The child and the egg
Which comes first: children’s rights to knowledge of their genetic origins, or their right to existence? An SA Law Reform Commission paper asking if egg and sperm donors should be identifiable has put the issue firmly in the spotlight
Following many failed in-vitro fertilisation attempts, a woman known as AB found a way to have her own child, at last, using a surrogate mother and an egg donor, as she couldn’t produce her own ova. Because she was divorced, she planned to use donor sperm to have her baby. Then she learnt that the Children’s Act prevented her from using both a donor egg and donor sperm, and a surrogate mother, as it expects one commissioning parent to be related to the child to be carried by the surrogate. She challenged the act. The social development minister defended the act, arguing in the constitutional court that having a surrogate and donor egg and sperm allows parents to create designer babies. Additionally, having two parents unrelated to the commissioning parent is no different from adopting a child, the minister’s legal papers said. Meggan Zunkel, director of the Infertility Awareness Association of SA, puts it bluntly: "Individuals who donate do not generally want the children conceived ...
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