SAME-SEX MARRIAGE AND THE CONCEPTION OF CHILDREN
by John Spritzler
July, 2015
(Note: Links unfortunately break over time sometimes; the links here worked when this was originally written. If a link is broken it may be possible to find the same content with a new online search.)
[Please see "The Rights of Children"]
The aim of the views expressed here is to promote the maximum possible unity between the people who say they are for same-sex marriage being legal and those who say they are opposed to it being legal. A proposal is presented below that would--if people ever heard it--be acceptable (at least as a compromise) to most of the people on both sides of the same-sex marriage issue. Advocates of this proposal would be perceived by people on both sides of this issue as reasonable people, not bigots and not as people indifferent to the needs of children.
The ruling class censors from the mass media public discourse about same-sex marriage all of the content of what is below. Why? To maximize the divisiveness over the same-sex marriage issue.
The task of egalitarians is to unify ALL of the good and decent people--on BOTH sides of "hot button" issues--for the egalitarian goal of no rich and no poor. To do this requires that we NOT take a side in the false and deliberately divisive frameworks that the ruling class imposes on us around "hot button" issues such as same-sex marriage. It requires that we expose the false and divisive nature of the framework itself, and propose positions that most people on either side of the divisive framework would agree with or accept as a reasonable compromise. Unfortunately I, John Spritzler, the editor of this website, am not aware of any other person or organization that is attempting to do this with respect to the same-sex marriage issue.
Please read the following with this in mind.
[To see links to lots of articles by others, including gay people and the now-adult children of anonymous sperm or egg donation conception, about anonymous gamete donation and same-sex marriage, click here.]
[To read "The Same-Sex Marriage Elephant in the U.S. Supreme Court Chamber" click here.]
[Video: Same-Sex Marriage & Anonymous Sperm/Egg Donation: What's the Connection and Why Does it Matter?]
[To read "I'm Gay and I Oppose Same-Sex Marriage" click here .]
Note: The view about same-sex marriage briefly presented below is given in far greater depth in chapter 3 of the book Divide and Rule: The "Left vs. Right" Trap, by John Spritzler (the PDRBoston.org editor), available in paperback or e-book versions here. One can also borrow it from your local library for free (go here for details.)
Click here to read about how some famous (pro-same-sex marriage) liberals say that a father should live with his child's mother and lesbian wife, and not abandon his child by living elsewhere.
CONCEPTION OF CHILDREN: View #1
One of the most divisive social issues in the United States as well as many other nations is the question of whether it is moral or immoral to conceive a child in a manner designed on purpose to prevent the child from knowing and being known (in a parent-child relationship) by both its biological mother and biological father. Unfortunately the ruling elite have deliberately obscured this important question by orchestrating in the mass and "alternative" media a phony debate over same-sex marriage. This debate is phony because the way the elite have framed it prevents people on either side from knowing what actually most concerns the people on the other side.
The main organizations that have sponsored state referenda to ban same-sex marriage have stated (in the "Con 2" section, paragraph 4 "Court papers filed..."), very clearly that their objection to same-sex marriage stems from their objection to the way it promotes the practice of conceiving children with anonymously donated egg or sperm in a manner that prevents the child from knowing and being known by both its biological mother and biological father. This concern is a major reason that people voted to ban same-sex marriage in all of the first 32 state referenda on the question. One may agree or disagree with this concern, but it is just wrong to dismiss the views of those who have this concern as nothing but bigotry against homosexuals ("homophobia").
The connection between same-sex marriage and anonymous egg or sperm donation conception is this:
1) Marriage in our society, while of course being about a loving and committed relationship and other important things, ALSO confers formal social approval for a couple to produce a child of their own (click here to see that this is so); a marriage certificate gives formal social approval to produce a child of one's own, regardless of whether the couple intends to or wishes to or not. It is this special aspect of marriage that is the reason why we let siblings live together and be business partners and be in virtually any other kind of relationship, but not be a married couple: we don't let siblings marry because we don't approve of siblings producing a child that would be at an unacceptable risk of genetic harm. This has nothing to do, obviously, with any prejudice or bigotry (sibling-phobia?) against siblings; it is about a concern for the welfare of children and the moral principle that the needs of children trump the desires of adults.
