How Silence Became “Outdated”: Secrecy, Anonymity and Artificial Insemination by Donor in Belgium, 1950s-1990s

Abstract

This article for the first time places the issues of secrecy and anonymity in donor conception in historical perspective. It relates the gradual move away from secrecy to the growing importance attached to honesty and transparency in the 1970s, during the ‘sexual revolution’. Debates surrounding secrecy received new impetus in the 1980s, when single and lesbian mothers gained access to AID, who told their children the truth because there were no men in their life to assume the paternal role. Yet the issue of anonymity only became questioned under the influence of child development studies relating to adoption and identity.