A right pickle
This annoyed me today. The suggestion being that if you were born from a donated egg or sperm, it has to say so on your birth certificate. This annoyed me for a few reasons.
- Firstly, why would you want that information branded across a birth certificate that is used for many purposes?
- Secondly, surely it should be up to the parents when to decide to reveal such information (if at all), and not something that a child can happen upon by seeing a bit of paper.
- Thirdly - and most strongly - because of the ever-growing degree of imposition that this would add to any potential donors.
I find it stupid that you can’t be an anonymous donor any more. If you go to donate, you do so because you want to help out another couple, not because you want to be a parent yourself. If you wanted to be a parent yourself, you’d have your own kid. The lack of anonymity, alongside ridiculous proposals such as this, just discourages people from donating, because there is greater potential for it to impose on your later life. People donate so that they can help out a childless couple, not so they can wake up 18 years later to a knock on the door and someone saying "Hi Dad!". It’ll only be a short while I expect before some brainiac comes up with the idea that donor parents should bear legal and financial responsibilities too, as well as potential emotional load that they didn’t ask for.
So, that was one thing that set my mind floating off. Another was how Channel 4 have pulled all money-making interactive quizes from their TV shows, except, for some unknown reason, the one that runs during Deal or No Deal. Why did that one escape? I mean, if you’re making a point about how the quizes cannot be trusted, then it must apply to all of them equally, otherwise, well, why drop any? It just doesn’t make any sense.