2) Since a same-sex couple can only produce a child of their own (i.e., one that is the biological child of one member of the couple) by using third party sperm or egg (gamete) donation conception, and since anonymous gamete donation is today legal and the most often used mode of such donation, it follows that giving a same-sex couple permission to marry also gives that couple formal social approval to use anonymous third party sperm or egg donation conception, and hence to produce a child in a manner that, by design, denies the child its chance to know and be known (i.e., raised by) both its biological mother and biological father. This is obviously not the case with opposite-sex marriage, since such couples are not necessarily only able to produce a child with third party donated gamete conception.
This is why people who think it is wrong to produce a child in a manner that is designed to prevent it from knowing and being known by both of its biological parents do not approve of making same-sex marriage legal but have no objection to making opposite-sex marriage legal. Their objection to same-sex marriage is as logical as the perfectly reasonable objection people have to sibling marriage, and this objection is no more bigoted against homosexuals than the objection to sibling marriage is bigoted against siblings.
The fact that anonymous third party gamete donation conception may be used more often by medically infertile opposite-sex couples than by same-sex couples is irrelevant. To see why, consider that (since there are far more children conceived by non-sibling couples than by sibling couples) more children with harmful genetic disorders are produced by non-sibling than by sibling couples. Does this mean that we should make sibling marriage legal? Of course not.
The question of whether the potential harm (psychological/emotional pain, specifically) to the child from not knowing and being known by both of its biological parents is great enough to require making same-sex marriage illegal (until anonymous gamete donation conception is illegal, as discussed below) is a judgment call about which reasonable good and decent people can and do disagree. The key point is that neither position that one might take about this judgment call makes one a bigot.
The ruling elite have censored this concern for children from the debate over same-sex marriage that they orchestrate in the mass and alternative media that they control. On radio and TV and in newspapers and magazines, what people are told is that the only question about same-sex marriage is whether one is for equality or whether one is a "homophobic" bigot (presumably a Bible fanatic bigot.)
Of note, the mass media often implicitly (as in this article about NFL star Tom Brady and his son) or sometimes explicitly (as in an episode of the TV show Two and a Half Men in which Charlie Sheen's character decides not to donate sperm to a lesbian couple who requested if of him because he thought it was morally wrong--unfair to prevent the child from knowing his biological father) discuss the importance of the bond between a child and its biological parents. But this concern is very seldom expressed in connection with same-sex marriage despite the fact that a big concern of many people with same-sex marriage is that it typically results in a child not having a relationship with one of its biological parents; the example in Two and a Half Men cited above is virtually unique. Why is this? Because the mass media are determined to prevent people from even thinking about the relationship between same-sex marriage and the bond between a child and its biological parents (the biological father in the case of two women marrying and "having a child" and the biological mother in the case of two men marrying and "having a child.")
Isn't it time we egalitarians had a respectful and serious discussion about all of this, and tried to resolve our differences on the basis of our shared values of equality and mutual aid?
A PROPOSAL TO UNITE MOST PEOPLE
As a step in that direction, I (John Spritzler, the editor of this web site) will now say what I think about this issue. Also, I will create other pages on this website for others to express their views on this question. Please send your views to us by email.
Here's What I Think
I am not opposed to same-sex marriage per se; I think it should be legal with the following condition:
It should be illegal to deliberately conceive a child with a gamete (egg or sperm) from a person who, at the time of conception, does not fully intend* to raise the child and know and be known by the child as its co-primary** parent (mother or father as the case may be)*** and when, and only when, this is the law should same-sex marriage be legal.
I think it violates the Golden Rule principle of equality when a woman, because of a longing for a biological connection with the child she raises, denies the child that very same biological connection with its father by conceiving the child with sperm from a man who does not intend to know and be known by the child as its father and co-primary parent.
