VANCOUVER – A woman who scored a major victory last year against laws to protect sperm donors’ anonymity is heading to the Appeal Court of British Columbia today to fight the government’s stance against the case.
Olivia Pratten will be attending the two-day appeal of the ruling as the Attorney General’s Ministry attempts to overturn the judge’s order giving the province 15 months to amend current laws.
“I’m disappointed that I’m back in court and that they’ve appealed it,” Pratten said of last May’s decision by a B.C. Supreme court judge who deemed the Adoption Act, which covers donor conception, unconstitutional.
Judge Elaine Adair also granted a permanent injunction against the destruction of donor records, saying offspring conceived through donated eggs or sperm have a psychological need to know their genetic background in the same way adopted children do.
Pratten, a Toronto journalist, was born in 1982 through donated sperm because her parents were unable to conceive on their own.
She spent a decade trying to learn her biological father’s identity, only to discover that records containing that information had been destroyed by her mother’s fertility specialist.
In 2008, Pratten launched a lawsuit against the B.C. government and the provincial College of Physicians and Surgeons, saying she and others like her should have access to information about their biological parents.
The B.C. government, which requires records to be kept for only six years, has argued that donors have a right to privacy.
Pratten now anticipates the case will go before the Supreme Court of Canada and that ultimately, the country will catch up to other jurisdictions around the world in banning anonymity for people who donate eggs or sperm.
She said the current law doesn’t take into account the best interests of the children who are born with the help of donors and that fertility clinics aren’t legally obligated to keep records beyond the required time period.
“They’re so focused on just getting the woman pregnant that they forget that there’s a child at the end who has to deal with the way this is done,” she said.
“The message is that if you don’t think about what the child is going to have to deal with or go through then we’re just going to grow up and sue you,” she said of the government.
Last June, then-attorney general Barry Penner said the province was appealing the B.C. Supreme court decision because it raised “important constitutional principles that extend beyond this particular case.”
“Ultimately, we’re appealing the decision because we are concerned that it could limit the government’s ability to provide programs that respond in tailored ways to particular groups of people,” he said in a statement.
Pratten said that if the government is concerned that the number of donors will drop if donor anonymity is no longer permitted, that hasn’t happened elsewhere, including the United Kingdom, Australia and Sweden.
“It’s just not true,” she said. “Every country that has gone for an open system has done it successfully. There’s no reason why Canada can’t do it.”
When Pratten turned five, her mother wrote to her former fertility specialist, Dr. Gerald Korn, in an effort to learn the identity of the sperm donor and continued her efforts for several years.
Pratten said Korn told her the donor was six feet tall and had brown eyes but then provided different information.
When Pratten turned 19 and went to see Korn, she said he scribbled some information on a piece of paper, telling her the donor was 5 feet 10 inches tall and had green eyes.
“It was like a rap sheet for a prison person,” she said, adding the doctor who retired in 2004 told her: “Don’t worry dear, I did a verbal medical check. He was healthy.”
Pratten said that while she has accepted the fact she may never learn her biological father’s identity, she wants to change the system for others.
“I feel a responsibility towards raising a voice for people who can’t raise their voice right now, the people of the future who are going to be conceived and saying, `I don’t want you to live with what I did, which is not knowing any information, not having any medical files, having them destroyed.'”
The law also needs to be changed to keep fertility clinics accountable for their record keeping, she said.
“I hope the fertility industry is scared. They should be.”
Pratten said that is more so the case in the United States, where the buying and selling of human eggs and embryos has spawned “fertility tourism.”
The College of Physicians and Surgeons of B.C. was also named in Pratten’s lawsuit.
Susan Prins, spokeswoman for the college, said the outcome of the case will determine if bylaws are changed on whether donor records should be kept indefinitely.
Local news from metronews.ca/vancouver
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