OHIO: Surrogacy Birth Certificate, May 23, 2008

KENTUCKY POST
May 23, 2008

Surrogacy Birth Certificate
by Hagit Limor

Peter and Paula Dantzig love playing soccer, reading books and sharing meals with their dad. He's the only parent they've ever known. He recalls the day they were born with a smile on his face.

"I felt the greatest joy in the world. I saw the two most beautiful kids in the world," said Dr. Paul Dantzig, a dermatologist with a successful New York City practice, as he watches his two-and-a-half year old twins play outside their Scarsdale home. The children squeal and laugh and are oblivious that the man who's raised them, loved them, and provided for them isn't their father at all, according to Ohio law.

"If God forbid anything happened to them and they're in the hospital with a serious illness and somebody has to make a decision, they're going to say, 'Are you the father?' Prove you're the father. Where is the mother?'" says Dr. Dantzig.

The twins' surrogate mother
There are simple questions with not so simple answers. Yes, Dr. Dantzig is Peter and Paula's father. If anyone has any doubts, a court-approved DNA Paternity Test proves it beyond the shadow of a doubt. But who is their mother? According to their Ohio birth certificates, it's Jennifer Biron. But check out her DNA Test. The chance she's the mother: 0%.

"I'm not their mother. By any possibility I'm not their mother," says Biron. So how did she end up on the birth certificates? Biron served as the children's surrogate mother. She carried the babies and gave birth to them, but genetically, they're half Dr. Dantzig's and half an anonymous egg donor's, and there lies the problem: Ohio has no surrogacy law.

When the twins were born at Highland District Hospital in Highland County, Ohio, Dr. Dantzig may have rocked them in the nursery, but the hospital made a decision that's rocking the kids' world to this day. They put Jennifer Biron's name on their birth certificates and left out Dr. Dantzig altogether.

Hospital guidelines

"The hospital followed the Ohio Department of Health birth certificate guidelines," said Kathy Jones, the hospital's vice president of community outreach. Jones can't say much about the case, just that the hospital only has one set of rules from the state, which it follows in filling out birth certificates.

Biron said she should have no parental rights to the children. She can't believe her name appears as their mother on the only legal piece of identification they possess. "I feel horrible," she said. "I think it's ridiculous."

In fact, the woman Ohio calls the twins' mother hasn't seen them since their birth. As she plays with her laughing 14-month-old son, she says it's her love of her own children that set her on the path to surrogacy so that parents like Dr. Dantzig could experience the same joys.

Dr. Dantzig has only praise for Biron for making his dream of parenthood come true. "I didn't want to go through life without raising a child," he said. But in his late fifties he found himself unmarried and realized time was running out. "I'm in good health and good shape. I have the stamina and the energy," he said, "But really, it was my only option [to have children.] I tried adopting, but everybody rejected me because of my age."

So he turned to surrogacy, but the State of New York doesn't allow it. He found an egg donor through an agency in California and a surrogate to carry his children in Ohio. He thought he had all his bases covered. "The only thing I worried about was having a child and being successful at that," he said. "I never even thought of the birth certificate 'til the problem arose."

It's a problem that looms much larger than a blank spot on a piece of paper. "Theoretically, I do not have legal custody of the children. Without the birth certificate, I am not going to be able to get them into school. Without the birth certificate, I am not going to be able to get then on an airplane, take a trip or get a passport," Dr. Dantzig explained.

Science vs. law

Family law attorney Ellen Essig said any father would be correct to be deeply concerned about his name not appearing on the birth certificate. Essig said she's handled more than 100 surrogacy cases in the last five years. She wouldn't speak specifically about this case, but says our country uses birth certificates as the basis of our most fundamental rights. "The father of that child who is not on the birth certificate has no right," she said. "The children under that scenario have no legal identification to their parent."

Dr. Dantzig tried to fix the problem. He petitioned the Highland County Juvenile Court to get his name on the birth certificates and get Biron's name off, as she concurs. But to both of their surprise, Judge Kevin Greer ruled that he couldn't change the birth certificates, unless the children's "natural mother," as Ohio calls the biological donor, waives her rights to the children in court.

"First of all, I don't even know who she is," said Dr. Dantiz. "The natural mother was an anonymous egg donor. You can't notify someone that is anonymous of a child she doesn't even know exists at this point," he said.

In addition, the egg donor already waived her rights in her contract with the donor agency in California, promising to "waive any rights [...] to the donated eggs or any offspring" and that "[she] will not assert any claim of parentage." But Judge Greer said that's not enough. He wants the donor to say the same thing to the court.

Essig said in her experience, no judge has ever forced her to produce an egg donor in court. She says most judges accept the donors' waiver of rights in their agency contracts. However, "without a statute on surrogacy and with 88 different counties in Ohio, we have 88 different approaches" from judges, she said.

"Caught between rules and regulations"

As surrogacies have tripled in recent years, lawyers and judges are building new precedents. There may be no state law, but there is case law that judges can follow. Most often, the details work out. Essig calls this case extremely unsual. "Science and law don't often go hand in hand but we're getting there," she said.

Biron said Dr. Dantzig and the children are seemingly caught between rules and regulations that haven't kept up with science. "It's ridiculous because there are other surrogates all over the State of Ohio who do the same thing every day," she said, wondering why this one case didn't work out as intended.

For Dr. Dantzig, there is sadness and anger. "The children have rights and they have to be protected by society," he said. He added that as a physician, he wouldn't reveal the donor even if he knew who she was. "It's not right. She came to this program as an anonymous egg donor, and that's the way it should be kept. You've got to respect her rights."