I think it likewise violates the principle of equality when a man, for the analogous reason, conceives a child with an egg from a woman who does not intend to know and be known by the child as its mother and co-primary parent.
I think infertile couples (same-sex or opposite-sex) or single persons who want a child but who cannot conceive a child in compliance with the above-described law should adopt.
I think the Golden Rule principle of mutual aid says the needs of children trump the desires of adults.
It is child abandonment when a man donates sperm anonymously or a woman donates an egg anonymously.
Anonymous sperm donation is illegal in Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Britain, Switzerland and Australia.
How Do Children Conceived by Anonymous Sperm or Egg Donation Feel?
Reasonable people can disagree about how serious the problem of anonymous gamete donation conception is for the resulting child, but it is wrong to pretend it doesn't exist and that anybody who expresses a concern about it must just be a homophobic bigot. Note that anonymous sperm donation is illegal in Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Britain,
Switzerland and Australia.
Deliberately depriving a child of the right to know and be known and love and be loved and RAISED by both of its biological parents is too often HARMFUL to the child. Read some of the evidence for this below.
Please read this article about how “anonymous sperm-donor-conceived” children are NOT “all right”.
A donor-conceived child writes the following online, and I have bolded one particularly important paragraph (the second to last paragraph):
When I was 15, I found out by chance that I was donor conceived. There were a couple of letters in a drawer that I didn't know I shouldn't be looking in. They were from a clinic in Harley Street and were addressed to my mother. One was dated a year or so before I was born, and said that the clinic would be happy to help my mother again, and would 'try to ensure that the same donor is used'. The other was dated about seven months before I was born, and talked about 'the second success'.
I tackled my mother about this, and she gave me a cock-and-bull story about blood tests. I didn't have the courage to pursue the matter, so I gave up. A few months later I tried again, and didn't give up. She broke down in tears, and told me that they had never intended us to find out, but that my 'father' had been unable to have children, so they'd gone for 'artificial insemination by donor' as it was known in those days. Apparently they'd matched the donor with my 'father's' hair and eye colour, and that was that.
Then the lies began. The man listed as my father on my birth certificate, isn't. No-one knew, or even guessed, the truth. The little lies my mother told helped the deception. My brother had big hands like Dad. My sister had blue eyes like Great-Granny Alice (on my 'father's' side. The correct term these days is 'social father'.) What I have only just realised is that these lies even extend to what colour eyes I think I have. Mark and I have a long-running joke/argument: he says I've got green eyes, I say they're brown. When I look in the mirror, I do see that the nearest they get to brown is hazel. Maybe. But the reason I think they're brown is that my mother always said I had brown eyes like Dad. So all along, in school essays entitled 'Myself' or letters to penpals or anything, I have said I have brown eyes. But I don't!
I did always worry as a child that I was adopted, and even quizzed my mother about it on several occasions. 'You would tell us if we were adopted, wouldn't you?' 'Oh, yes.' My mother even told a story of a boy who killed himself on discovering, at the age of 18, that he was adopted. Strange choice of anecdote in the circumstances.
I did also feel a bit like a changeling. For example, I had my nose in a book from an early age. My mother had done well at school, but wasn't a reader; I never saw my 'dad' open a book except for a car repair manual. He left school at 16 with no qualifications. (He said he'd failed them on purpose so that Grandma couldn't force him to become a doctor. Hmmm.) But he apparently produced three children who were in all the top sets at school...
The irony is that I spent several years as a teenager (OK, I was a weird teenager) researching my family tree. My mother and I went into the wilds of Leicestershire looking at obscure parish records to see how far back we could get. As I found out, these random Leicestershire labourers were nothing to do with me.
Now there is a great big gap in the children's baby books for their grandfather. I've registered with UK DonorLink (a voluntary agency where donors and donor conceived adults can register their DNA) but realistically, there is a minute chance that I will ever find the donor. He did the deed for money as a medical student and has probably wiped the memory from his mind.
