Egg donation will blur family relationships

The Child and Family Relationships (CFR) Bill is being debated in the Senate this week and its content is linked to the forthcoming referendum that seeks to equate same-sex unions with marriage.

If the CFR Bill passes into law, there will be a blurring of the family, legally and biologically, for the child who results from relatives as donors.

The child’s personal and family identify becomes confused and complicated by such procedures. Inter-generational donation is also a possibility under the bill. That occurs, for example, where a mother donates an egg for use by her daughter or a daughter donates an egg for her mother. In the former case, the child’s biological mother is treated by the law as his grandmother. And the birth mother is, in fact, giving birth to her own half-sibling.

Psychologically, how this confusion will impact on an individual we do not know.

Stella Little

Liskillea

Cork