'Secrecy': what can artificial reproduction learn from adoption?

Frequent comparisons are made between adoptive families and those families formed through artificial means of reproduction, particularly those involving sperm and egg donation. It is claimed that problems from the latter arising out of the extent of the child's knowledge of his/her parentage may be handled with reference to the solutions found within adoption to similar problems. This paper examines those claims and questions the initial premise. It argues that problems remain within British adoption on the issue of openness, at the level of legislation, administration and professional practice. It argues that problems remain because of an uneasiness which still persists about adoption as an institution. Moves to make the practice of adoption more open have, in effect, disguised but not eliminated the uneasiness. An attempt to extend those 'solutions' to artificial reproduction might (a) suggest similar ambivalence about those practices and (b) lead to claims which again disguise rather than solve those ambiguities. The paper concludes therefore that adoption might be a useful precedent for artificial reproduction but more in the way it poses questions which remain to be answered, than as a source of solutions for direct application.