People should be prohibited by law from donating sperm or eggs to help infertile couples, the Catholic bishops have told a Government-appointed expert body.
In a submission to the Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction, the bishops said: "Every child has a right to an identity of origin, i.e., to know who are his/her parents . . . This right of children would necessarily conflict with any attempt to guarantee the confidentiality of donors of reproductive material."
The commission was set up by the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, in 2000 to recommend changes to the law to regulate "all aspects of human reproduction and the social, ethical and legal factors to be taken into account in determining public policy".
The use of donated sperm and eggs is already practised in Irish fertility clinics. Though in-vitro fertilisation, sperm freezing and storage and artificial insemination are available, there is no legislation in Ireland to set down limits on their use. Instead, medical practice is governed only by Medical Council guidelines.
The bishops' argue in their submission: "When biological parenthood is separated from social parenthood, this has the capacity to introduce a lack of clarity into the identity of the child."
Acknowledging that a similar situation occurs in adoption or remarriage after the death of a spouse, the bishops said: "The fundamental difference is that in these circumstances, people are responding to a situation that has already arisen.
"A donor of human reproductive material, or of an embryo - while remaining in a real sense the parent of any child who is born as a result of this donation - no longer has any possibility of exercising parental responsibility."
The bishops recommend that the cloning of all human embryos and all scientific research upon embryos should be declared unethical and prohibited by law. "In any form of assisted human reproduction, steps should be taken to avoid the production of more human embryos than can be safely transferred to the womb of the mother in any one treatment cycle."
Father Kevin Doran, secretary of the Irish Catholic Bishops' Committee on Bioethics, said the Medical Council's most recent guidelines prohibit the generation or storage of embryos for research.
"It requires that any fertilised ovum, should be used for normal implantation. The fact remains that most if not all AHR clinics in Ireland generate more embryos than can be used in one treatment cycle.
"Once these surplus embryos are frozen, the problem immediately arises as to how long they can be stored, and what will happen to them when that 'shelf-life' has elapsed," he said.
