O-179 From secrecy to transparency: The journey of donor identity in reproductive medicine in Portugal
Authors: Galhardo A 
Published: July 2024

Thanks to significant medical advancements in reproductive medicine, people have more opportunities to achieve their parenthood goals. Third-party reproduction allows individuals and couples who might not otherwise be able to conceive to have the chance to build their family, thanks to the availability of donor gametes and gestational surrogacy. Gamete donation policy in Europe varies by country, raising ethical and legal concerns. In recent years, shifts from anonymity towards openness in donor legislation have occurred in several countries.

Globally, in the last decade, there has been an increase in the number of families created using egg, sperm or embryo donation. The number of IVF/ICSI cycles using donor eggs or sperm in Portugal totalled 1890 in 2019 and 54 in 2020 (an unusual year due to the Covid-19 pandemic).

In Portugal, the first medically assisted reproduction (MAR) law was approved in 2006, and gamete donations were anonymous. Ten years later, in 2016, Portugal’s MAR legal framework changed, and access to MAR was broadened to all women, independent of their marital status and sexual orientation. Therefore, treatment with donor sperm, oocytes, and embryos became available to recipients, including heterosexual couples, lesbian couples, and single women. In 2018, there was another change in the law and gamete donations became non-anonymous. In Portugal, identity-release donation allows the donor to remain anonymous to the intended parents during treatment (although they may have access to some non-identifying information about the donor). Nevertheless, the child can request the National Council for Medically Assisted Reproduction access to the donor’s personal information (full name) once they turn 18.

Considering this legal framework, the number of previous donors who were contacted and asked whether they would maintain their donation despite the non-anonymity was residual. The identity-release framework did not seem to have affected the number of donations either.

Donations are more frequent in private clinics than in the Portuguese public gamete bank, and this leads to waiting lists that can reach two years for a treatment involving oocytes or sperm donation. In this context, efforts to increase gamete donation, particularly in the National Health Service, are crucial. A study is currently being conducted in Portugal to pinpoint the main reasons why people do not consider being gamete donors. Preliminary results in a sample comprising 297 participants (82.2% females), with a mean age of 25.43 (SD = 7.88) years old and a mean of 14.09 (SD = 2.06) years of education, revealed that 73 (24.6%) stated that they would not consider being a donor because of the non-anonymity and 39 (13.2%) indicated that they would not consider becoming a donor due to concerns about being contacted in the future and requested responsibilities. These results may contribute to informing future initiatives aiming at promoting awareness on the topic of gamete donation.

Another relevant topic is secrecy, which refers to parents not disclosing information to their offspring or their social group about donated gametes’ conception. Disclosing is recommended as an ongoing process, preferably when the child is young. This disclosure process may benefit from counselling or other support resources (e.g., children’s books, patients’ associations).