Aggregated News

(Reuters Health) - People who donated sperm and eggs before 1998 in one Australian state were able to remain anonymous, but potential new laws could have changed that. A recent study found those donors were split on the idea of possible contact from their donor children.

Victoria, Australia introduced legislation to ban anonymous sperm and egg donation in 1998.

"This means that donor-conceived children who were born after 1998 have a legal right to access information about their donor," Karin Hammarberg told Reuters Health by email.

Hammarberg is a postdoctoral research fellow at the School of Public Health and Preventative Medicine at Monash University in Melbourne.

It was also suggested that the government change the law to allow everyone conceived through sperm and egg donations to find information about their donor - including pre-1998 donors who thought they could stay anonymous, she said.

But before deciding, the government wanted to ask people who donated in the past how they would feel about no longer being anonymous, and reached out to Monash University researchers.

During early 2013, Hammarberg and her colleagues...