This thesis has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate degree (e.g. PhD, MPhil, DClinPsychol) at the University of Edinburgh. Please note the following terms and conditions of use: This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, which are retained by the thesis author, unless otherwise stated. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. Qualifying Kinship: How Do UK Gamete Donors Negotiate Identity-Release Donation? Leah Gilman Thesis submitted for award of Doctor of Philosophy 2017 University of Edinburgh Word Count: 95,578 2 Declaration I declare that this thesis has been composed solely by myself and that it has not been submitted, in whole or in part, in any previous application for a degree or professional qualification. Except where stated otherwise by reference or acknowledgment, the work presented is entirely my own. Signed: Leah Gilman 08.05.2017. Abstract With effect from 1st April 2005, UK law was amended such that gamete donors must now consent to their identity being released to their donor offspring, should they request it after the age of eighteen. This qualitative study investigates the views and experiences of those donating in this new context. Drawing primarily on twenty-four in-depth interviews with donors, supplemented by twenty staff interviews and observation in two fertility clinics, I examine how donors make sense of their role in relation to offspring, recipients and the wider community. I argue that donors make sense of their role as “biological” parents to offspring through creative reference to kinship repertoires, drawing on their own experiences of “doing family.” However, crucially, kinship connections are always qualified in some way to show that they are not quite family to donor offspring, and certainly not their “real” parent. Often this discursive work involved emphasising their relationship to recipients or the wider community (rather than offspring), framing the donation as a gift or a public act. In addition, donors drew on their kinship expertise to dilute, reshape or “re-route” their connection to offspring. Ultimately, this is a thesis about the limiting work involved in “doing kinship.” I demonstrate that donors did this limiting work in highly creative ways, not restricted to forgetting or ignoring connections. Instead, I show that not constructing kinship claims can be as active a process as making them. 5 Lay Summary With effect from 1st April 2005, UK law was amended such that sperm and egg donors must now consent to their identity being released to their donor offspring, should they request it after the age of eighteen. This is the first research study to investigate the views and experiences of those donating in this new context. I interviewed twenty-four donors and twenty staff in fertility clinics and also shadowed staff in two UK fertility clinics in order to examine how donors make sense of their role in relation to offspring, recipients and the wider community. I argue that donors make sense of their role as biological parents to offspring by borrowing selected ideas and practices which we associate with families, including frequent comparisons with their own family relationships. However, they were always careful to qualify these references to make clear that they did not see themselves as family to their offspring in any straightforward sense, and certainly not their “real” parent. Often this involved emphasising the ways in which their donation connected them to their recipients or the wider community (rather than offspring), thereby framing the donation as a gift or a public act. In addition, donors drew on their experiential knowledge of the ways in which familial connections could be created and curtailed in order to renegotiate the meaning of their connection to offspring and distance themselves from a parental role. Ultimately, this is a thesis about the limiting work involved in constructing families. I demonstrate that donors did this limiting work in highly creative ways, not restricted to forgetting or ignoring connections. Instead, I show that not constructing kinship claims can be as active a process as making them. 7 8 Acknowledgements This PhD would not have been possible without the funding of the ESRC, the support of NHS Research Ethics staff and the help and support of a whole range of individuals, all of whom I would like to thank here. First and foremost, I would like to thank my participants, donors and staff, who gave up their time to share their stories with me, often welcoming me into their homes and making me cups of tea in the process. I really enjoyed listening to your experiences. I hope that you enjoyed talking about them and that I have done them justice here. To the lovely staff at “Hillbrook” and “Greenview,” thank you so much for your support for the project, for your insightful feedback at various stages of the process and for making me feel welcome. I am also incredibly grateful to my two brilliant supervisors, Gill Haddow and Janet Carsten, who have expertly guided me through this process. Your feedback and support has been invaluable throughout the last five years and I have always come away from our meetings feeling motivated and with a renewed fascination for the topic. Thank you to Gill for so often being an impromptu sounding board for me to talk through my half-baked ideas aloud and letting me know when, to put it mildly, they need a bit of refinement! I am sure it is in large part down to you both that I have so much enjoyed this project throughout. Thank you to my friends in the department for making lunchtimes so entertaining, as well as all those cathartic conversations on the difficulties of trying to write and structure something so ridiculously long as a thesis. And thanks also to my friends outside of university, including the “wives club” and “jokers,” for keeping me sane and reminding me of life outside the walls of the academy! 9 To my Mum and Dad, I would not be writing these acknowledgements now without the benefit of all your support and love over the years, which have now even extended to reading this thing! I hope you’re proud. Although, Dad, obviously I’m sorry, I know you would have preferred a Physics A-level! Hope this will do instead because (never say “never” but) I don’t think that one is going to happen now. To my Alex and our little monkey Sam, thank you for keeping me focussed every day on what really matters in life (mostly plant pots and gates!). Thanks Alex for being so supportive and proud of me the whole way through and for patiently listening to my “eureka” theories every time I thought I had “figured out” the PhD (particularly since they so often proved not to be the “answer”). Finally, a small apology to Dave Bridge: I’m sorry there’s no more references to Marx in the rest of this thesis but since I’m sure you/he/all those ISJs on our shelves must have influenced what’s written here on some level….(Marx 1867)! 10 Table of Contents List of Abbreviations ............................................................................ 15 1. Introduction ..................................................................................... 17 Who are identity-release donors and why research their experiences? ................. 17 Research questions and approach .......................................................................... 18 My argument ......................................................................................................... 20 Chapter outlines ..................................................................................................... 22 2. A Brief History of Gamete Donation in the UK ................................ 31 Procedures ............................................................................................................. 31 Regulation ............................................................................................................. 35 Donor numbers ...................................................................................................... 38 3. Literature Review ............................................................................ 41 Constructing bodily donation as a (particular kind of) gift ................................... 43 The role of regulatory frameworks, procurement practices and the material- symbolic properties of bodies in shaping the meaning of donation ...................... 54 The social significance of “biological” or “genetic” connections ......................... 62 The continued ideal of the two-parent family ....................................................... 74 An emerging role for third parents ........................................................................ 76 Negotiating “donor” parenthood ........................................................................... 81 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 85 4. Designing and Doing the Research .................................................