As for the other woman involved, Jennifer Biron said she may have carried those children, but she has no relationship to them. She's bewildered that she is the only parent that Ohio recognizes to this day. "They should look at it for what it is," Biron said. "It's a father just trying to raise his two kids. I hope that they can get it taken care of so that he can move on with his life."

Dr. Dantzig appealed Judge Greer's decision all the way up to the Ohio Supreme Court but lost. He's hoping to refile the case with an attorney with more expertise in Ohio family law. To read the court decisions and see the entire interview with lawyer Ellen Essig about why parents increasingly turn to surrogacy, click on the links on the top of this page.

Have a comment on this story? Email the I-Team's Hagit Limor at hlimor@wcpo.com.

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ENGLAND: Two Mother IVF Families Enshrined in Law, May 20, 2008

Adoption Related!

LONDON TELEGRAPH
May 20, 2008

Two mother IVF families enshrined in law
By Andrew Porter Political Editor

A child will legally be able to have two mothers and no father after MPs voted to take away the need for fathers when parents undergo fertility treatment.

In a controversial move both women in a lesbian relationship will be able to have the status of legal parents when one of them gives birth.

It came as MPs prepared to vote on lowering the time limit on abortion.

Family campaigners have attacked the move which will change how families have been historically defined.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill will update previous legislation to remove the reference to a father.

Where two women are in a relationship and one has fertility treatment in order to conceive then the partner should be treated as the other “parent” even if they are not in a civil partnership.

In those circumstances no man - such as the sperm donor - can be treated as a father, the Bill says, to avoid a child having three legal parents.

Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative leader, led the opposition to the plans. He denied he was attempting to return to a former age where two-parent families were the norm.

He told MPs: “I am not trying to paint some incredible rosy picture. On the whole the absence of fathers generally has a detrimental effect on the child.”

On the clause requiring clinics to consider the need for a father before agreeing to IVF treatment he said: “Taking it away would be as though we are saying to those couples, particularly in the heterosexual world, that this is not an issue, that fathers are not important, they're less important than mothers and therefore you don't need to take them into consideration.”

However his bid to ensure the need for a father in fertility treatment was rejected by 292 votes to 217, a majority 75. Another Tory amendment which called for “a father figure” was also rejected by a majority of 68.

Last night Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, the leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales said it would be “wrong to pass a law” where parenthood was not recognised, “because clearly there must be a father for a child.”

Mark Simmonds, the Conservative health spokesman, earlier said there was no evidence single sex couples or single women had been disadvantaged or faced barriers to fertility treatment.

He suggested it was “odd and inconsistent, incompatible and paradoxical” that ministers promoted the importance of fathers through policies but wanted to eliminate the need for a father to be considered before IVF.

David Taylor, the Labour MP, added: “Wouldn't it be absolutely perverse at this stage to write the father out of the script?”

The change reflects the fact that in a heterosexual couple when the woman is inseminated with donor sperm the man is treated as the father even though he has no biological link to the resulting child. Male gay couples who have children via surrogate mothers or by adoption are not covered by the new legislation.

The Bill says that where there is reference to the father of a child such as on birth certificates this is to be read as reference to the female parent who did not give birth.

It will also say for the first time that babies born through fertility treatment do not need to have a father figure and parents will be banned from choosing the sex of their child.

Emily Thornberry, the Labour MP for Islington, said: “Why are we doing this in the 21st century? I always worry when people start saying they are only applying common sense, because so often common sense is a cover for discrimination, narrowness and an inability to face the 21st century.

”The important point is to give legal rights to lesbian couples and single women. Particularly when it comes to lesbian couples, at least you will then have two legally recognised parents, instead of one, and what is wrong with that.”

But Sir Patrick Cormack, who represents the Tory seat South Staffordshire, said: “Whatever may be the case in Islington, in Staffordshire it is thought normal for a child to have a mother and a father.

Most Tory MPs, including David Cameron, were against the move. He believes there should be a father figure involved with every child.

Dawn Primarolo, the Health Minister, said reinstating the need for a father would be discriminatory as it would “create an additional hurdle” for lesbian couples and single women.

It was “wholly inappropriate” to retain the “additional discriminatory burden” following the decisions to allow civil partnerships and adoption by gay couples.

Iris Robinson, the DUP, asked Miss Primarolo: “Can you envisage down the road a child going to primary school and being collected by two females or two males and the bullying and the abuse that these children will be exposed to?

”Or going into the parents' bedroom and finding two women making love or two men making love? And that's natural for a child to see?”

The abortion debate ended with MPs voting on the issue for the first time in 18 years. Mr Cameron hardened his view in the course of Tuesday.

He had originally indicated he would vote for a reduction on the time limit for abortions from 24 to 22 weeks. However, he subsequently decided to back a 20-week limit.

Gordon Brown backed the current limit of 24 weeks.

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ENGLAND: I Was the Daughter of a Sperm Donor, January 30, 2008

SUNDAY MAIL
January 30,2008

I Was the Daughter of a Sperm Donor
By Alison Smith-Squire

The champagne and laughter in the crowded marquee was flowing.

For Stella Kenrick the family party wasn't only a wonderful celebration of her beloved Aunt Peggy's 90th birthday, it was also a chance to catch up with friends and her many extended relatives.

But as Stella, a mother of two grown-up children, mingled with the guests, she could never have imagined that for her the day would be memorable for all the wrong

"Then she looked me in the eye and said: 'Your father isn't your real father - it was a donor insemination.' I was completely stunned."

"She said my parents had gone to a clinic in London. Obviously I know that these days people donate sperm and eggs so infertile couples can have a baby, but never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I'd been conceived that way - and in the 1950s.

"I thought of my late father and how much I'd loved him, thinking he was my real dad.