Funnily enough, for years I perpetuated the lie with my own children. How on earth do you broach the subject with tinies? But at some point I realised that I was repeating, albeit in a minor way, my parents' own deception. We'd covered the facts of life in a basic way when Gregoria was about 4, because she asked. So I just told her at some point that the daddy who brought me up wasn't my real daddy because he coudn't make seeds, so my mummy got the seed from someone else and unfortunately we don't know who that is. Now that is as normal to her as anything else. She knows I'm sad about it, and that's OK too.
I am passionately opposed to donor conception, because it deprives children of a basic human right: to know, and be brought up by, their mother and father. It is completely different from adoption, because in that case the child already exists and needs to be cared for. Donor conception exists for the convenience of people who want to be parents. Wanting a baby is a natural desire, but is not to be achieved by unethical means. Why can't infertile people adopt a baby? 'Because it wouldn't be ours.' Why do they privilege the genetic link on the one hand and deny it on the other?
I could go on and on, but for the sake of my home educating readership, won't. Please excuse me venting. This is part of my journey of self-acceptance. (When I was exploring Catholicism and finding out about Catholic opposition to various artificial means of conception, including this one, I worried that perhaps it meant that I didn't have a soul!) For many years this was my guilty secret. Now it's part of who I am.
One child of sperm donor conception has created a website where others like her can post their stories and thoughts about it. There are lots of posts. Here's one:
Please read the study titled, "My Daddy's Name is Donor." (PDF) One of its several findings are that:
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Donor off spring are significantly more likely than those raised by their biological parents to struggle with serious, negative outcomes such as delinquency, substance abuse, and depression, even when controlling for socio-economic and other factors.
Please read this article:
Please read the article, “My father was an anonymous sperm donor,” by Katrina Clark, which reads:
I really wasn't expecting anything the day, earlier this year, when I sent an e-mail to a man whose name I had found on the Internet. I was looking for my father, and in some ways this man fit the bill. But I never thought I'd hit pay dirt on my first try. Then I got a reply -- with a picture attached.
From my computer screen, my own face seemed to stare back at me. And just like that, after 17 years, the missing piece of the puzzle snapped into place.
The puzzle of who I am.
I'm 18, and for most of my life, I haven't known half my origins. I didn't know where my nose or jaw came from, or my interest in foreign cultures. I obviously got my teeth and my penchant for corny jokes from my mother, along with my feminist perspective. But a whole other part of me was a mystery.
That part came from my father. The only thing was, I had never met him, never heard any stories about him, never seen a picture of him. I didn't know his name. My mother never talked about him -- because she didn't have a clue who he was.
When she was 32, my mother -- single, and worried that she might never marry and have a family -- allowed a doctor wearing rubber gloves to inject a syringe of sperm from an unknown man into her uterus so that she could have a baby. I am the result: a donor-conceived child.
And for a while, I was pretty angry about it.
I was angry at the idea that where donor conception is concerned, everyone focuses on the "parents" -- the adults who can make choices about their own lives. The recipient gets sympathy for wanting to have a child. The donor gets a guarantee of anonymity and absolution from any responsibility for the offspring of his "donation." As long as these adults are happy, then donor conception is a success, right?
Not so. The children born of these transactions are people, too. Those of us in the first documented generation of donor babies -- conceived in the late 1980s and early '90s, when sperm banks became more common and donor insemination began to flourish -- are coming of age, and we have something to say.
I'm here to tell you that emotionally, many of us are not keeping up. We didn't ask to be born into this situation, with its limitations and confusion. It's hypocritical of parents and medical professionals to assume that biological roots won't matter to the "products" of the cryobanks' service, when the longing for a biological relationship is what brings customers to the banks in the first place.
We offspring are recognizing the right that was stripped from us at birth -- the right to know who both our parents are.
And we're ready to reclaim it.
Here are heartfelt words of the son of a traditional surrogate mother:
My name is Brian and I am the son of a traditional surrogate, a biological father, and an adoptive mother. I think all of you here need to know how I feel about surrogacy.
I have read a certain popular surrogacy board since I was 16 and I am almost 18 now. I was going to wait until I was 18 to open my mouth but I just can’t stand reading all of this stuff anymore. It was something [further indented below--J.S.] in one TS’s post that really set me off. And it was not just her, it's everybody attitude.
