Hungry for more?! Subscribe to Notes from The Pathway Legal Pack for tasty morsels of wisdom!

A joyful candid group photo of the full Pathway Legal team laughing and hugging outdoors under autumn trees with golden fallen leaves, capturing the warmth, diversity, and genuine connection of the Pathway Legal pack in Fall 2026.
Request Consultation >
Call 778-557-5099

Known Donor vs. Anonymous Donor:
Know the Legal Differences

Choosing a donor is one of the first big decisions in building a family through assisted reproduction. Most people weigh it as a personal question, and it is also a legal one.

The path you choose changes what needs to go in writing, who might one day claim a relationship with your child, and how much certainty you carry into the delivery room.

This page explains what BC law says about donors, how the known and anonymous paths differ, what a donor agreement should cover, and the one rule that catches more families out than any other.

What BC law says about donors

Journey wearing large round tortoiseshell glasses, looking studious and adorable against a warm cream background.

Section 24 of BC's Family Law Act sets the starting point, and it is more reassuring than most families expect. A person who donates sperm, eggs, or embryos is not a parent of the resulting child by reason only of the donation. A court cannot declare them a parent on that basis alone.

Genetics does not create parentage in assisted reproduction. Intention does, expressed through relationship status at the time of conception and through written agreements made before conception.

Good to know

This rule protects known donors as much as it protects intended parents. A friend who donates is not signing up for eighteen years of child support, and the law says so directly.

The anonymous donor path

Anonymous donation usually means donor sperm or eggs obtained through a licensed fertility clinic or a sperm or egg bank. Most donor sperm used in Canada comes from banks based in the United States, screened to Health Canada's requirements.

Legally, this is the cleaner path. The donor has no parental rights and no parental obligations, the clinic documents the process, and you register the birth the ordinary way. In most cases, no separate donor agreement is needed.

Anonymity is not what it used to be

Two things have changed the picture, and families deserve to hear both before they choose.

First, the law. In Pratten v. British Columbia, the BC Court of Appeal held in 2012 that donor-conceived people have no constitutional right to learn a donor's identity, and the Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear a further appeal. Canada has no donor registry, and there is no legal route for your child to obtain identifying information about an anonymous donor.

Second, reality. Consumer DNA testing has made practical anonymity fragile. Donor-conceived people routinely locate biological relatives through commercial databases, whatever the paperwork says. Families planning today should assume their child may one day be able to identify a donor, and think about what they want to tell their child and when.

Worth asking your clinic about

Many banks now offer identity-release or open-identity donors, where the donor agrees that identifying information can be released to the donor-conceived person at a set age, often 18. If your child having that option matters to you, ask before you select, because it cannot be added afterward.

The known donor path

A known donor is someone you have chosen and can name: a friend, a family member of a partner, or someone found through a community connection. Families choose this path for medical history, for a sense of connection, for cost, and sometimes because they want the donor to have a real presence in their child's life.

It is warmer, and it is legally more complex. The complexity is manageable, and it is not optional to deal with.

The reason is that known donation involves a continuing relationship. The donor may see the child at birthdays. Your child may ask questions. Someone's spouse may develop feelings about the arrangement that nobody anticipated. None of that is a legal problem until it becomes one, and by then the conversation is much harder.

What a known donor agreement should cover

A known donor agreement is signed before conception. A good one covers:

  • That the donor is not a legal parent, and has no parental rights or responsibilities.
  • That the donor has no child support obligation and no claim to parenting time or decision-making responsibility.
  • The method of conception, confirming assisted reproduction rather than sexual intercourse.
  • What contact, if any, the donor will have, and what your child will call him or her.
  • What the donor will be told about the child, and how often.
  • What happens to any remaining sperm, eggs, or embryos, and whether the donor has a say.
  • Whether the donor may donate to other families, and whether you will be told.
  • What information will be shared with the child, and at what age.
  • How the parties will handle disagreements if expectations change.
  • Medical history disclosure, and a route for updating it if something significant emerges later.

Both the donor and the intended parents should have their own independent legal advice. Separate lawyers demonstrate that everyone understood what they signed and nobody was leaned on, which is what makes the agreement worth having.

Important     

A donor agreement records intentions and satisfies the legal requirements. It does not override the Family Law Act. If the underlying facts put someone into the position of a legal parent, no clause in an agreement changes that.

Known and anonymous, side by side

Known donor Anonymous donor
Legal parent status Not a parent by donation alone Not a parent by donation alone
Written agreement before conception Strongly recommended Usually not needed
Independent legal advice Essential on both sides Not applicable
Ongoing contact with your child Whatever you agree None
Medical history Direct and updatable Bank profile only, rarely updated
Your child learning the donor’s identity Already known No legal route; DNA testing may reveal it
If conception happens through intercourse Donor may be a legal parent Not applicable
Legal complexity and cost Higher, front-loaded Lower, standard clinic process

The rule that catches families out

This is the most misunderstood point in donor law in BC, and it deserves reading twice.

