Separated twins 'marry'
Separated-at-birth twins got married, peer tells House of Lords
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Friday, 11, Jan 2008 05:37
British twins raised by different families have married each other without being aware they were brother and sister, it has emerged.
The individual case was revealed in a House of Lords debate on the government's human fertility and embryology bill.
Crossbench peer Lord Alton, who had been given the information by a high court judge, explained that the man and woman married after being separated at birth and not told who their biological parents were.
"They were never told that they were twins," he said in the House of Lords last month.
"They met later in life and felt an inevitable attraction, and the judge had to deal with the consequences of the marriage that they entered into and all the issues of their separation.
"I suspect that it will be a matter of litigation in the future if we do not make information of this kind available to children who have been donor conceived."
The former Liberal Democrat peer added that it was "not far-fetched" for other such relationships to occur.
"This did not involve in vitro fertilisation; it involved the normal birth of twins who were separated at birth and adopted by separate parents," he continued in a defence of an individual's right to know who their biological parents were.
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