Dr. Joanna Rose:

Yes, it is entirely different from the right to meet a genetic parent when one is 18 years old or older. The implication is that all we want is information. As a group, some people will not want anything, in the same way that some women do not want the right to vote. As a group, however, we need to be given the whole range of rights and we can access which ones we choose. Meeting a genetic parent at 18 and finding out that one has 20, 30 or maybe 200 half-siblings in different families and maybe in different countries around the world hands a significant burden on to that next generation to deal with in adulthood, which is the kind of discrimination I am talking about. There is an absolute empathy for people who want to become genetic parents or who become genetic parents, and they are represented at committees and in so many ways they are so powerful. For that next generation, however, the real, complex issues that they are handed as a means to an end for another group and another generation is not properly understood and we are not appropriately protected or represented in these kinds of environments.