"if you go into this feeling that this is "your" baby then you should not be a TS. This baby is NOT yours. It is your egg donation that instead of the IM carrying ... you have to carry. Thats it. plain and simple. So it is no different than a GS. You are carrying someone ELSE's baby, regardless of the genetics. so yes you should get comp to cover your pain and suffering "babysitting in utero" THEIR child."
What about what the kids of traditional surrogacy think? What do we think about what you think? What you think doesn’t even make sense to most of us. It doesn’t make sense to the majority of people and that’s why surrogacy is so controversial! Do you expect us to have this sort of delusional thinking that you do or do you expect us to think like 99.9% of the general population who thinks that it is wrong to have a child in exchange for money or give away your biological child. How do you think we feel about being created specifically to be given away? You should all know that kids form their own opinions. I don’t care why my parents or my mother did this. It looks to me like I was bought and sold. You can dress it up with as many pretty words as you want. You can wrap it up in a silk freaking scarf. You can pretend these are not your children. You can say it is a gift or you donated your egg to the IM. But the fact is that someone has contracted you to make a child, give up your parental rights and hand over your flesh and blood child. I dont care if you think I am not your child, what about what I think! Maybe I know I am your child.When you exchange somehing for oney it is called a commodity. Babies are not commodities. Babies are human beings. How do you think this makes us feel to know that there was money exchanged for us?
Lets look at this from our point of view. Here is our biological mother our flesh and blood the woman who would naturally be raising and loving us totally denying that we are her child. I’m sorry but you just cant do that. We are your kids. We’re your kids just as much as your own kids, but yet you only think of us as some sloughed off egg that you are giving to a substitute mother who no matter how much love she has just can’t be the same as you? For 25 thousand dollars or whatever? You don’t bond with us when you are carrying us and you deny that we are yours because you have deluded yourselves and deny who and what we really are. That is so totally not right that I can’t believe anyone would think this is normal!And why are you doing this? For the most part its money from what I understand. Some of you have already admitted that in other posts. Would any of you do it if you did not get compensated for it? Or maybe if you didn’t get that feeling of belonging or acceptance that you never had as a kid? How do you think that makes us kids feel? You may be able to deny us but we don’t want to deny who you are. That makes us feel very rejected. That leaves a hole in our hearts whether we admit to it or it manifests some other way like in depression or a fear of getting close to someone else.
Sometimes it doesnt show up until we are in our teens or young adults and like me sometimes it shows up as a baby when I scream my head off for 6 weeks and they call it colic. They call it stomach gas or an immature neurological system. Nothing can console us. Bull. The truth is that nobody is able to explain it because babies can’t talk. It’s the only way a baby knows how to express itself and its rage and grief and morning is to scream. I wanted my mother and she wasn’t there. I just had to accept it after a few weeks so I quit crying. Just wait. The evidence of babies having stress and knowing who their mothers are at birth is just beginning to come out. You can’t just substitute mothers and expect us to be okay with it. You can have all the love and good intentions in the world but that doesn’t make it okay with us.
Also with the kids ive interviewed, Ive found that they were either sick - more sick than their peers-as babies or colicky. The immune system has a lot to do with stress and babies that are stressed get sick. Only 2 out of the ten seemed like they didn';t have any problems when they were babies but had a lot of problems once they hit 12 or 13.Emotional problems.
There is a reason that most adoptees want to search for their mothers first before their fathers. There is a reason why biological ties particularly maternal are so important to 99% of the population. Its primal, cellular, physiological and it is natural. Its normal!We are supposed to raising the kids that we give birth to. Why do you think DNA tests are so important these days and why courts will put a father in jail if he doesn’t take care of his biological children? Otherwise we would just be exchanging babies all over the place. What makes us different than the children you love and raise? Because in your mind you have to think of us as somebody elses kid so that you can keep your sanity and take your compensation. What about our brothers and sisters, the kids you didn’t give away in exchange for money? What if we want to know them and they know us. You can tell them we aren’t their brothers and sisters, but they know the truth. We all know the truth. My 2 brothers and sister are older than me and they have told me that they always felt sad that I wasn’t with them. They were also upset to see their mother give one of them away. They never told her that because they were afraid that it would hurt her. Sometimes they are to afraid to admit it to themselves Just because they don’t appear to be immediately effected doesn’t mean that one day they aren’t going to lose it over what you are doing. Just because you are in denial doesn’t mean that the kids are.
