GESTIÓN EN SALUD PÚBLICA: More changes to donor law considered in NSW

domingo, 10 de abril de 2016

More changes to donor law considered in NSW

More changes to donor law considered in NSW

by Xavier Symons | 9 Apr 2016 | 3 comments

The State government New South Wales is considering tightening rules regulating embryo donation after a woman who received donor eggs allegedly lied to doctors and the embryo donor about the fate of her pregnancy.

The donor recipient, who has remained unidentified by the media, received embryos from Mrs. Natalie Parker in late 2014. The woman and her partner agreed to stay in contact with Parker once the baby was born. Yet late last year the donor recepient contacted Parker over the phone saying that implantation had failed.

Parker was suspicious of the woman, and tracked her down via Facebook. She discovered that the woman had indeed given birth to a child, and the child looked strikingly like Parker’s own children. Parker feels certain that that the child is hers, though IVF Australia are still investigating the matter. "I feel taken advantage of, and incredibly sad”, Parker said.

NSW health minister Jillian Skinner said that authorities are considering whether they should further strengthen donor law in the state. "A case made public [on Sunday] raises issues which the NSW Ministry of Health will look into to determine if any further strengthening is required," Ms Skinner said. Late last month the State Government considered new legislation that will give all donor conceived children the opportunity to access limited identifying information about their fathers. The proposed bill was narrowly defeated.

- See more at: http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/more-changes-to-donor-law-considered-in-nsw/11827#sthash.0pKcsZFD.dpuf

In events which seem copied from the script of a B-grade potboiler, the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has, at the age of 60, just discovered that he is not who he thought he was. After taking a DNA test to disprove rumours that he was not his father's son, he learned that the rumours were true. His real father was the last private secretary of Wnston Churchill, Sir Anthony Montague Browne.

Despite his deep religious faith, the Archbishop seems quite shaken by the news. He surmounted a difficult childhood with alcoholic parents to become a successful oil executive and then an Anglican priest. He had no idea that the ne'er-do-well whom he regarded as his estranged father was not. In an interview with The Telegraph [London] he said:

“My own experience is typical of many people. To find that one’s father is other than imagined is fairly frequent. To be the child of families with great difficulties in relationships, with substance abuse or other matters, is far too normal.

“Although there are elements of sadness, and even tragedy in my father’s case, this is a story of redemption and hope from a place of tumultuous difficulty and near despair in several lives ... I know that I find who I am in Jesus Christ, not in genetics, and my identity in him never changes.”

Although this is just an anecdote, it confirms what I've always regarded as one of the most important principles in contemporary bioethics: that every child deserves to know his or her biological parents. Archbishop Welby is better prepared than most to survive a personal earthquake like this, but it is an earthquake. To know who we are, to have a secure personal identity, is an important dimension of our autonomy.