Sat Jan 12, 2008 2:45am IST
LONDON (Reuters)
Twins who were separated at birth and raised by different families met later and married but were forced to break up when they discovered their true identities, a British legislator said on Friday.
"It's a tragedy for the couple who are involved, a terrible tragedy. Everyone's hearts will go out to people caught up quite unwittingly in a case of incest of this kind," David Alton, a member of Britain's upper House of Lords, told BBC radio.
Alton first raised the case during debate on a proposed new law on in vitro fertilisation (IVF). He says it highlights the need for children to know who their parents are.
He fears that under the new law, the biological identity of one parent of a child born as a result of IVF could be removed from the birth certificate, creating the potential for similar tragic mistakes to occur.
Alton told parliament last month he had heard about the twins from a High Court judge who had dealt with the case.
"It involved the normal birth of twins who were separated at birth and adopted by separate parents," said Alton, who has no party affiliation. "They were never told that they were twins."
"They met later in life and felt an inevitable attraction" and they got married, he said.
"When they did come to know their true identities it led to their having to separate and also to a lot of heartbreak," Alton said on Friday. News reports said their marriage was annulled.
No further information was available about the twins or where they were from.
"This isn't a regular occurrence but it could become one with large numbers of people now being born by IVF and not knowing their true identities," Alton said.
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, now working its way through the British parliament, recognises same-sex couples as legal parents of children conceived through the use of donated sperm, eggs or embryos.
"The government ... have not accepted the argument that you should have the right to know who your biological father is on the birth certificate," Alton said.
"It would be a terrible act of deception, with the state colluding in that deception, to remove the biological identity of your father from the birth certificate," he added.
Pam Hodgkins, head of a group that helps adults affected by adoption, said the story of the twins was very tragic.
"It is a lesson that we need to learn and apply to the situation of donor-conceived children," she told Sky News.
"Whilst ... nowadays it would be most unusual for siblings to be separated ... the risk of secrecy affecting the lives of people born as a result of egg and sperm donation is exactly the same as the risks that have affected adopted people in the past," she said.
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