And what about all of the lies told to the kids and their families about who they are. What about all of the sperm and egg donor babies who will walk around looking at faces wondering who their biological parents are and if they could be Joe Schmoe walking down the street because he has the same jaw line. Is it fair to take away our identities? Would you like that done to you? Would you like to wonder about your parentage or would you like to find out one day that the parents you thought were your bio parents were not? Truth has a way of coming out you know. Our biology is a part of us, it’s the very first part of us and you have no right to lie about it! Not to us, not to our family either. What you do isn’t all about you. That is so selfish. Its all about us, the kids of surrogacy.
And what about this I hear about not separating twins because they have an in utero bond? That they have bonded for those 9 months and it would be a tragedy to split them up? Well what the heck about the mother that carried them inside of her? How much more personal can you get? Isn’t the mom bonded to those babies just as much as the twins are bonded to each other? Those kids may be brother and sister, but they are being carried by their mother. How much closer can you be? It doesn’t make sense and it sounds very hypocritical to me!
My biological father and adoptive mother were very good to me and I know they loved me. I love them too very, very much. But they did some things that were inexcusable and made me feel horrible. They told everyone that my adoptive mother gave birth to me. They even hid away for 6 months so that no one would see that she wasn’t pregnant.When my mother came around to see me my adoptive mother made sure no one else was around. She didn’t want anyone to find out about her. She was never allowed to come to my birthday parties or ever to be in the presence of family members.She made her feel like she was not welcome and some dirty little family secret so my mother eventually disappeared from my life when I was 3 and a half out of shame and frustration.Actually I am going to edit this now becase I sopke to my mother and she said she was ordered out of my life because I started to want her to visit and I started calling her mommy. No matter what lies they told me I knew the truth. Thats why she left. Theyy wanted her too. That’s what you all are doing when you lie about whose egg it is. That isn’t even your decision and you have no right to do that. We may be your kids but you dont have any right to lie about us to anyone.
When I was 6 I asked my adoptive mother if she really was my mother. She loved me and I knew she did, but she never felt like my mother. She felt more like a loving nanny and I sensed this even being so young. She started to cry and I felt bad for upsetting her so I didn’t ask any more. But I always knew. Kids always know.
When I was 12, my father out of guilt told me the truth. I was really pissed that no one told me earlier, but I wasn’t surprised at all. I already knew the truth deep inside.He told me not to tell anyone though. How do you think this made ME feel? I felt like I was bad because I was this big secret. I felt like we all did something bad because no one could tell the truth. Don’t tell, don’t feel, don’t share. Everything is fine even though you feel something else. Those are all the rules of a dysfunctional family.
My adoptive mother even admitted that she had a very hard time with the fact that I was not her biological baby and that she was afraid she was going to lose my father if she did not connect to me because I was HIS child and not hers. I know she tried her best but there was always that voice in her head that said you took that baby away from his mother and that was wrong It took her years to admit that that was what it was. I love her for trying and I cant imagine what she had to go through but I am still angry with her for not having the strength to tell my father no. I am angry with my father that he did not have the balls to tell their families the truth and how he was so selfish about wanting a biological baby. I am mad at them both for not thinking about how I would feel about being taken away from my bio mother and family and having my biology separated like this. I am angry with my mother for denying me and treated me like nothing but an egg and a $8000 paycheck.
And this crap about being paid only for carrying the child, kind of like prenatal child support. Who in the heck is going to pay someone to carry a child? If that was the cxase, then they would pay you to have the baby and you would raise. No, they are paying you to hand the baby over to them and give up your parental rights. If you didn't agree to sign away your rights and hand over the baby they would sure not hire you in the first place. Let's call it what it is. Money is given to cement the agreement for parental rights and relinquishment of the child.
