[lettie]

I sincerely believe that fertility treatments, donor eggs, donor sperm, frozen embryos etc. have opened up a whole wriggling can of ethical worms which will have legal minds wrangling for generations to come. One of the problems these type of treatments throw up is that of consanguinous relationships (relationships where the couple are related).

We all know that it is legal to marry your first cousins here in the UK, it is not something that most of us would choose to do but it is certainly legal and perfectly acceptable especially within the Asian community.

What we are starting to see now is people getting involved in relationships then finding out that they are half brother and sister. They usually discover this after having an abnormal baby, late miscarriage or stillbirth where genetic testing of both parents is routinely offered... I kid you not, I am not making this up.

Can you imagine the trauma of finding out that you have married your brother/sister, just because one of you was conceived naturally and the other was by donor sperm/egg to a completely different woman.

This type of dilemma is one which fertility treatment throws up. In trying to help childless couples, science has thrown up a whole new set of problems. Infertility can cause profound psychological problems for some people but we are seeing more and more of these type of cases where there are relationships between people who do not know that they are related....

I'm sure that I heard through work that sperm donors in this country have decreased since their details could be given to their unknown children for medical reasons.