If Michael Jackson’s youngest child ever wants to explore his roots, the task probably will be daunting and perhaps impossible, legal experts say.

Adopted children in many states are able to contact their biological parents once they reach a certain age, but those avenues are not as available for children whose conceptions are the result of assisted-reproduction technology.
Unless Jackson left information about the woman who donated the egg or the surrogate or donor come forward, experts say it is doubtful the child will ever know everything.
“This is the same issue that came up many years ago with adoption,” says Judith Sperling-Newton, a lawyer for the Law Center for Children & Families in Madison, Wis. “With adoption there’s been a great deal of legislation to have adoption search agencies and the opportunity for placing parents to reconnect with children years later, but we haven’t had anything like that (on a large scale) with respect to assisted reproduction.”
Debbie Rowe was married to Jackson and gave birth to the first two children. The youngest child was born to an unidentified surrogate. Rumors about his sperm and egg donor have been topics of discussion.
Assisted reproduction has become a method for infertile couples, gay couples and singles to have children. The technology leads to the births of tens of thousands of children every year. At the beginning of the process, experts say, intended parents enter into contracts with egg, sperm and/or embryo donors and the surrogates to protect themselves and the confidentiality of the donors.
“It’s not just about secrecy,” Sperling-Newton says. “It is because in some areas of the law, we don’t have 100% protection for the recipient parents that a biological parent couldn’t come back at some point and say, ‘That’s my baby.’ That’s why confidentiality documents are drafted.” The documents also prevent children and parents from going back to the donor and asking for financial support.
Official birth certificates also are not likely to carry names other than those of the intended parents, says John Greene, a law partner with Cohen & Greene in Annapolis, Md.
Dean Masserman, a lawyer in Southern California and owner of an egg-donor company, says surrogates are not identified on birth certificates because they are “not considered to be parents. Most often the egg used is from a donor and the surrogate is only a carrier.”
Medical records and hospital records would list the surrogate’s name, says Michelle Keeyes, a lawyer with the National Fertility Law Center, but “those records are sealed records and could only be opened under a court’s order.”
Sperling-Newton says she cannot recall a case in which the surrogate wanted to know the offspring. She agrees with Masserman that surrogates are rarely the egg donors. “They’re incredibly altruistic people who are doing this service for parents who want to have children.”
Sperling-Newton says more needs to be done regarding fertility law. “The law in the area of assisted reproduction is decades and decades behind science,” she says.