Sperm donor regulation and disclosure intentions: Results from a nationwide multi-centre study in France.

Gamete donation in Europe is not regulated by a common legal framework. Different laws regarding donor anonymity and remuneration exist in different countries. In France, gamete donation is characterized by a stable legal framework - the existing system of anonymous and non-remunerated donation remained unchanged following a period of public and parliamentary debate in 2011 - but little evidence is available concerning recipients' views and experiences of gamete donation. This article describes findings from a questionnaire completed individually by 714 heterosexual couple members undergoing a donor conception procedure at one of 20 national fertility centres in France. Participants were invited to report their attitudes towards the French legal framework, their perceptions of the anonymous donor, and their intentions to disclose donor conception to their child and to other people. The majority of respondents (93%) approved of the current legal framework. Participants indicated that they thought about the sperm donor in ways that emphasized his act of donation without describing him as a specific individual. A majority (71%) also stated that they intended to tell their child about their donor conception. Given that this is the largest nationwide study of French recipients of donor sperm, the findings make an important contribution to the research evidence currently available about prospective parents' perspectives in the increasingly uncommon context of donor anonymity in Europe.

[Donor in conception stories: narrative practices by parents conceiving with donated spermatozoa]. / Le donneur dans les récits de conception : pratiques narratives de parents ayant recours au don de sperme.

Little is known about the parents of donor-conceived offspring in France, where the anonymity of the donor prevails. The present study associates quantitative data informing the attitudes and decisions of parents towards disclosure and qualitative data related to their experience of being parents of a donor-conceived offspring. The quantitative results about the becoming of the conception narratives (n=929 requesting people, including 216 parents) confirmed that most parents decided to tell their child about the donor conception. The analysis of the semi-structured interviews of 37 parents defined the existence of a paradox between the conception stories mentioning the donor, who is objectified as a seed, and the representational project parents mostly pursue, which is anchored in a normalisation process.