"Then I thought of my mother - we had never got on - and I felt sick as I realised the depth of 50 years of deception.

"In that instant the bottom dropped out of my world. I remember looking over at my brother, Charles, and thinking: 'You're not my brother any more.' It was a terrible moment."

Later that day, Peggy revealed that she had always known the truth but her mother, Anne, 89, had sworn her to secrecy.

"I never ascertained whether Peggy thought I already knew or whether she blurted out the truth because she was growing older and wanted to tell me before she died," she says.

"But from then on my life changed. It was as if my whole life had been built on a lie."

The revelation was to send Stella - ironically a professional private investigator - on a journey of self-discovery in a bid to unearth her true parentage.

She admits that until that fateful day three years ago, she had never questioned her family background. In fact, she had been proud of it.

"My father, Charles, came from a distinguished family. He was an army officer," she says.

"My mother was a teacher and we had a very middle-class upbringing."

Indeed, many would call it privileged. At the age of seven, her brother Charles - who according to Peggy had also been born by artificial insemination - was sent to the prestigious Westminster School.

Meanwhile, Stella went to board aged 11 at Wycombe Abbey in Buckinghamshire.

Today, fees at both schools cost more than £25,000 a year each. The family grew up in a large detached house with a huge garden in Henley-on-Thames, Oxon.

"We weren't spoilt but we had everything we could ever want," Stella says.

"In hindsight, my parents, who were well off but not rich, must have made huge financial sacrifices to give Charles and I such a good education.

"My parents were deeply religious. My mother had been a nun for a while before she married and we went to the local parish church as a family every Sunday."

However, while to outsiders they appeared the perfect family, behind closed doors all wasn't well.

Although Stella had a good relationship with her father, she felt distanced from her mother.

"Given that I wasn't really his child, it is incredible how loved I felt by him but unfortunately the same couldn't be said of my relationship with my mother," she remembers.

"If you had asked me who I took after I would have said him, not my mother who was in fact my biological relative.

"In contrast to my father, who was warm and such a gentleman, my mother was cold. She never once cuddled me as a child or told me she loved me.

"Looking back, she ruled the family with a rod of iron, showing her disapproval by retreating into moody silences.

Stella Kenrick
Painful truth: The man Stella thought was her father was not biologically related to her

"I loved playing the piano and took many examinations but anything less than a distinction was never good enough. She was pushy with Charles, now a pharmacologist, and very disappointed that he didn't study medicine.

"My father adored her but she gave him a hard time. Nothing he did was good enough."

After completing a degree in modern languages at Dublin University, Stella went to work in London as a PA for an international law firm. Then, when she was 22, her father suddenly died from a heart infection.

"It was a terrible shock as he was just 52," she says. "But the worst thing was that my mother never told my brother and me that he was ill until he was on his deathbed.

"He'd been in hospital for two or three days. By the time we reached the hospital our father was dead.

"Now, with hindsight, I believe she was terrified that he might tell Charles and I the truth before he died. He was such an honest man and it is a total mystery how he could have lived with such a huge secret.

"She was a domineering woman and I now think she must have threatened him never to tell us because I feel sure he would have wanted us to know the truth, however painful."

In 1981 Stella married John, a management consultant, and gave up work to care for their two children - Alice, now 24, and Tom, 21.

However, after 20 years together, Stella and her husband grew apart and divorced.

Yet, despite her mother being widowed, and the birth of the grandchildren, Stella's relationship with her never improved.

Eventually, her mother grew frail and was admitted, her mind still sharp, into a nursing home.

"When my aunt told me that my father had found he was infertile and that he and my mum had gone to a London clinic for sperm donation, a lot of things suddenly clicked into place about my mother," admits Stella.

"I was determined to find out the truth." The first thing Stella did was to tell her brother, Charles, who is two years older, about her discovery.

"That night as we drove back from the party to our hotel I asked him to stop the car," she recalls.

"He sat in a silence while I told him what Aunt Peggy had revealed to me.

"He was as shocked as I was. We knew we didn't look like one another - he is dark while I am fair.

"But the family joke had always been that I looked like Dad and he looked like Mum.

"I faced the truth that it was quite likely we weren't a full brother and sister and that he was from a different sperm donor from me."

A few days later, Stella visited her mother.

"I said how lovely the birthday party had been. She and her sister, Peggy, had never seen eye to eye and now I wondered if one of the reasons they'd fallen out over the years had been over her reluctance to tell my brother and me the truth about our conception.

"Then I said: 'Mum, when were you going to tell me the truth?' Her eyes looked up at me coldly. And then she spat, 'Never!'

"From that day she refused to speak to me, going into one of her disapproving silent moods. Devastated and in tears I fled home."

Stella planned to go back again to challenge her mother with more questions. But, a week later, she received a phone call from the nursing home. Her mother had died.

"I felt incredibly angry that my mother had once again had the last word," she says. "Worse, she had taken any information about our true identity with her to the grave.

"I simply couldn't comprehend how even in the throes of death anyone could be so incredibly selfish."

From then on both Charles and Stella pooled their resources in a desperate bid to track down their genetic fathers. But further shocking revelations were in store.

"My brother's godmother then told me that I had been conceived in a clinic in Harley St run by a woman called Dr Mary Barton in 1953," says Stella.

"Yet, what puzzled her most was that her parents even knew about sperm donation, let alone where to go for such a procedure.

"This was the 1950s when it had hardly been publicised," she says. "It would have been very expensive and as it was so new, it was potentially a medically risky thing to undertake.

"My parents were also so religious, respectable and middle class that I can hardly imagine them considering such a thing."

While the first baby reportedly conceived after sperm donation was born in the U.S. in 1885, nothing much had been heard about it in the UK until a pioneering gynaecologist called Dr Mary Barton opened her Harley St clinic in the 1940s.

