Light microscope picture of human egg surrounded by sperm.
For different reasons, not everyone can become a parent without the help of donated eggs, sperm, or embryos. If you happened to become a parent this way, would you want your child to know that he or she was donor conceived? If so, what would you tell them and when would you tell them? And if you weren’t genetically related to at least one of your parents, would you want to know about it? John Appleby explores these questions as a Wellcome Trust PhD student.
In 2009, the Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge was awarded a Wellcome Trust Enhancement Award in Biomedical Ethics to study ethical questions surrounding assisted reproductive technologies and emerging family forms. As part of this project, my PhD research looks at the ethical considerations surrounding whether children should be told, by their parents, if they were donor conceived. Like a balancing act, this work brings together empirical evidence, moral philosophy and policy – a task that veteran bioethicists often remind me is important, but easier said than done.
Investigating what matters in disclosure decisions between parents and their donor conceived children is like looking at the pieces of an ethical puzzle. Once you figure out what the pieces are, you can fit them together by asking the right questions. In my work these questions are aimed at refining and clarifying issues associated with disclosure, but the same ethical issues are often relevant to other areas of bioethics, as well.
One of the topics I have been working on recently is the role of ‘trust’ between parents and children. Analysing trust and other moral topics, such as deception and identity, allows me to piece together how disclosure decisions might affect the welfare of children and their families. For example, empirical evidence suggests that if a parent deceives their child about whether they are genetically related, the parent may risk losing the child’s trust. Therefore, is trust between parents and children important and how does it affect well-being? By looking at these kinds of questions, I try to evaluate whether current policy, like the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, is adequately addressing the issues that matter in debates about disclosure.
As you can imagine, the debate surrounding disclosure to donor-conceived children isn’t likely to subside anytime soon. Every family is different, and some parents will want to disclose, while others won’t. Current bioethical discourse calls for a better understanding of what is at stake for the welfare of children and their families. As I continue along with my PhD I hope to share with you the pieces of this ethical puzzle as I explore them.
John Appleby
John Appleby is a Wellcome Trust PhD Student in Bioethics at the Centre for Family Research, University of Cambridge.
Image credit: Joyce Harper, UCL, Wellcome Images
Filed under: Guest posts, Medical Humanities Tagged: Bioethics, Ethics, Reproductive ethics
