In NSW and Western Australia, the number of families my donation can help is capped at five. In Victoria and South Australia, it’s 10. In Queensland, there is no cap at all. To me, any more than five is too many, and 10 would have me thinking twice about Victoria’s latest donation drive.
In NSW, for example, one family used my donation and gave birth to my first genetic son. They then used it a second time and had another boy. They’re brothers and both my biological sons. In Victoria, 10 families could use a donation two or three times each, meaning there could feasibly be 30 children born from one donation.
Advertising for the Victorian Government’s new sperm and egg donor campaign ‘Be a life-maker’.
Before I decided to donate, I absorbed everything I could from donor-conceived people directly, and learnt that they want to feel psychologically safe, valued and treasured within their own families, and to know who their biological siblings are. Common sense, right?
Not mandating extremely tight limits on how many families can use a donor can rob donor-conceived children of the filial intimacy and belonging that comes from a close-knit family unit, rather than a sprawling one.
There’s also the risk of consanguineous relationships. Up to 30 children, all in the same state, all in a similar age range, who have no way of knowing they’re siblings. When they reach dating age, the risk of accidental incest is alarming.
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Victoria has led the country on many areas of donor conception. In 1998, it became the first state to abolish anonymous sperm donation. In 2017, it became the world’s first jurisdiction to overturn existing anonymity laws so that donor-conceived children could contact their biological parents, even if donors had previously been promised anonymity. But on family limits, even despite Donor Conceived Australia, the national peak body, recommending a five-family limit, the state lags.
While you can request a lower number of families access your donation in Victoria, many donors will trust the default figure of 10. And as much reporting has shown, the fertility industry has been an under-regulated Wild West for decades, with a recent history of highly unethical practices. If a clinic can use one donor 10 times, they will. It means fewer donor recruitment drives, reduced waiting list times and more profit.
Ultimately, it’s about how the donor conceived people and their families feel. My donation was, primarily, exactly that – a donation: without caveats or expectations. I want my biological children to feel a profound sense of belonging, both in the families who so warmly wanted them, and who – as is my deepest hope – lovingly raised them, and among their half siblings in other families.
More children may still be born from my donation. If that happens, I will welcome them with open arms too. But I can rest easy knowing that the number of families who can access my donation is nearing an end and that my biological children will belong to a small, but dearly loved, community.
We owe it to children to create a world and extended family cozily cocooned by love, not to create a human factory farm.
Gary Nunn is a freelance writer and author based in Sydney.
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