This was where Stella's parents went for their fertility treatment. Dr Barton, who experimented with sperm donation during World War II, caused uproar after she published a paper on Artificial Insemination by Donor (AID) in 1945 in the British Medical Journal.

The Archbishop of Canterbury decried it as unethical, a commission set up to investigate it even ruled it should be regarded as a criminal offence and the practice was driven underground.

Stella adds: "Rumours claim a fire at the clinic some years later destroyed all the records. But it seems Dr Barton, her husband Bertold Wiesner and a handful of her male friends were responsible for perhaps hundreds - maybe even thousands - of babies being born, known today as the 'Barton Brood'.

"Many of the small gene pool of donors consisted of Eastern European men, and Jewish men who had fled countries such as Czechoslovakia-Poland and Hungary for sanctuary in Britain during the war."

Along with people who know they too are the product of a sperm donor, and have also traced their parentage back to the "Barton Brood", Stella has had a DNA test and registered with UK Donor Link, a government charity set up to try to match donor siblings. But no matches have so far been made.

"In those days parents were told not to tell the children - perhaps because of the social shame," says Stella.

"It is a chilling thought that I probably have many half siblings but that those people most probably do not know they were conceived this way.

"I am a very traditional person and have found the fact that I was conceived in such a cold way - rather than as a result of a loving relationship - incredibly upsetting.

"Apparently Dr Barton even did the inseminations using a turkey baster."

However, all this is more than Stella's brother has managed to unearth about his background.

"My parents were living in Germany when he was conceived," she says, "so he has been unable to find out any information."

Meanwhile, she has broken the news to her two children that the family on her father's side are not related to them at all.

"They were shocked and in fact the whole issue has had a far-reaching effect on my life," she explains.

"One side of my family is missing. Relatives my children grew up with aren't related at all.

"Medical history I thought I had is wrong. A huge chunk of my life isn't there."

In the summer of 2006, Stella married fellow private investigator Nick, 59. "He has been very supportive but says what does it matter now? He thinks I shouldn't let it dominate my life," she says.

"I will never harbour any anger towards my aunt for telling me because I hate the thought that it had been kept from me for so long.

"There are still days when I look in the mirror at my face and ask my reflection: 'Who are you?'

"I'm left feeling frustrated. I can imagine it must be terrible to be infertile, but it does seem the laws are skewed towards the parents who want a baby. Surely the child's rights should come first?

"Parents have no right to pass a child who is not genetically theirs off as their own.

"They should be made to tell the truth. In fact, I believe it can make parents resentful to a child.

"I now think my mother felt guilty and a failure about the way I was conceived and that was why she was so cold."

Nevertheless, as science increasingly reaches new heights to give infertile couples their longed for child, more and more adults will surely discover unsavoury truths about their conception.

And in the years to come, it would seem that stories like this will sadly become much more common.

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ENGLAND: Children Cheated of an Identity, January 13, 2008

SUNDAY LONDON TIMES
January 13, 2008

Children cheated of an identity
David Alton

The heartrending story of twins who were separated and adopted at birth, only to meet later in life and marry, could easily be dismissed as a Greek tragedy, a one in a million coincidence. That would be a mistake.

With many children now conceived by in vitro fertilisation (IVF), and having the same biological parent, the chances of this happening again have significantly increased.

The case illustrates the importance of providing every child - whether born naturally, as these twins were, or by IVF - with a true record of their identity. A law professor has been in touch with me to say how such a record averted a marriage between an adopted brother and sister.

The current debate in parliament about what appears on birth certificates could either make the situation worse – by allowing the true identity of biological parents to be removed – or provide greater transparency and truth. You only have to look at websites such as the Donor Sibling Registry to see why this matters.

This database enables parents to make contact with the anonymous donors who supplied half of the genes of their offspring; children can search for their unknown genetic parents; and families may make contact with genetic half-siblings with a donor in common.

Thousands of people have registered on that site looking for sperm donors, parents and for the children they helped to conceive. The site states that the largest match made so far has been between 26 half-siblings to a single donor, who is also listed.

One man, a Californian artist, is father to 25 babies by 18 women. In Britain, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) draws the line at 10 donor-conceived children.

In the case of sperm donation – since the sperm donations would probably be at the same IVF clinic or at least in the same city, and possibly all within a year or so, for example a student at university – there may well be a good chance that children born from these donations will grow up in the same city at around the same time, possibly some of them going to the same school, even in the same year group.

Without absolute knowledge of your genetic profile the possibility of unwitting incestuous relationships is obvious.

Three years ago I pressed the government to give British children the right to know the identity of their biological parents – and the donor anonymity that previously applied was lifted. But this tells only half the story. We gave the right to inquire but created no duty to tell.

The HFEA is the guardian of that information, and at 18 a person has the right to ask for those details – in law they might have been married for two years by then. More problematic still is that your inquiry will be dependent on second sight – some intuition that the parents bringing you up are not your natural parents. How many young people would call the HFEA, or even think of doing so?

Witnesses who gave evidence to parliament expressed anger and frustration and described the often frantic efforts they had made to discover their true identity. One woman said: “I was angry, I had been cheated, and discriminated against, and lumbered with a fake identity.”

We must also guard against undermining the dignity of human procreation and the human relationship between one generation and the next and turning children into accessories.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is clear: we must ensure that every child can “preserve his or her identity”.

For an adopted child we have increasingly moved towards telling them the truth at an early age. That good principle should apply to donor-conceived children. Don’t they have the same right to know the truth?

In a world that for security reasons wants to identify us by our DNA and test us for genetic disorders, it would be wrong not to provide this information. If a child discovers the information by accident, or as the consequence of a tragic scenario, they will despise those who kept it from them. We may also jeopardise their future health.

