Disclosure and donor-conceived children

Abstract

Sir,

In the March 2017 issue of Human Reproduction, Guido Pennings published an opinion piece arguing that there is little empirical evidence in support of the disclosure of donor conception to children (Pennings, 2017). He claimed that researchers tend to ignore their own findings in recommending openness to children regarding their biological origins. As I am one of the researchers concerned, and have been conducting empirical studies on the psychological well-being of donor-conceived children since the 1980s, the article caused me to reflect on what the evidence actually tells us. The question Pennings has raised is a perfectly reasonable one but I do not believe that his conclusion is correct.