Well if what is happening in the UK at the moment is any guide, the interests of adults will trump the welfare of children.

Like many countries the UK introduced a law requiring sperm donors to be able to be indentified later on to their children. Rightly, this was seen as fundamental to the rights of children to know their origins. It was and should be an uncontroversial notion.

In the UK and elsewhere this has caused the sperm supply to dry up, so to speak. Men suddenly confronted with the knowledge their offspring could knock on the door 20 years later aren't too keen on donating anymore.

Well, you'd think society was intelligent enough to join the dots and see that these events show that separating children from their biological parents is a bad idea and should be discouraged. That allowing men to jettison their responsibilities to their children is wrong. Yes, we know it happens through divorce and other circumstances, but just because it happens, doesn't mean we should promote it.

But instead, the Blair government is now seriously suggesting reintroducing anonymity for sperm donors!

So there you have it. A good law that is transparently in the interests of children gets shafted as soon as it comes up against the "rights" of adults.

Moving away from a natural law approach to social institutions is dangerous. The natural law approach to this issue is that a man and a woman constitute a couple their offspring with them form a family. This has been the case since the beginning of history, with some exceptions in various cultures. When we let the state decide what marriage is we give unprecedented power to the state.

It seems that the "needs of the child" concept has become one of those issues which society happily uses when convenient but ditches as it suits.

How well have we done at separating the difference between needs and wants?
- A person may "need" to know the genetic and health history of both parents to help them better address their own health issues.
- Is a wish to know your roots a need or a want?
- Is there a way to manage the childs needs and wants without trampling all over adults needs (or wants)?
- Do we take those needs as seriously in other situations? If so why is paternity testing opposed by some who also seem to think fathers should be responsible?

We do need to meet the needs of the child but if they are needs we should endeavor to ensure that those same needs are met for all children, not just some children.

R0bert

The clash is not between adults rights and childrens needs this is a furphy. The clash is between the wealthy who want more work out of already overworked people, and the capacity for a human being to deliver more. Missing out are the children, who never see their parents or interact with them as the parents are exhausted. It is only a matter of time when the only solution for the wealthy will be to lower the working age, and make child labour legal.

it is very useful to know if you have inherited a genetic predisposition to diabetes, short sightedness, or if an illness is likely to emerge in later years.

Its nice to know you have your grandparents gait, intelligence and facial expressions - but you can live without that knowledge.

If I was considering donating genetic material I wouldn't like to know that the offspring could appear on my doorstep and demand the same rights of inheritance and support as my socially defined family. In fact if in doubt - don't!

I think that the sort of obligations the biological parent has to these children needs to be clearly spelt out and limits placed on what the children can access.

As a suggestion perhaps children produced by these techniques could have exactly the same rights to access to their natural parents as children who were adopted in former times.

By this time next year the words “mother” and “father” may no longer have any meaning in the UK.

At present the IVF laws in the UK state that a child has a right to a mother and a father, but various feminist groups have opposed this saying that a child should only have a right to a “parent”. This would then allow lesbian women or heterosexual single women to have children through IVF, and such legislation may spread to other countries.

Those that like to call themselves a mother or a father had best practice calling themselves a mother or a father because groups of feminist are now saying that they can’t. In the future a mother or a father can only call themselves a parent.