2023-06-09 17:44:58
Returning to the principle of strict anonymity of the gamete donor in the context of medically assisted procreation (PMA), the bioethics law of 2021 had also organized the methods by which children born from this donation can contact those who transmitted to them their genetic heritage.
A commission for access of persons born through medically assisted procreation to data from third-party donors (Capadd) had therefore been created to centralize the requests of children and the consent of donors to the lifting of their anonymity.
For children born before the strict anonymity of the donor was lifted, it was planned that Capadd can now access certain files (Social Security, etc.) to locate the donor and send him a registered letter to ask him for his consent to the disclosure of his identify.
“An invasion of privacy”
“It works a bit like the National Council for Access to Personal Origins for women who give birth under X, which the child can request to obtain the identity of his mother and find out if she agrees to be contacted”explains Frédéric Letellier, president of the association Dons de gametes solidaires.
With the difference that up to ten children can be born from the same donor and that this one cannot refuse to be contacted. “In the case of childbirth under X, if the mother refuses, it’s over, as long as she doesn’t change her mind. For the donation of gametes, the child can request the Capadd as much as he wishes »notes Frédéric Letellier.
These are therefore dozens of registered letters that can potentially arrive at the homes of donors to the point of constituting, according to Frédéric Letellier, “an invasion of privacy”.
“A balanced and rather positive decision”
Presenting himself as an activist for the donation of gametes, he went to administrative justice to contest the procedure before the Capadd, going all the way to the Council of State then, through a priority question of constitutionality, to to the Constitutional Council.
In their response given on Friday, June 9, the sages of rue de Montpensier did not consider that the bioethics law was unconstitutional. They nevertheless introduced a “reserve of interpretation”taking the view that the contested provisions “shall not have the effect, in the event of refusal, of subjecting the third-party donor to repeated requests from the same person”.
“A balanced and rather positive decision”welcomes Frédéric Letellier, who emphasizes that it was the government representative himself who, during the public hearing on May 30, opened the door to this reservation of interpretation.
“Question all donors once and for all”
“It was not for us to challenge the right to know one’s origins, he insists. It was the repeated requests that were a problem. From now on, it should be possible for the donor to put an end to these solicitations, but this is something he can come back to later. »
“This reserve on the multiplicity of contacts is common sense”believes for her part Audrey Kermalvezen, co-founder of the association Origines, who would however have preferred a deeper change.
“It would have been better to question all the donors once and for all to find out whether or not they want the secrecy to be lifted”she develops, while acknowledging that “The decision is in accordance with the case law of the Constitutional Council, which still refuses to ‘replay the parliamentary game'”.
The ECHR invited to pronounce
This activist for the lifting of secrecy also regrets that the secrecy continues even after the death of the donor, unlike childbirth under X where the child can access all the information on the death of the biological mother.
“Even non-identifying data is not accessible to us”deplores the one who has also seized the European Court of Human Rights, from which she hopes for a response in the coming weeks.
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