Exploring Donor Anonymity: An Interdisciplinary Conversation

In the last decades, donor anonymity has gained critical attention in many European countries, including in Belgium. Partially in response to the activism of donor-conceived persons, a number of law proposals have been submitted since 2015 to partially or completely waive donor anonymity. Donor anonymity has also become a topic of debate in Belgian society at large, as evidenced by the many reports in the media.

In this public debate, fertility doctors are the main experts consulted. This is remarkable, since research on donor anonymity is by no means confined to the medical sphere. On the contrary, publications on the matter have appeared in a wide range of disciplines, each with their own emphases, methodologies and conclusions.

This event of the Leuven Centre for Health Humanities (LCH²) highlights these lesser-known forms of expertise. Scholars from various disciplines – history, psychology, law, bioethics, feminist and adoption studies – are invited to share their insights and to engage in conversation with each other and with the audience.