Whose Child Are You?
By: The British Academy
Tags: Dna, Parenthood, Children, Identity, Childhood

Whose child are you?

Catriona Seth FBA, Marshal Foch Professor of French Literature, All Souls College, University of Oxford

Introduction

An early 20th-century postcard depicts a small child staring solemnly into a mirror. The caption reads ‘Whose little girl are you? / De qui es-tu la petite fille?’[i]. This has as much resonance today as it would have done decades or even centuries ago. The Council of Europe’s most recent guide to the European Convention of Human Rights’ article 8 states: ‘The Court has recognised the right to obtain information in order to discover one’s origins and the identity of one’s parents as an integral part of identity protected under the right to private and family life.’[ii] This optimistically suggests that answering the question posed in the picture should not be a problem. Here are some areas in which that might not hold true.

Artificial insemination

At a time when DNA is regularly used to determine whether some popstar, sportsman or princeling has fathered a child he refuses to recognise as his own, artificial insemination is creating biologically parentless children. Not only might they never discover who their father (and sometimes mother) is, in genetic terms, and therefore what their origins or risks of certain pathologies might be, but they could end up, in extreme cases, falling for a stranger who has the same donor’s genes — a de facto sibling. Is this fair? The genetic material is given by a consenting adult, who is sometimes paid and often demands anonymity. There are options for lifting this anonymity, but no guarantee it will be done. Children can thus remain ignorant of their biological make-up, incapable of knowing whether, for instance, they are carriers of a condition which could threaten their own posterity, and of the identity of the individual(s) from whom their DNA has come. Surely this calls for more control of artificial insemination using donor sperm and / or eggs, and at least a partial end to the assurance offered to donors that they will never be named to their offspring, even if this might be followed by a drop in the number of people willing to be involved.[iii] Transnational surrogacy has further complicated such issues.

The perils of DNA tests

What do you give the woman or man who has everything? How about a do-it-yourself DNA kit! These can lead to surprising — and sometimes unwelcome — revelations. In families where there has been a culture of secrecy or where a child is the product of an extra-marital affair, the first clue that one’s genetic identity differs from one’s birth certificate’s indications can come from what is billed as a fun way to find out if you are a Viking or a Pict. We need to think seriously about how to handle children (even grown-up children)’s reactions to such news: they deserve some protection from the potential fallout. Should DNA kits carry warnings like cigarette packages? Could one tax laboratories and pharmaceutical firms and use the proceeds to fund counselling? This might be hard to implement for all sorts of reasons including the ease with which tests can be ordered from foreign companies over the internet. Questions can also arise when routine analyses in a hospital uncover illegitimacy. Should health professionals flag up risks of which we are unaware if they discover something of the kind, and if so, how should they inform the child and / or the parent? There are dangers both in doing nothing (e.g. in not indicating the presence of particular genetic markers) and in making revelations which could for instance break up a family. Medical concerns on the one hand and the right to privacy on the other might lead one to imagine different approaches to the same problem.

Abandonment and anonymity

Archival evidence shows that abandonment is not a matter of choice but is generally seen as a last resort.[iv] In the United Kingdom, it is illegal. Provisions are not made for someone who wishes to give up a child without declaring her identity, whatever her reasons. It seems paradoxical that an anonymous sperm donor can provide genetic material used to create life, but a woman whose pregnancy might result, in extreme cases, from rape or incest, may not surrender her infant without being forced to identify herself. She risks up to five years’ imprisonment if she abandons the child.[v] The press has field days when babies are found in a public place where they might suffer, e.g. from the cold, often after a birth without medical supervision. Such infants are exposed to physical dangers and deprived of any knowledge of their origins. Neither is desirable; at least one might be avoided. How might this be done?

One solution could be to install ‘babyboxes’, similar to those found in Germany[vi] — heated cribs in public places which are the equivalent of a foundling-wheel in early-modern cities like Naples. Babyklappe or Babywiege ensure that a child is left in a place of safety and will be handed over to maternity nurses. Moralists long objected to foundling-wheels claiming they encouraged debauchery. Their modern equivalent is sometimes described as allowing parents to get rid of unwanted children. Figures tend to indicate that this is not the case. If a mother is at risk because of her pregnancy — and so-called ‘honour killings’ in certain communities show this can happen even today — surely her safety must be taken into account along with her child’s. Better a living — though (perhaps temporarily) separated mother and child — than that either (or both) of them should risk dying. The system has its limits: it would be costly to install and maintain baby hatches across the breadth and width of the country, and there is no guarantee that one would be in the vicinity for a woman who might have had to hide her pregnancy. It would also be possible to adopt another approach and to designate specific places — fire or police stations, for instance, as safe areas in which children could be surrendered without question.[vii] These would serve as intermediate stages before the infant was handed over to specialist care.

