Scales of Knowing: Intended Parents' Deliberations on Donor Identifiability in Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

ABSTRACT Objective This study explored how intended parents choose among known, identifiable‐but‐unknown‐at‐conception and anonymous gamete donors. In New Zealand clinic‐based donation, donor‐conceived people can access identifying donor information at age 18, while some overseas or unregulated arrangements may permit permanent anonymity. We develop the concept of ‘scales of knowing’ to examine how donor decisions are made and their implications. Methods Drawing on a broader cohort of 113 participants, this article analyses 25 in‐depth interviews with 34 parents and intended parents who discussed donor decision‐making. Participants included people in lesbian, gay and heterosexual relationships, and solo women. Results Preferences for identifiable‐but‐unknown or anonymous donors centred on maintaining parental boundaries and practical necessity. Preferences for known donors, or arrangements allowing greater donor knowledge and contact, reflected three rationales: perceived best interests of the child, developing a sense of the donor as a person and fostering familial connections. Discussion Donor selection involves competing ethical, emotional and practical considerations. Preferences are shaped by ideas about children's interests, kinship and structural constraints including cost, donor availability, waiting times and treatment access. These constraints are unequally experienced, meaning that the ability to enact a preferred arrangement is itself shaped by unequal access to reproductive resources. Donor status is therefore not simply a regulatory category but part of an ongoing negotiation of knowledge, intimacy, relationality and access. Implications Understanding donor‐choice deliberations can help intended parents, clinicians and policymakers develop responsive guidance and policies that recognise the relational complexities and structural inequalities shaping reproductive decision‐making.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Family Relations, 2026 · DOI ↗