Out of 68 million people in the UK, there are just 29,725 individuals who have no legal right to know their parentage. My child is one of them. It’s clearly wrong, and I am to blame. Twenty-seven years ago I decided to have a baby on my own. I didn’t have a partner, but two different men offered to be the donor. I went to a leading fertility doctor, the late Prof Ian Craft, who had produced the first test-tube twins. He advised that research showed it was less emotionally complicated for a child to have an anonymous donor – research I have since been unable to locate.
So that’s what I did. Aged nearly 45, I gave birth to a wonderful healthy daughter. At the time, anonymous donors were guaranteed anonymity for life. So by making that decision I gave up my child’s right to ever know who her father was. Now I see the ethical flaw in the arrangement. How could I have given up someone else’s right to know who they are?