Elsewhere, anonymous childbirth is possible in a medicalised environment. I am thinking in particular of the French ‘secret’ confinement, commonly known as ‘accouchement sous X’.[viii] It compels hospitals to receive any woman who is about to give birth, even if she refuses to declare her identity — and this in a country which, unlike the United Kingdom, has identity cards. It was initially designed to shield the reputation of families when women had become pregnant out of wedlock or with adulterous children if their husband was away fighting for instance. The Observatoire National de l’Enfance en Danger (National Observatory of Endangered Childhood)’s figures show that on average in France, every day, one or two children are born ‘sous X’. Although there is no standard ‘type’, women who choose this option are generally young, not living with the father, not financially independent and sometimes have health issues.[ix] The ‘sous X’ dispositions offer the best possible guarantee for the baby and the mother’s physical wellbeing.

Women who choose this form of secrecy are briefed about the legal consequences and the importance of origins in the constitution of an individual’s identity. They are encouraged though not obliged to provide information about their health, that of the father, their country of origin and residence, profession, family situation etc. along with any further details they might like to include and which do not make it possible to identify them.[x] They can add to this at any stage. They are also invited to leave their name in a sealed document. The new-born is considered temporarily abandoned for the first two months which allows the parents (mother and / or father) to recognise and collect him or her during this period.[xi] Thereafter, the child can be put up for adoption.

What of the child born ‘sous X’ and adopted? France has a mediator, the Conseil National pour l’Accès aux Origines Personnelles (National Council for Access to Personal Origins) created in 2002 under the ministry of Ségolène Royal. It intervenes to regulate questions of origins and personal identity for adopted children who can ask to find out about their birth mother. It also allows parents who might not have given their name or left a sealed envelope when the infant was born to lift the secret by indicating who they are should their offspring wish to find out.[xii] The child, not the parent, is the one who can request information. It might be difficult to accept that your mother left nothing for you, even given the opportunity, or that your son or daughter is not interested in discovering who you are, but it does seem to be an acceptable half-way house — indeed the European Court of Human Rights has ruled in France’s favour in this respect.[xiii] Some lobby-groups however feel that women should be compelled to give their name but could opt to have it kept secret until the child reaches adulthood.

Overseas connections

Article 7 of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child stipulates that: ‘The child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality and, as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents.’ As the wording indicates, the last part of the article sometimes poses problems. There are, fortunately, many cases of successful adoptions. Being sure that the birth parents have voluntarily given up the child is essential. Foreign adoptions do not always offer the requisite guarantees, particularly in countries where families may have become separated for instance through conflict. The case of Chifundo ‘Mercy’ James, brought over to the West from Malawi by the singer Madonna highlights this. The girl now lives a life of luxury with trendy clothes galore and foreign trips, her physical well-being indubitably a priority. After she had initially left Africa, it became clear that though her mother was dead, her father was alive and had not given her up for adoption. A legal case ensued in which the American adopter’s fame and fortune no doubt played a part.[xiv]

To someone, like me, who works on the 18th century, such adoptions bring to mind the fate of Zamor(e)[xv], born in Chittagong, in current Bangladesh, around 1762 and ‘gifted’ to the Comtesse du Barry, the King of France’s mistress who, along with a royal prince, became one of his godparents when he was baptised ‘Louis-Benoît’. A portrait by Marie-Victoire Lemoine shows him in silks and lace, the forerunners of the modern designer brands in which young Mercy is clothed. He was given an education and treated as a trophy or fashion accessory by Madame du Barry. When the Revolution broke out, he sided against the nobility and betrayed the Comtesse to the authorities. I cannot help but see this as a warning. Striding into a foreign country and removing children to give them ‘better’ prospects — which too often equate quality of life with its purely material aspects and with Western values — might be construed as a form of neo-colonialism and is, I suspect, something about which future generations will be critical in part because it means that many adopted children are dispossessed of their background (including their name) and taken away from the society, language and civilisation of their origins.

Identity is complex and shaped by circumstances. If we look at it right at the start of the child’s existence, double-standards in the treatment of sperm or egg donors and reluctant mothers seem indefensible. The lack of provision for anonymous confinements and / or the safe surrender of infants puts the lives of mothers and babies at risk. Depriving children in international adoptions of contact with their culture in the name of assimilation often removes the only link they might have with an essential part of who they are and restricts their possibilities of engaging (or not) with this aspect of their origins in later life. Changes in legislation which could bring about improvements in these areas are long overdue.