OLIVIA PRATTEN
I have known about my conception since I was 5 years old, after I started asking my mom where babies come from. She told me a simple story of the seed and the egg and how "daddy didn't have enough so a nice man gave us extra." I was told in a way that made me feel very special, wanted and loved. I remember asking sometimes to be told again and again, I thought it was so cool.
As I grew older and my awareness about myself and my world changed, I always came back with more questions. Who was he? What did he look like? And finally, could I meet him? My curiosity about him was always there. Yes, I had two parents who I knew loved me, yet the man who helped make me was a mystery. They continue to be two very separate things. Thankfully both my parents tried to answer my questions as best they could and continue to value any feelings I might have relating to my conception. They both fully support this legal case.
I never thought I would have to resort to filing a class action lawsuit to protect my files, or to fight to know my complete biological and social history.
I spoke to Health Canada numerous times in the 1990s after the Royal Commission report on New Reproductive Technologies was finished. I also spoke to the Standing Committee on Health before the House of Commons and the Senate committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology while we waited for the numerous proposed Bills to be passed into law. Finally when the federal Reproductive Technology Agency was established following the passage of Bill-C-6 into law, I thought this whole process was over. Unfortunately it wasn't. We asked the Agency to protect past files as had been promised during the legislative process, and to be granted the same right to information as those currently conceived. The Agency thought this wasn't their jurisdiction and said they could do nothing to help. I was left with no choice but to file this lawsuit.
As the debate rages about donor anonymity, research has shown that the majority of people conceived this way don't even know about it. My own parents were counseled to not tell me. So before forming an opinion about this, I always ask people to put themselves in my shoes: if you found out tomorrow that your dad wasn't your biological father, could you honestly say that you would be satisfied never knowing who he was? And furthermore, would you tolerate being told you had no right to find out?
