Disclosure of donor insemination to the child: The impact of Swedish legislation on couples' attitudes

Abstract

The question whether or not parents of children conceived after donor insemination (DI) tell their offspring about its biological background was addressed. Sweddish legislation from 1985 gives the child born after DI the right, when grown up, to receive identifying information about the sperm donor. Until now no information about compliance with the law had been available. All parents who gave birth to a child by DI after the new legislation in two major Swedish fertility centres (Stockholm and Umea) received a questionnaire containing questions about the issue of informing the child. The response rate was 80%. The majority of parents (89%) had not informed their children, whereas 59% had told someone else. As a response to an open question, 105/132 parents chose to comment on their answer about not having informed their child. Of these families, 61 intended to tell their child later, 16 were not sure and 28 were not going to inform the child. Compliance with the law must be regarded as low since only 52% of the parents had told or intended to tell their child. In addition, concern is raised about the children who run the risk of being informed by someone other than their parents.