Appendix D: Ethics of biological relationships knowledge

This is clearly an ethical minefield. There are up to 4 individual stakeholders: mother, presumed father, biological father, and child. These are potentially in conflict.

Although I propose in this paper that we should move towards a society without paternity surprises, something doesnt become ethical simply because it is a step on the way towards a better society. Questions must still be answered on their own merits. I have attempted to avoid being influenced by the proposals in this paper.

This primary topic is about rights of personal knowledge, and limits of personal knowledge, irrespective of how this is gained. The objective here is to step away from issues about whether it is OK to collect a few hairs from a hairbrush as DNA samples, and instead to ask fundamental questions such as:

Has this person the right in principle to know X?

and

Has that person the right in principle to prevent this person from knowing X?

People will have different views about this. But the trend in civilised nations is that knowledge of oneself takes precedence over censorship of knowledge of oneself.

Yes. There are at least 3 reasons for this:

Yes. There are at least 3 reasons for this:

A qualified yes. The qualification is that it would be legally and ethically dangerous to make a retrospective change to laws, such as those for adoption and gamete donation, which identified someone who was entitled to assume because of the law at the time that this would not happen. This principle of law should probably override the interests of the child.

There has been news of ...a recent high court case in which a judge overrode a mothers objections and ordered DNA tests on a seven-year-old boy who wrongly thought his mothers infertile husband was his father. The most important right, said the judge, was the boys right to know his true roots and identity.

So in principle a child should be able to find out from his or her mother whether or not the apparent father is the biological father. Furthermore, if he isnt, the child should be able to discover the identity of the biological father. He is in the position of a sperm donor who has not been guaranteed anonymity in law! When will a child take his or her mother to court to make her divulge with whom she committed adultery? (Is "Mikulic v. Croatia", European Court of Human Rights, 17th January 2002, a precedent for using Article 8 of HRA 1998?)

(Inside Information, 10.35: & The child is denied any access to knowledge of the identity of their genetic parents. However, it is expected that this situation may be challenged under the Human Rights Act 1998, given the growing trend in international law to recognise the right of the child to knowledge of their biological origins.)

(Inside Information, 10.36: It is also possible that not telling the child at an early age will mean that they may obtain this information from other people or following genetic testing. It has been suggested that if a child discovers information about their origin in later years they may be resentful and less trusting of their (social) parents.)

No. There are few cases indeed where one person has a right to know that another person knows something. There are few cases where this can even satisfactorily be determined. This is not one of them.

(A related question, for which I have no confident answer, is: "does a child have the right to know whether the mother knows who the child's biological father is?")

A qualified yes. The qualification is that general laws on assault, theft, privacy, harassment, data protection, or similar laws must be adhered to.

But, other than that qualification, a person has a right (for example) to seek the information of who the mother was with at a particular date in history. For example, he or she could validly ask others who may know the answer, or make deductions from car mileage or receipts available in the house, etc.

A man has a right to take a fertility test that might confirm that he cannot possibly be the father of the child, for example that he is azoospermic. In future, when there is a new generation of high quality male contraceptives, some of which will be completely unobtrusive, there will be further valid ways of making the deduction. There are many valid ways of clarifying paternity, of which paternity tests are just one example. Use of DNA for the purpose is simply one "tactical mechanism".

In fact, the above reveals an interesting danger. While it may well be the case that about 9 in 10 children have the expected paternity, only paternity tests are likely to confirm these cases. Other methods tend to be focused on revealing the 1 in 10 cases of surprising paternity!

A qualified no. It should only be possible in narrowly defined cases where this is in the interests of the person seeking to gain the knowledge. This would need some sort of pre-assigned authority, such as an ethics committee or a court. It is very unlikely that they apply in the case of competent adults seeking knowledge of their genetic relationships.

No. There is no responsibility to know something. But it may happen as a by-product of another persons rights.

No. There is no responsibility to know something. But it may happen as a by-product of another persons rights.