Anyone who chooses to ‘donate’ eggs or sperm in Colorado will no longer be able to do so anonymously, thanks to a years-old law taking effect.
In June 2022, legislators in Colorado passed Senate Bill 224, requiring that donor identities be released to the children created once they turn 18. It also required donors to be at least 21, limited donations to 25 families, and gave families who use donor eggs or sperm access to the donor’s medical records.
“It is just the right thing to do,” Senate President Steve Fenberg, who sponsored the bill, said at the time. “We are going to be the first state in the country that has a policy like this, that says that there is an inherent right for an individual to know where they come from, who they are, what their identity is. Because that helps us form who we’re going to be.”
The bill passed with bipartisan support, however, a small handful of Republicans voted against it largely because it’s the first bill of its kind in the country. “It’s going into uncharted ground,” Rep. Shane Sandridge said. “We can’t look at other states and see how they did it or what unintended consequences are associated with this.”
Yet egg and sperm donation has already led to uncharted ground, particularly with the rise of online DNA testing, which Rep. Matt Soper attested to.
“The era of anonymity is over. Through technology, no one can donate and have 100 offspring or more and somehow hide behind this veil that they will forever be unknown,” Soper said. “This will pave the way for other states. They will eventually call this the Colorado model.”
READ: Abortion landscape is changing, but women and children are still being exploited
The law received support from numerous donor-conceived rights groups, who said the fertility industry has largely ignored their concerns.
“More than a million people in the United States have been created via sperm and egg donation with little consideration by the industry and others to their future needs or interests,” Erin Jackson, president of the U.S. Donor Conceived Council, said. “With the enactment of this law, the industry can no longer ignore our voices.”
The fertility industry is largely unregulated, with the rights of donor-conceived children ignored in favor of the desires of adults. There have been numerous donors who have been found to have conceived hundreds of children — some even potentially having fathered thousands. And frequently, donor-conceived children have expressed dismay as to the details of their conception; one study, from Harvard Medical School, found that 62% of children conceived through donor technologies believe the practice to be unethical and immoral.
“I am a human being, yet I was conceived with a technique that had its origins in animal husbandry,” one donor-conceived person wrote in a book for Anonymous Us. “Worst of all, farmers kept better records of their cattle’s genealogy than assisted reproductive clinics … how could the doctors, sworn to ‘first do no harm’ create a system where I now face the pain and loss of my own identity and heritage.”
Tell President Trump, RFK, Jr., Elon, and Vivek:
Stop killing America’s future. Defund Planned Parenthood NOW!
