Marilyn Crawshaw Visits New Zealand

DCN
Donor Conception Network NZ

Marilyn Crawshaw Visits New Zealand

Marilyn is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Social Policy & Social Work at the University of York, Heslington, York, UK.

Marilyn has been awarded a small grant from the Nuffield Foundation to look at the ways in which Australia and New Zealand are running their donor-related registers and the associated services.

She has been involved variously as a practitioner (social worker), researcher and activist in the field of assisted reproduction since the late 1980s and was a founding member of the British
Infertility Counseling Assn;

She has previously been an Inspector and External Adviser for the UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority; and is the Adviser to UK DonorLink, the government funded voluntary information exchange register for those affected by donor conception pre 1991.

She is chair of PROGAR, (Project Group on Assisted Reproduction) the multi-agency group that campaigns on policy matters; and has a long standing involvement with Donor Conception Network in UK, including their Preparation for Parenthood and Telling & Talking initiatives.

In a paper Marilyn along with other experienced social workers with research and practice interests in assisted conception, have reviewed practices concerning access to genetic origins in adoption, and considered to what extent these may be of relevance for practice in donor-assisted conception. In that paper it concludes with policy and practice recommendations that take account of the views of donor offspring and their desire for increased information about their genetic heritage.

In New Zealand the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology (HART) register caters for release of information post 22 August 2005, however it is only a voluntary register for donations relating to donor, donor-offspring records prior to 22 August 2005. Fertility treatment in New Zealand commenced in the late 1970's and during these early years information concerning donors was not adequately recorded and kept.

Although Births, Deaths and Marriages provide a central point for collecting and providing access to information on donors and donor offspring relating to donations made prior to 22 August 2005 it has been a concern to members of the Donor Conception Network in NZ that there are still early donor records in the hands of retired Doctors, or shortly to retire Doctors who do not know what to do
with them, as there is no defining legislation to cater for this. Some have already been destroyed, which makes tracing almost impossible other than through DNA testing.

Following a 4 week visit to Australia Marilyn arrives in New Zealand this weekend to meet with NZ donor groups and Fertility clinic representatives working her way through the country from Auckland to Christchurch. A meeting with the Registrar General has been arranged in Wellington.

A welcomed visit by our Donor Conception community groups where ideas can be exchanged to enhance the issues and rights surrounding donor conceived people and related registers.

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