Inquiry into Access by Donor-Conceived People to Information About Donors

That under s33 the Parliamentary Committees Act 2003, the Law Reform Committee is required to inquire into, consider and report no later than 30 June 2012 on donor-conceived persons and, further to the interim report of the Law Reform Committee of the 56th Parliament, the Committee is asked to consider:

• the legal, practical and other issues that would arise if all donor-conceived people were given access to identifying information about their donors and their donor-conceived siblings, regardless of the date that the donation was made;
• the relevance of a donor's consent or otherwise to the release of identifying information and the National Health and Medical Research Council's ethical guidelines on the use of assisted reproductive technology in clinical practice and research;
• any practical difficulties in releasing information about donors who provided their gametes before 1 July 1988, because in many cases records are not available either because the procedure was carried out privately or records were not stored centrally;
• the options for implementing any changes to the current arrangements, including nonlegislative options;
• the impact that any such changes may have on the donor, the donor-conceived person and future donor programs;
• the impacts of the transfer of the donor registers currently held by the Infertility Treatment Authority to the registrar of births, deaths and marriages; and
• the possible implications under the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006.