One of the deepest questions that we ask ourselves is “who am I?” The right to lineage affects us all – and uncertainty of parentage can be profoundly unsettling.

The guidance of the Oracle of Delphi to the Lydian king, Croesus, was that to be happy, he must know himself. The popularity of television programmes such as Who Do You Think You Are? shows that those ancient desires to know lineage, genealogy and identity are not confined to antiquity.

Baroness Ruth Deech – an expert in family law – is rightly asking parliament to reject the government’s proposal to allow the identity of fathers not to appear on birth certificates. “Mine is a plea not to include a deliberate biological lie on a birth certificate,” she says.

So what should we do instead? When a child comes into the world, parents would get two birth certificates, a long and short version. These should accurately tell the child’s true story.

One certificate could contain the basic facts of your birth while the longer version could record the fact of conception by donor. When using the certificate to obtain a passport or driving licence it would thus be possible to sustain family privacy while also allowing for truthfulness.

Crucially, this legal document would be a guarantee that every citizen would be able to establish privately the details of their true identity.

That, in turn, might lessen the chances of tragic outcomes in the future.

David Alton is an independent crossbench peer


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ENGLAND: Foetal Attraction, January 13, 2008

SUNDAY LONDON TIMES
January 13, 2008

Foetal Attraction


The revelation that a pair of twins had inadvertently married raises questions about the attraction of siblings who suffer separation and how the IVF explosion could lead to more such cases
Richard Woods and Claire Newell

Imagine what they thought, imagine the turmoil they endured. They are the twins who, it emerged on Friday, were separated at birth and given up for adoption only to meet by chance years later - and marry.

The man and woman, unaware that they were brother and sister, had grown up separately, perhaps far apart, in different families. Yet when fate brought them together again, they experienced an uncanny bond and a sexual attraction.

As Lord Alton, who revealed the case, said: “They were never told they were twins. They met later in life and felt an inevitable attraction.”

Did they sense some blood relationship? It certainly must have seemed odd: both had been born on the same day in the same year. Did they just take that as an incredible, happy coincidence? Did they not know they were adopted? Or did they suspect they were related, only for the power of their attraction to prove overwhelming?

According to Alton, who was told about the case by a judge, the couple married and only later discovered that they were twins. “The judge had to deal with the consequences of their marriage, and all the issues of their separation,” he said.

“For them it was a terrible tragedy. It was an incredibly heartrending experience.”

The marriage was annulled at a special hearing in the High Court last year with the judge ruling it had never been valid. Under the 1986 Marriage Act, it is illegal to marry your sibling, parent, grandparent, grandchild and various other blood relatives.

The identity of the twins has not been revealed, nor their ages or where they are from. Nor is it known how they met or how they found out that they are twins. Experts, however, suspect they must be at least 30 because the law on adoption changed in 1976, making it much easier for adopted children to discover their biological parents. Since then, too, every effort has been made to keep together siblings put up for adoption.

Alton raised the case in the House of Lords not for its own sake but to draw attention to a wider issue. He believes that the risk of siblings unwittingly marrying each other is rising fast because of the prevalence of IVF treatment.

Since 1991 more than 27,000 babies have been born from donated sperm, eggs and embryos. As a result there may be thousands of people who unwittingly share one parent - and who may one day meet and fall in love.

What are the risks? Do such unwitting siblings have a special attraction to each other? And does the law need to be changed so that birth certificates always make it clear who a child’s biological parents are?

THE extraordinary case of the twins who married is not the first time a brother and sister have been lovers without knowing their blood relationship. In one case in the US, a Polish couple had 13 children and gave up nine for adoption.

They were all placed with families in a fairly small geographical area. Some of the children were later told they had been adopted, others were not.

Gary Klahr grew up not knowing he was adopted and in 1979 he met and dated Micka Zeman. They had a relationship for six months - and only later found out they were brother and sister.

“My relationship with my sister is the kind of thing that could have you jumping out of the window,” he said later. “But we didn’t know. Thank God we didn’t get married.”

Klahr also learnt that his best friend, a man he had met by chance in a bar, was in fact one of his brothers.

In Britain, William and Annette Watch had their marriage annulled in 1971 after it turned out that they were half-brother and half-sister. Soon after William was born, his parents separated and William was put into care. Later he went to boarding school and joined the army.

He fell in love with Annette, whom he believed to be the daughter of Leslie Ingham, a married man who had also begun a relationship with William’s mother. In fact, Annette was the daughter of Ingham and William’s mother - making her William’s half-sister.

When a court declared their marriage incestuous, Annette said: “I dream of having children. But it’s Bill I want first. We’ve been so happy together and just can’t bear it.”

Yesterday a media scrum descended on the house of Bill and Anne Watch in Andover, believing them to be the couple. Neighbours said that they had lived there for decades and had brought up two boys. Whether they were adopted or not is unclear.

Alton also says he has been told by a law professor of another incident in Britain where a teenage couple, at least one of whom was adopted, planned to marry, but because of their ages detailed checks were made on their parentage. It turned out that they were brother and sister, and the marriage did not go ahead.

With identical twins, there are powerful reasons for a special relationship - even if they have been separated. Having come from a single egg and sperm, they have the same genetic make-up, which exerts a profound influence on their lives even if they have been brought up in different circumstances.

However, with fraternal twins - who come from two eggs - and ordinary siblings, fewer genes are shared and there is no obvious reason why there should be an innate powerful attraction. Yet researchers believe that a peculiar syndrome does exist in cases where close relatives meet after being separated in childhood.

