'End sperm donors' anonymity'

The leading figure in the field of human fertilisation today said that children born as a result of donor sperm should have the right to know who their fathers are.

Baroness Warnock, the architect of the 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, will argue for the removal of laws protecting the anonymity of donors at a conference this week.

Backtracking on her original recommendations, she said there are medical, social and cultural reasons for allowing children to track their biological parents.

"I would now advocate removing anonymity from donors," said Lady Warnock.

"We are so much more sensitive now to the idea of genetic inheritance. It is generally accepted that you must know your genes. The number of conditions that we now think are genetically linked is so enormous that children do need to know."

Lady Warnock said that in Scandinavian countries the removal of anonymity did not discourage donors. She stressed new legislation would not place donors under financial obligations to their offspring and would not be applied retrospectively.

The conference will put pressure on the Government to increase the rights of donor offspring. The move mirrors a debate in the Sixties which resulted in adopted children being given the right to trace their biological parents.

Lady Warnock argued the same rights should apply to donor children. She said: "If anonymity is removed people have got to tell their children. To bring up a child under a false impression is a moral wrong to that child."

Since the formulation of the Fertility and Embryology Authority in 1991, 18,000 babies have been born by embryo, egg and sperm donation. At the moment, 16-year-olds can check whether they are related to someone they want to marry and at 18 they can ask if they were conceived by egg or sperm donation. Donors can choose to make minor details available such as occupation, height, race and eye colour.

? The husband of actress Emma Thompson has spoken of the couple's torment as they tried for a baby using IVF treatment. Actor Greg Wise revealed how they struggled to have a child before undergoing the IVF that produced their daughter Gaia, now aged two. Wise said: "It's a brute, IVF."

Meanwhile, the widow of a US fireman killed in the World Trade Center disaster has told how she still hopes to have his baby. Tillie Geidel, 36, will undergo fertility treatment using a sperm sample from her husband Gary that he gave in an earlier attempt to help her become pregnant. "My dream is for Gary and I to have a son," said Mrs Geidel.