‘Who’s my dad?’

Aviva Coopersmith is the author of the forthcoming book Ill Conceived: The Troubling History of Sperm Donation, Fertility Fraud, and Me.

My mom only knew my biological father by one alphanumeric name: “A198.”

It was 1989, and my mother, 40 years old and single, had gone to an Ottawa-based fertility doctor to be artificially inseminated with sperm from an unknown donor. She signed an agreement stating that his identity would never be revealed to her, and was provided with only a few sparse details about him: he was six feet tall; he studied medicine; he played piano and guitar; his father had hay fever. And that was a lot more information than most parents undergoing donor insemination received at the time.

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This seems like an anachronism. It feels almost self-evident that we should all be empowered to know about where we came from, and what we might face in the future. The right to know one’s biological origins is even considered a fundamental right by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which was ratified by this country in 1991. Yet to this day, anonymity among sperm donors continues to be the norm across Canada.

Although advocates have long argued that people conceived with donated sperm, eggs, or embryos have a right to know their genetic origins, assisted reproduction regulations in this country haven’t kept in step. Instead, they either actively encourage anonymity, or remain silent on the matter.

Thanks to recent amendments to Quebec’s Charter and Civil Code, though, that’s about to change. On June 6, new provincial rules will come into effect, mandating that certain identifying information be made available to donor-conceived people (DCP) regarding the “third party” who made their existence possible. While far from perfect, the legislation is a crucial move toward formally recognizing the rights of a group whose best interests have, until now, largely been ignored. The rest of Canada should take note.

Today, an increasing proportion of people using donor sperm are single or LGBTQ, and – like my mom – they don’t usually have a choice about whether their kids will eventually ask the question, “Who’s my dad?” But for heterosexual couples, the fact of artificial insemination is much easier to hide, and until recently, only a small minority revealed to their children that they had used a donor. This secrecy was often fuelled by worries of social stigma and conventional views linking male fertility to masculinity, and it was further encouraged by doctors who told their patients that honesty would be bad for family unity.

The fertility clinics these doctors worked for, and the gamete banks from which they sourced their sperm, had an existential stake in maintaining anonymity: It was thought that men wouldn’t donate if their identities were known, for fear of unwanted emotional and financial demands from offspring. Parents of donor-conceived people also had reason to be worried about possible future claims: Clear legal boundaries around the familial relationships that result from donor insemination hadn’t been established everywhere. In Ontario, for example, it took until 2017 for the law to clarify that a donor cannot be considered a legal parent.

While it has become more common for straight parents to be open about their use of a donor, it’s still far from universal. In many cases, the decision to disclose is simply driven by worry that a child will one day take an online DNA test and inadvertently learn the truth. However, others have come to understand what studies have shown for decades: Telling a person they’re donor-conceived from a young age leads to the best outcomes – in terms of both psychological health and relationships with parents.

According to a growing body of research, though, simply disclosing the involvement of a donor is not enough: specific knowledge about one’s genetic origins can play a critical role in identity formation and emotional well-being. While not all donor-conceived people are interested in having a relationship with their biological parent, many feel it’s important for their sense of self to at least know the person’s identity. Providing them with this information, along with complete medical histories and the opportunity to find any genetic half-siblings, also affects DCP’s ability to make informed decisions about their health, their family ties, and even their sexual partners.

Recognizing this, more and more prospective parents are using known donors – friends, acquaintances, people met through online forums – or identity-release donors (strangers open to sharing identifying information, or even to contact, usually when a child turns 18). Yet, as of 2022, 70 per cent of banks in the U.S. – where most sperm used in Canada is purchased – were still accepting anonymous donors. While many of these companies also offer “open ID” sperm, they often sell it at a premium, and make no effort to keep track of donors’ updated health information or whereabouts.

Numerous jurisdictions have already banned anonymous gamete donation; in Sweden it happened in 1985. Elsewhere, things are changing: In the United Kingdom, donor-conceived children born on or after April 1, 2005, can access certain medical, personal and physical details about their biological parent when they turn 16; at 18, they can learn the donor’s name, birthdate and address. This information is housed in a national registry, which includes data on all fertility treatments undertaken in the country since 1991, and which can also be used to help connect DCP with genetic siblings. But in Canada, none of this information is comprehensively tracked. It’s impossible to know how many donor-conceived people there are, or how many times a particular individual has donated.

Canada hasn’t completely ignored the issue of donor anonymity, though. More than 30 years ago, as part of the federal government’s first real attempt to govern fertility treatments, the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies recommended that non-identifying sperm donor information be held in a national registry. This guidance was incorporated into the Assisted Human Reproduction Act (AHRA), which came into force in 2004.

While the AHRA continued to protect anonymity, any effort to collect and centralize donor information would have been a win for DCP. This soon became moot, however, when Quebec challenged the legislation on constitutional grounds, claiming that much of it didn’t fall under Parliament’s authority. In 2010, the Supreme Court of Canada agreed, striking down parts of the Act. The federal government had to repeal many of the AHRA’s provisions (including those related to collecting donor information); the registry was dismantled; and it was left to the provinces to fill the regulatory gap.

Although some provinces have since established assisted reproduction legislation, it has largely related to defining legal parentage, or the funding of fertility treatments. In 2008, it briefly seemed like donor anonymity might end in B.C., when a donor-conceived woman named Olivia Pratten argued in court that her Charter rights had been violated – both because the province’s adoption law discriminated against the donor-conceived by not granting them the same access to information about their origins as adoptees, and because, in the province’s failure to facilitate this access, our rights to liberty and security were denied. In 2011, a B.C. Supreme Court judge ordered the province to amend its Adoption Act because, as Ms. Pratten argued, it caused psychological harm to people who didn’t have knowledge of their genetic backgrounds. But the province’s Court of Appeal overturned that decision in 2012, and the Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear an appeal.