Glenn Wilson, a reader in personality at the Institute of Psychiatry, said: “It’s now a widely recognised phenomenon that if you meet someone you have been separated from as a child you may find you are extremely attracted to them. It’s known as Genetic Sexual Attraction, but it’s genetic only in that you are closely related to that person - it is not necessarily caused by strictly genetic factors. It could be caused by a very early experience of close family, which sets up your blueprint of what would be a good mate later on.

“People who meet family members later in life have described how they feel a ‘bolt of lightning’. ”

Ivor Lytton was one of those who experienced the thunderbolt. In 1998 Lytton, from Edinburgh, met Rita Meadows, who had grown up in South Africa, at a dinner party in Scotland. Lytton had organised the event after tracing Meadows, who had been adopted as a baby. She was his sister - but he had no idea how powerful the effect of meeting her would be.

“From the moment we met, I was smitten,” he said later. “She put a smile in my heart and a spring in my step.”

It nearly ruined his marriage and his life. “I didn’t choose to fall in love with her, or expect to feel sexual desire. It just happened,” he said. “Even in front of my wife, I made no attempt to hide my adoration.”

The danger is that siblings, unaware of their relationship, may marry and have children. The similarity in their DNA poses significant health risks.

“Siblings share half their genes just like a parent and offspring,” said Steve Jones, professor of genetics at University College London.

“So the problems which could arise from having a child with your brother and sister and having one with a parent are the same. There is little data for the implications of sibling marriage, but we know that whatever the childhood death rate is in a country, it is doubled if a child is born from two cousins.

“If a child is born from two siblings, the risks are likely to increase further. Many of us have recessive genes for genetic disorders like cystic fibrosis. Ifa person who has one of these genes has a child with a cousin or a sibling the chance of disability or death increases.”

UNDER current law, couples who conceive children using donor eggs or sperm do not have to tell the child or register the fact on the birth certificate.

People conceived since April 2005 from donated sperm or eggs have a right to know their biological parents’ identity once they reach 18 - but there is no requirement to tell them. They may not suspect that whoever brought them up is not their biological originator.

Alton and others are challenging the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill now going through parliament. They argue that in the age of IVF it is more important than ever for children to know their biological past.

“There needs to be more clarity in public records,” said Alton. “This is to prevent incestuous relationships, but also for reasons of genetics and disease prevention.”

Such is the scale of IVF now that in America one donor recently calculated that he could theoretically have fathered 4,960 children after 15 years of donating sperm. “That’s the top mathematical possibility,” he said. After taking into account failure rates and other variables, he put a more realistic estimate at 432.

In Britain, donors are restricted to 10 offspring. Nevertheless, it still means the risks of half-brothers and half-sisters meeting are rising fast.

However, some experts argue that forcing parents to record the full biological origins of children on birth certificates could sow even more confusion and family disruption. They point out that in an estimated 3%-10% of ordinary births, the husband or partner of the mother is not the true father of the child.

Stephen Hopwood, of Stowe Family Law in Harrogate, believes the current system gives sufficient protection. “You have to appreciate that [the case of the twins] is almost ludicrously farfetched, and a kneejerk reaction to difficult cases always makes bad law.”

He believes the laws on adoption have made such cases highly unlikely. “Prior to 1976, if you gave a child up for adoption, that was it, you never saw the child again. Since the 1976 Adoption Act, records are kept in a stricter way and it is easier for children to trace their biological parents.”

Mo O’Reilly, director of child placement for the British Association for Adoption & Fostering, said: “This situation is traumatic for the people involved, but incredibly rare. Today adopted children grow up with a greater knowledge of their birth families - and organisations try to place brothers and sisters together.”

But for anyone adopted before 1976, finding their biological parents is much more convoluted. And that may be why the twins who married did not discover their relationship until it was too late.

Additional reporting: Abul Taher

Interview with Paula Bernstein and Elyse Schein


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ENGLAND: Twins Marry, Unaware They're Related, Jaunary 13, 2008

NEW ZEALAND HERALD,
January 13, 2008

Twins Marry Unaware They're Related


Twins adopted by separate parents soon after birth later fell in love and married, unaware they were related, it has emerged.

The marriage was annulled by High Court judges, who ruled it had never been legally valid.

The case emerged during a debate in the House of Lords when pro-life campaigner Lord Alton of Liverpool raised the couple's plight to highlight what he said were deficiencies in the Human Embryology and Tissues Bill, making its way through Parliament.

The couple were adopted by different parents and separated soon after birth. They were never told they were twins and did not discover the truth until after their wedding.

Lord Alton, who learned of the case from a High Court judge, is concerned the bill, which makes it easier for lesbian and gay couples to have "test-tube" babies, weakens the rights of children to know their father.

He said: "[The brother and sister] met later in life and felt an inevitable attraction. I suspect that it will be a matter of litigation in the future if we do not make information of this kind available to children who have been donor-conceived."

The bill recognises same-sex couples as legal parents of children conceived through the use of donated sperm, eggs or embryos. Lord Alton said there would be nothing on birth certificates to let children know they had been donor-conceived, and raised concerns that IVF, through which one man can father up to 10 children, would lead to more such cases.

He was worried that the biological identity of one parent could be removed from the birth certificate, and recommended that the child's genetic history should be kept on record to prevent further mix-ups.

"The state is colluding in a deception," he said. "One of the most fundamental things of all is to know who you are. "

Dr Allan Pacey, a lecturer in andrology at the University of Sheffield and secretary of the British Fertility Society, said: "Whether or not you know you are donor-conceived depends on whether or not you are told. But I don't think you need legislation."


