This from RNW’s review of Dutch press: what a tangled web we weave.
Sperm donor mix-up
“White woman gives birth to black son, father unknown” is the headline in AD, above a bizarre tale of a white lesbian couple, one of whom went to the local hospital to be inseminated with the sperm of a good friend - also white - only to give birth to a black child. While in this case the error couldn’t be clearer, experts say the administration at the hospital’s sperm bank was so disorganised that many more mix-ups may have occurred: donor details were not recorded, donors were not given medical check-ups and the vials in which donor sperm was stored were not coded.
The lesbian couple in this case have now gone to court to make the hospital divulge the identity of the likely father. “Our son has a right to know who his father is. And he needs to know that we have done everything possible to obtain that information,” was their emotional plea. But the gynaecologist in question is refusing to give the information on the grounds of medical confidentiality. The women’s lawyer emphasises the extent of the impact: not only the mothers and their son are affected but also the friend who donated his sperm and may be the father of other children as a result of a similar mix-up. It’s now up to the judge to decide whether confidentiality wins out over disclosure.
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