15 year-olds should know the name of sperm donors
In government negotiations, the Kristelig Folkeparti (KrF) received a breakthrough for a legislative amendment that gives 15 year-olds conceived with donor sperm the right to know the identity of their donors.
Since 2005, the law has stipulated 18 years. So far, it is unclear whether the law will have retroactive effect, that is, apply to everyone who has donated semen after 2005.
If so, 15 year-olds may demand answers next year to whom their biological father is, wrote Bergens Tidende newspaper.
“Those who donated semen after 2005 have done so under certain conditions. When the terms are changed, we must return to these people and hear if they agree. Or it will apply only to those who have donated after the age limit has changed,” said department head for the Reproduction Medical Department at Oslo University Hospital, Peter Fedorcsak, to the newspaper.
The donor has no obligations to the child.
Jon W. Hausken, who runs Klinikk Hausken, is uncertain whether it is smart to change the boundary.
“I immediately think that 15 years is a little too young to handle such information,” he told the newspaper.
A child who wants to know the identity of a donor must first contact the clinic the parents have been treated at.
There, the child will receive a code which they must take along to the national sperm register, where they are given the name and personal number of the donor.
© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today
