single thread in the tapestry of World War II horrors, although of special interest to Australians. What interested me was a coda by the German historian who is writing up the story, Konrad Kwiet, of the Sydney Jewish Museum. His mother and sister were both doctors and they actually were friendly with Dr Meythaler, who eventually became an eminence in German medicine in the post-War years. His sister was utterly astonished when he told her a few months ago about Meythaler's dark past.

There is a well-worn moral to this anecdote, but one which cannot be repeated too often. Doctors need to be firmly and unconditionally commited to the dignity of all human beings. Otherwise they can easily succumb to the temptation to exploit vulnerable men and women in the course of following orders, or even more disgracefully, to advance their careers.