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ENGLAND: Parted-at-birth Twins "Married," January 11, 2008

BBC NEWS,
January 11, 2008

Parted-at-birth Twins 'Married'

A pair of twins who were adopted by separate families as babies got married without knowing they were brother and sister, a peer told the House of Lords.

A court annulled the British couple's union after they discovered their true relationship, Lord Alton said.

The peer - who was told of the case by a High Court judge involved - said the twins felt an "inevitable attraction".

He said the case showed how important it was for children to be able to find out about their biological parents.

Details of the identities of the twins involved have been kept secret, but Lord Alton said the pair did not realise they were related until after their marriage.

'Truth will out'

The former Liberal Democrat MP raised the couple's case during a House of Lords debate on the Human Fertility and Embryology Bill in December.

"They were never told that they were twins," he told the Lords.

"They met later in life and felt an inevitable attraction, and the judge had to deal with the consequences of the marriage that they entered into and all the issues of their separation."

He told the BBC News website that their story raises the wider issue of the importance of strengthening the rights of children to know the identities of their biological parents.

We are naturally drawn to people who are quite similar to ourselves
Pam Hodgkins, Adults Affected by Adoption

"If you start trying to conceal someone's identity, sooner or later the truth will out," he said.

"And if you don't know you are biologically related to someone, you may become attracted to them and tragedies like this may occur."

Pam Hodgkins, chief executive officer of the charity Adults Affected by Adoption (NORCAP) said there had been previous cases of separated siblings being attracted to each other.

"We have a resistance, a very strong incest taboo where we are aware that someone is a biological relative," she said.

"But when we are unaware of that relationship, we are naturally drawn to people who are quite similar to ourselves.

'Incredibly rare'

"And of course there is unlikely to be anyone more similar to any individual than their sibling."

Mo O'Reilly, director of child placement for the British Association for Adoption and Fostering, said the situation was traumatic for the people involved, but incredibly rare.

"Thirty or 40 years ago it would have been more likely that twins be separated and, brought up without knowledge of each other," she said.

Today, however, adopted children grow up with a greater knowledge of their birth families - and organisations try to place brothers and sisters together.

If that were not possible, the siblings would still have some form of contact with each other.

"This sad case illustrates why, over the last 20-30 years, the shift to openness in adoption was so important," Ms O'Reilly added.


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ENGLAND: Unknowing Twins Marry Each Other, February 11, 2008

CNN
January 11, 2008

Unknowing Twins Marry Each Other

LONDON, England -- A set of British twins who were separated at birth went on to marry each other without realizing they were related, the UK Press Association reported Friday.

Former British MP David Alton highlighted the case of the twins who unwittingly married each other.

The brother and sister, who were adopted by separate parents, were given an annulment after a High Court judge ruled that the marriage had never been valid.

Their identities and details of their relationship have been kept secret, but the Press Association reported that the duo did not find out that they were blood relatives until after they were married.

David Alton, a member of the House of Lords, revealed their situation as a way of highlighting perceived shortcomings in the Human Embryology and Tissues Bill which is now going through Britain's Parliament.

He first heard of the twins' marriage in a conversation with a High Court judge, and initially raised the case in a House of Lords debate on December 10.

Alton said: "(The brother and sister) met later in life and felt an inevitable attraction, and the judge had to deal with the consequences of the marriage that they entered into and all the issues of their separation.

"I suspect that it will be a matter of litigation in the future if we do not make information of this kind available to children who have been donor-conceived."

Alton is concerned that the new bill would allow the biological identity of one parent to be removed from the birth certificate, PA reported, and that there would be no way for the child to know if they had been donor-conceived.

He told PA on Friday: "The state is colluding in a deception. We are opening the door to more cases like this one. One of the most fundamental things of all is to know who you are. The issue here is about human rights.

"A birth certificate that omits any mention of your true origin falsifies your history in a very significant way."


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ENGLAND, The Changing Face of the Family, January 10, 2008

THE LONDON DAILY MIRROR
January 10, 2007

The Changing Face of the Family

Every child who has come from a donor egg or sperm will have a symbol stamped on their birth certificate to show that the person they call Mum or Dad isn't their biological parent.

An influential group of peers last month called for the law change to force parents to reveal donor conceptions.

But this isn't the only controversial new proposal. Gillian Lockwood, medical director of Midland Fertility Services says: "The laws governing everything from egg freezing to sperm donors will have a huge impact on the future of the family - in good ways and bad.

"We have to get used to the fact that the image of a traditional 'Janet and John' family, with mother at home and father working nine to five, is a myth - and probably always has been.

"Instead of wringing our hands at the way society is turning out and trying to legislate against it, we need to accommodate the reality of life. The most important thing is that children are brought up in a happy, loving family."

Here, we take a look at some of the possible new laws and the effect they could have on our lives...

Parents forced to tell children that they are from donors

Proposed Change: Under the proposals, a special mark stamped next to a child's name on their birth certificate would reveal whether he or she was conceived naturally or with the help of a donor.

At the moment, parents are under no obligation to tell their children if they are the result of donor eggs or sperm. If this became law, parents who hid these facts could be fined or imprisoned.

WHAT THIS COULD MEAN FOR FAMILIES:

Pros: The idea is in response to concerns about the growing number born through assisted fertility treatments. It would ensure children know their biological heritage and discover if they're likely to suffer from any hereditary diseases.

Cons: Fertility pressure groups think this could do more harm than good. They argue that children could discover they were not genetically related to their parents by accidentally stumbling across a birth certificate. Plus birth certificates are asked for in many different application processes - which would mean that everyone could automatically know if someone was conceived with the help of a donor.

Gillian Lockwood says: "Around 10 per cent of birth certificates have the name of someone who isn't the baby's true father. Some have no father at all. Do they propose to give mums lie-detector tests?"

