Since April 6th, unmarried couples and people in same sex relationships have been able to apply for Parental Orders allowing them to be treated as parents of children born using a surrogate mother.

In the past, birth certificates were perceived as representing a child's biological parenthood, even though they are actually legal documents recording the legal parentage of a child at birth. That they are not biological documents is evidenced, for instance, by the 50,000 British birth certificates on which the father's name is left blank each year and by the provision in the 2004 Gender Recognition Act for a person who has changed their gender to be issued with a new birth certificate reflecting their acquired gender and new name that is otherwise indistinguishable from their original birth certificate. However, with the growth of alternative family structures and an increasing demand for assisted reproduction treatments, the full implementation of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 now means that an ever greater number of children will be faced with identity issues of increasing complexity as they grow up.

Incredibly, no systematic study has been conducted to consider what impact all these changes might have on the children affected. However, ground-breaking new research has been published this week assessing the impact of having no father recorded on a child's birth certificate.

The report My Daddy's Name is Donor compares the experience of adults aged 18 to 45 years old who were conceived via a sperm donation with that of those who were adopted as infants and those who were raised by their biological parents. Some of the most startling findings should cause us to reconsider the wisdom of the HFE Act 2008:

• Donor offspring and those who were adopted are between 50 per cent more likely and twice as likely than those raised by their biological parents to struggle with serious, negative outcomes such as problems with the law, substance abuse, and mental health problems. For donor offspring of single mothers, this proportion rises to two and a half times more likely.
• One in four donor offspring (25 per cent) strongly feels that nobody really understands them, compared with one in eight (13 per cent) of those adopted and one in eleven (nine per cent) of those raised by biological parents.
• Nearly half of donor offspring (48 per cent) but less than a fifth of adopted adults (19 percent) admit to feeling sad when they see friends with their biological fathers and mothers.
• Nearly half of donor offspring (46 per cent) but less than a fifth of adopted adults (17 per cent) and one in sixteen of those raised by their biological parents (6 per cent) has worried that they could be unknowingly related to someone to whom they are romantically attracted.

The authors of the report warn, 'the similarities between the struggles that adopted people and donor conceived people might share should prompt caution about intentionally denying children the possibility of growing up with their biological father or mother.'

'I write to you, dear children, because you have known the Father.' (1 John 2:13)

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