The Family Law Act's assisted reproduction rules apply when a child is conceived by a method other than sexual intercourse. Conception through sexual intercourse falls outside those rules entirely.

That means a known sperm donor who conceives with an intended parent through intercourse is not treated as a donor under BC law. He may be a legal parent, with parenting rights and a child support obligation, no matter what the two of you agreed and no matter what was signed.

The practical takeaway

If you are working with a known donor, use a clinic or a recognized assisted reproduction method. Home insemination arrangements should be discussed with a lawyer before anyone begins, because how conception happens can determine who your child's legal parents are.

What if there was no agreement

Plenty of families arrive here. A friend donated, everyone was happy, nothing was written down, and now someone wants clarity.

Where conception happened through assisted reproduction, the absence of an agreement usually does not create legal uncertainty. The donor is not a parent, and silence does not change that.

Where conception happened through intercourse, or where a donor is now asserting a parental role, or where more than two adults intended to parent together, the picture is genuinely more complicated. Those situations may call for a declaration of parentage from the BC Supreme Court or, occasionally, an adoption.

Court is the last resort here. Many of these situations resolve through a conversation and a written agreement about the future, and we would always try that first. Where a dispute does reach court, it can run many months, and sometimes years.

We can help you get this right the first time

Donor law rewards families who do the thinking early. An hour spent before conception is worth more than any amount of legal work afterward, and the families we help tell us the relief was immediate.

We work with intended parents and donors across British Columbia, from our offices in Victoria, Nanaimo, Vancouver, and Surrey, and by video anywhere in the province. Journey, our beacon of hope and care, is part of how we remind families that they are not walking this road alone.

Ask Journey
Ask Journey
Known vs Anonymous Donors in BC
Journey, the Pathway Legal mascot dog

Journey is our beacon of hope and care, and she hears the questions families are almost too nervous to ask out loud. Here are the ones that come up most often when people are choosing between a known donor and an anonymous donor in BC. You will find them throughout this page.

So if donating does not make someone a parent, why does anyone need an agreement at all?

Because the law settles the legal question and it does not settle the human one. Expectations drift over years, particularly once a real child is in the room and everyone can see whose eyes they have.

A written agreement made before conception records what everyone meant at the time, when nobody was emotional about a specific child. It is the document you hope never to need.

It also matters for the edge cases. Certain arrangements, including ones where a donor is meant to be a parent, only work if they were put in writing before conception.

We picked an anonymous donor years ago. Have we done something wrong by our child?

No. You made a reasonable decision with the information and the options available at the time, and many thousands of families made the same one.

What you can control now is openness at home. Research consistently supports telling children about their donor conception early, in age-appropriate language, rather than treating it as a secret to be revealed later.

If your child later finds biological relatives through a DNA database, having grown up knowing the story makes that a discovery rather than a betrayal.

Our donor is a close friend and we all want him around. Does wanting him involved make him a parent?

No. Involvement and legal parentage are separate things, and you can have one without the other.

Your agreement can describe an ongoing role in plain terms: what he will be called, how often he sees your child, whether he attends family events, and who makes decisions (you do).

Say it out loud now while everyone is generous and relaxed. The friendship is far more likely to survive a written agreement than an assumption.

Reading that table, one column looks obviously simpler. Should we pick the anonymous route?

Simpler is not the same as better, and this is not a question the law should decide for you.

Families choose known donors for real reasons: a medical history that stays current, a cultural or community connection, and a child who grows up with an answer instead of a question mark.

The extra legal work is front-loaded and finite. Choose the family you want, then get the paperwork right for the path you chose.

We were planning at-home insemination to save money. Is that a mistake?

It is not automatically a mistake, and it needs advice before you start rather than after.

The line that matters legally is between sexual intercourse and other methods of conception, and it is worth being precise about which side of it your plan sits on. Clinics also add screening and documentation that becomes useful evidence later.

Talk it through with a lawyer first. This is the one decision in donor conception that cannot be repaired afterward with better paperwork.

Our donor is asking for more contact than we agreed, and we are frightened about where this goes.

Frightened is a reasonable reaction and it is usually out of proportion to the legal risk. Where conception happened through assisted reproduction, a donor asking for more contact is not the same as a donor with a legal claim to make.

Before anything escalates, get advice on where you stand. Knowing your position changes how the conversation with your donor goes.

Most of these end with a frank talk and something written down about the future. Very few end up anywhere near a courtroom.

This article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Family law is fact-specific and the law changes. Reading this does not create a lawyer-client relationship with Pathway Legal. For advice about your situation, consult a qualified BC family law lawyer.