Given Quebec’s role in dismantling the national donor registry, it feels fitting (if somewhat ironic) that it has now become the first province to take steps to end anonymity. As part of efforts to modernize family law, Quebec’s Charter was amended in 2022 to include every person’s right to know their origins. In 2023, Bill 12 was unanimously adopted, recognizing this right, and providing directives for the creation of a donor register.

Beginning on June 6, donor-conceived people over the age of 14 (or younger, if they have parental consent) will be able to access certain information, “if available,” about their biological parents. This includes their name, age, ethnic origin, physical characteristics such as eye and hair colour, personal details like profession and hobbies, and contact information, if the donor has consented. If the donation occurred prior to June 6, the individual’s identity will not be revealed, though they can agree to make themselves known – but it is a major win that anonymous donations in Quebec will soon no longer be possible.

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That said, it’s not perfect. One element of the AHRA that survived Quebec’s earlier challenge was a national ban on purchasing gametes. Although donors can be reimbursed for expenses, they cannot be paid for biological material, and today there are all of 26 active sperm donors in Canada. Only seven of these men are in Quebec, severely limiting the number of people to whom the anonymity ban will apply.

Andréane Letendre is a 41-year-old who learned at 12 that she was donor-conceived. She has long been involved in DCP advocacy work in Quebec, and as she pointed out, sperm is sourced from outside the province “99 per cent of the time,” often from banks that cannot be compelled to share donors’ identities. To address this, she thinks that clinics in Quebec should not be allowed to administer publicly-funded fertility treatments using anonymous gametes.

Additionally, if parents conceive using a donor – whether Quebec-based or not – they are now supposed to report their child’s birth to the government, and submit information about the biological parent (“if known”). Importantly, the Civil Code also now states that it is parents’ responsibility to tell their children they are donor-conceived. According to Ms. Letendre, the wording of this is vague, especially in French: “‘il appartient au parent’ – it belongs to the parents to tell them,” she said. “That kind of means nothing, actually. Do they have to tell? Should they? ... There are no consequences if they don’t.” Ms. Letendre worries that, with no way to enforce these provisions, many parents will continue to keep their use of a donor a secret.

Michelle Giroux, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, told me that anyone 14 or older will now be able to go to the government to ask if they were donor-conceived. As Ms. Letendre noted, though, “you have to have doubts to go and ask for that.” She would like to see an individual’s DCP status noted on their birth certificate, as has been done in the Australian state of South Australia. Ms. Giroux, on the other hand, hopes that education provided by the government will suffice. “The law cannot do it all,” she told me. However, she believes that if the legislation is to be effective, appropriate resources will need to materialize. For example, the Civil Code now states that “psychosocial support services” will be offered to anyone seeking information about their biological parent. Although the registry will be launched shortly, details regarding funding and staff have not been announced.

A recent scandal made clear what’s at stake. In 2023, reports emerged that three men from the same Quebec family had fathered at least 225 children in that province by donating their sperm through unregulated online forums. By 2024, the number of reported offspring had jumped to over 600. Two of the men carry a genetic illness, and one was also an active donor at Quebec’s only sperm bank. Many of their children are unknown to each other, raising fears of potential incest if they were to meet later in life. While the U.K.’s registry actively helps to connect biological siblings, and acts as a mechanism for tracking how many times a particular donor has been used (enforcing a 10-family limit), nothing similar has been announced for Quebec.

Knowing how many siblings donor-conceived people have “is really vital for most of us,” said Ms. Letendre. She believes that the registry could help to avoid serial donor situations, allowing parents to make informed decisions about whether they want to source sperm from someone who has donated dozens, or even hundreds of times.

In some ways, Quebec’s legislation is merely keeping up with modern reality. Between mail-order DNA tests and websites aimed at uncovering biological relatives, guaranteed anonymity among gamete donors is no longer possible. These new methods of discovery remain haphazard at best, though, forcing donor-conceived individuals to act as amateur sleuths, piecing together genealogical trees and medical histories while awkwardly navigating contact with biological family members.

Searches for donors’ identities have also led to all kinds of unexpected, often negative revelations. That was true for my own family. In the case of my mom’s doctor, Norman Barwin, anonymity helped shield something sinister. Over the course of his career, he is alleged to have artificially inseminated his patients in a deceitful manner on at least 100 occasions, using his own sperm no fewer than 27 times, while also using the sperm of strangers on women who thought they were being impregnated with the sperm of their husbands. In many cases it took years – sometimes decades – for these fathers to discover that they were not biologically related to their children.

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To conceive me, Dr. Barwin took another patient’s sperm that had been stored with him for safekeeping, and secretly used it to inseminate my mom. Until I contacted my biological father seven years ago, he had no idea I existed. A198’s profile – and the descriptors I long relied on to understand my origins – definitely didn’t belong to him, and may have been completely fabricated. Although it’s impossible to know whether a ban on anonymity would have prevented Dr. Barwin’s actions, it certainly would have made them much more difficult.

Quebec has made it harder for people like him to game the system, while also finally taking the interests of donor-conceived people into account. Now, 15 years after the Supreme Court ruled that it was the provinces’ responsibility to legislate assisted reproduction, it’s time for the rest of Canada to follow Quebec’s lead.

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