Limit IVF attempts to one embryo

Proposed Change: Clinics are currently allowed to implant two or three embryos in a woman's womb during IVF. This maximises the chances of at least one resulting in a successful pregnancy, but also increases the chances of having twins or triplets.

The new proposal, from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, aims to limit women to one embryo per attempt.

WHAT THIS COULD MEAN FOR FAMILIES:

Pros: It will cut the number of potentially dangerous multiple births. And it will reduce the emotional and financial impact of families who longed for one baby but struggle to cope with twins or triplets.

Cons: It could spell heartache for thousands of childless couples by reducing their chances of IVF success and increasing the money they have to spend on further attempts.

Ban on anonymous sperm or egg donor

The change: In April 2005, donor anonymity was banned in Britain.

From the age of 18 all donor-conceived children now have a right to know the identity of their genetic parents.

This means that if you donate sperm or eggs you must be willing to be listed on the HFEA (Human Fertilisation And Embryology Authority) register. The impact of these law changes was both immediate and dramatic, and donations of sperm and eggs plummeted.

WHAT IT MEANS FOR FAMILIES:

Pros: It will put a stop to the whole generation of children growing up without knowing who their biological mothers or fathers are.

Children will be able to find out if they have any genetic predisposition to certain illnesses.

Cons: Prospective donors have been put off by the fear of someone turning up in 18 years' time and asking: "Are you my real mum?"

Egg and sperm donation are at an all-time low, with too few donors to match the number of infertile couples.

Spare-part babies

Proposed Change: Parents of sick children will be allowed to use IVF to create "spare-part babies" under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, which is expected to become law in 2009.

WHAT THIS COULD MEAN FOR FAMILIES:

Pros: An unprecedented opportunity to save your sick or dying child with a perfectly biologically matched baby. "Saviour siblings" will be able to help cure their older brothers and sisters of conditions such as leukaemia and sickle cell anaemia.

Cons: Some fear doctors are "playing God" and risk turning children into commodities. An otherwise healthy baby is immediately subject to medical intervention and may be in and out of hospital for some time for the sake of their sibling.

And parents may have a child that they didn't plan for or want in their own right, which could lead to emotional difficulties for all concerned further down the line.

Older women travelling for IVF

The change: IVF clinics in the UK have a cut-off age of 55 for treatment, so more and more women in their late-50s and 60s are travelling abroad to have babies in countries with more relaxed laws. There was controversy two years ago about Patricia Rashbrook becoming a mother at 63 after her baby was conceived using a donor egg in an IVF clinic in Russia.

WHAT IT MEANS FOR FAMILIES:

Pros: Childless couples who are desperate for a baby can finally have the chance to conceive, whatever their age.

Cons: Older mums may struggle to find the energy to cope with raising young children and face the prospect of being 80 when their child is 20.

Critics say it's wrong to have children so late as you have a high probability of dying before they turn 30 and may not be around for future grandchildren.

Egg freezing

The change: Several clinics in Britain now offer women the opportunity to freeze their eggs for use at a later date.

Previously, it was only fertilised embryos that could be frozen but, thanks to scientific advances in egg storage, unfertilised eggs have now been successfully frozen, thawed and used to create an IVF pregnancy and healthy baby.

WHAT IT MEANS FOR FAMILIES:

Pros: Female cancer patients who have radiation treatment, which can destroy the ovaries, now have the chance to be a mother.

It avoids problems such as the case of Natallie Evans, who was not allowed to keep frozen embryos because her ex-husband wouldn't give permission for her to use them. With egg freezing, the woman has sole ownership of her eggs. In theory, this allows her to stop her biological clock until she finds Mr Right or is in a position to take a career break.

Cons: More older mothers. With the average age for giving birth already rising, egg-freezing could persuade women to leave trying for a baby later still, further pushing up the age of mothers and increasing the health risks.

The older your eggs, the lower the success rate, so there is a good chance that unless you freeze eggs before the age of 35 you'll end up disappointed


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UNITED STATES: The Ethicist--Seminal Revelation, December 30, 2008

Our Baster Nation comrades are also denied the right of heritage and identity. I will include articles about their activities, too.

THE NEW YORK TIMES SUNDAY MAGAZINE
December 30, 2007

The Ethicist
Seminal Revelation
By RANDY COHEN

My fiancé received a letter at his office from a woman claiming to be the product of his sperm donation nearly 20 years ago. Her stated intention was to receive medical information, something he would willingly provide, but she strongly implied that she desired more, and he does not wish further contact. Was it ethical of her to obtain his name and business address? Must he reply? — name withheld, Portland, Ore.

Your fiancé is right to provide pertinent medical information to this young woman. The consequences to her of not having it could be dire. One way he might respond — while, quite reasonably, deterring further contact — is to have the clinic where he made his sperm donation give her only the medical information and nothing else. If the clinic is uncooperative or, after 20 years, no longer extant, he can proceed via some other middleman — a lawyer, for example.

There is nothing wrong with this woman’s contacting him or with her resourcefully tracking him down. She made no promise not to. It would, of course, be wrong for the clinic to assist her in that effort if it guaranteed your fiancé anonymity. Such promises can be an effective way to encourage sperm donors, who provide a service much valued both by couples having trouble conceiving and by single women eager to start a family.

While this woman may propose closer contact, your fiancé need not acquiesce. He, too, has a say in the matter. While parents have ethical obligations to their children, especially their young children, parenthood is not defined merely by a genetic connection.

UPDATE: The fiancé, now husband, instructed the clinic to provide the woman with medical information but to disclose nothing further about him. The clinic insisted that it had not given out his contact information. It warned him about the possibility of a nonrelative trying to scam a putative parent, a scheme it has encountered before.

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