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Reviews: Mark A Bellis, Karen Hughes, Sara Hughes, and John R Ashton Measuring paternal discrepancy and its public health consequences J Epidemiol Community Health 2005; 59: 749-754 [Abstract] [Full text] [PDF]

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Fertility medicine specializes in deliberate "paternal discrepancy"

Barry Stevens   (30 August 2005)

Fertility medicine specializes in deliberate "paternal discrepancy" 30 August 2005
Barry Stevens, writer/filmmaker Send letter to journal: Re: Fertility medicine specializes in deliberate "paternal discrepancy" barrystevens{at}canada.com Barry Stevens	Dear Editor, Mark Bellis's et al.'s article on paternal discrepancies concludes that our approach to the problem "must be informed by what best protects the health of those affected." I agree. As the offspring of anonymous donor insemination, I am one of millions worldwide whose genetic paternity was not what it seemed, not as the result of a mother's understandable anxiety to cover up an extramarital affair, but as the result of health professionals' deliberate deception. Every day, around the world, fertility doctors are telling their patients to lie to their children for the rest of their lives, and even on those rare occasions when the children ARE told that their fathers or mothers are not their biological parents, those offspring still only very rarely have access to complete health information. This practice of lying or giving incomplete information obviously compromises our health and shortens many lives. It should stop.