Children Of Sperm Donors Demand Info

VANCOUVER, B.C. (CN) - A journalist who was born after her mom was artificially inseminated demands that British Columbia and its College of Physicians and Surgeons stop destroying records of sperm donors and grant adults access to information about their sperm-donor fathers.

The class action claims such information may be needed for members' health, and to prevent them from having sexual relations with relatives.

In a class action, Olivia Pratten claims the province discriminates against people born by artificial insemination, and denies them information they may need for health and other reasons.

Pratten was born in 1981. She says her mom told her she was conceived by artificial insemination, but the doctor who artificially inseminated her mom was vague about who the sperm donor was.

Pratten says the College of Physicians and Surgeons informed her that the law requires the doctor to maintain records of donors for only 6 years, and then can destroy them. She says this discriminates against a class of people, and denies them potentially important information about their health and genetics.

She demands an injunction prohibiting destruction of "any and all Gamete Donor Records in British Columbia," and a declaration that the law governing this is unconstitutional. She wants a process instituted whereby people born after artificial insemination can seek donor records "in the event of medical necessity" and at any time after they are 19 years old.

Pratten says members of the class also may need the information "to determine whether they are biologically related to a sexual partner or proposed sexual partner."

She is represented by Arvay Finlay in B.C. Supreme Court.

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