Time to close the gaps in NZ’s sperm donor register – Editorial

Opinion

One Herald journalist recently met her sperm-donor father after years of searching. Rachel Maher‘s encounter is quietly powerful: two strangers who share DNA navigating the complexity of familial ties.

That moment should not depend on luck, detective work, or bureaucratic processes overseas.

Since 2005, New Zealand has guaranteed donor-conceived children the right to know their origins. The Law Commission has stated that preserving a child’s origins is a fundamental right and that secrecy on adoption and donor conception can undermine identity and wellbeing. This principle underpins the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Register (Hart) framework.

The Hart Register records identifying information about all clinic-based donors from August 22, 2005. Donor-conceived individuals may access this information at age 18, or age 16 with Family Court approval, ensuring a balance between donor privacy and the child’s right to know their whakapapa.

But a gap lies elsewhere.

The Hart Act works for those conceived in a New Zealand clinic. Donor‑conceived people born via private arrangements, home insemination, surrogacy, or overseas clinics often have no formal record.

A counsellor at fertility clinic Repromed called for reforms to the legislation in a 2023 article on the clinic’s website.

She sought a registered pathway for independent donors, formal recognition of surrogacy links, and a record of international donor identities, so that donor-conceived individuals would have access to critical information in the future.

Long before identity-release became law, donor-conceived children had no rights, only secrets.

Rebecca Hamilton, a Washington law professor, relocated her family to New Zealand in 2021 to reconnect with her biological father’s family.

He had anonymously donated sperm in the 1970s, and she had been looking for him for more than 20 years.

She described the process of working through registration rolls, death notices and social media as labour-intensive and emotionally draining.

“Searching for biological family always is when there have been no records kept, or when records have been destroyed. This is the story of all donor-conceived New Zealanders of my era.”

And then there’s Adam Hooper, an Australian known as Donor Daddy, who planned to tour New Zealand in 2021 in a campervan, offering private sperm donations. His system bypasses medical safeguards, lacks formal records, and raises serious concerns — from health risks to the potential for unlimited offspring.

What can be done?

• Lobby Parliament to legislate to allow overseas and independent donors used by NZ clinics to be recorded on the Hart Register.
• Support early access. Fund counselling and streamline Family Court access for 16-year-olds.
• Provide reasonable reimbursement to donors, who are volunteers. A national recruitment campaign and fairer reimbursement would shorten queues.

Although anonymity ended in 2005, donor privacy may still be an issue for some. The register already balances rights. The failure is in execution, not principle.

We promised donor-conceived children answers at 18. Too often, what they find instead is a lottery — or a database search in Silicon Valley.

As Maher wrote of meeting her donor, the moment wasn’t about biology alone. It was in the laughter they shared, the familiar tilt of a smile, the sense of seeing herself reflected. That’s what whakapapa gives us. Not science. Not bureaucracy. Recognition.

In 2025, every donor-conceived New Zealander deserves that exact moment – without a scavenger hunt.

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