Surrogacy is a business. There is lots of money to be made for the agencies, the lawyers, the doctors and the surrogates, but mostly the lawyers and agencies. You type in a search and all you come up with is propaganda from the business side of surrogacy. People need to know the kids perspective. It took me a long time to sift through all of the BS and get to the truth. I finally found studies and 10 other kids born from traditional surrogacy. They are between 13 and 20 and their stories will be on my website that will come out in the fall. I think its time you all know how we feel.
Yes I am angry. Yes I feel cheated. Yes I feel that my parents and my mother did not take my feelings into consideration when they entered into this arrangement, but I feel that they are all good people just really misguided and did not stop to think of the ramifications. It’s a shame and it sucks for me. Hell it sucks for all of us. I don’t mean to come off that you (the surrogates and the intended parents) are bad people either. It looks like you are all good people with good intentions and a lot of love but all the good intentions and love in the world wont change the defenition of right and wrong. It won’t change how the kids feel.
Before any of you enter into a traditional( or any surrogacy relationship), do yourselves and your potential kids the favor of reading a couple of books.
The Primal Wound; understanding the adopted child by Nancy Newton Verrier (especially pages 113 thru 117 because they can really be related to surrogacy. There is even a part in there called the Surrogacy Myth.) And 20 Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew by Sherrie Eldridge. Also there is Babies Remember Birth by Dr. David Chamberlain. I think they are available at Amazon. I’ll post links to them later.
When I read these books, all my feelings were real and I felt such a relief to know that I was not alone and I was not weird. In fact I was really normal. Why am I referring to adoption books? Because I AM adopted. That’s what some of you are failing to see. I may have been raised by my bio father but I have an adoptive mother and, believe me, I have the very same issues as adoptees because I am adopted, I am not being raised by my bio mother no matter what anyone might dress it up to be about donating an egg!. I feel like I did not have a choice in this matter and that makes me angry. Adoption is supposed to be the best thing for the kids. Not so at all in a lot of cases! Not so at all!
Lots of people in this arrangement including the kids don’t want to feel and they don’t want to admit and they are so deeply entrenched in denial that they may go on like nothing has happened. It’s emotionally safer to deny and disassociate from the what is the truth. I see it when some of you become so defensive and so adamant on the message boards about not connecting with the baby. But we are your babies. We were meant to be connected to you, in flesh, soul and spirit. To break that bond breaks our hearts whether we come out and admit it or it shows up as something else. What does a tiny baby know? He or she knows a lot. We didn’t ask to be given away, particularly for money.
I don’t know what the solution to infertility is. I hope they can come up with a way for you to all carry your biological children. I just don’t feel that breaking apart a mother and child is the answer unless the mother will cause harm to the baby. Even in those cases, a mother should be able to take part in the child’s life someway and in a safe way. All I am asking you to do is to think long and hard about what you are doing. Consider everything including the way the kids might feel. I see people decide to be surrogates one day and do inseminations the next. That makes me SO ill. They may be alright now, but what about in 7 years? What about in 20 years? What about the kids and how they will feel?
I think we are going to have a mess on our hands in 10 to 20 years when these anonymous egg/sperm donor babies and traditional surrogate babies start to have a voice and want to know why. I don’t have anything against egg donation (if the intended mother of the child is to carry the baby), but for gods sake tell the kid the truth about his biology and make sure the egg/sperm donor is available when the kid wants to know, if not in their lives at some capacity! But the way the internet has proliferated anonymous egg donation and surrogacy, the stuff is going to hit the fan when the kids reach the age of majority. I am sure that some kids will be ok, but most will either seem okay and have deep issues or be pissed as hell like the 10 of us that I have found so far!
My mother came back into my life a year ago but i had to beg and plead with my adoptive mother to let her do so. I just stood and stared at her for the longest time. It was so comforting to see someone who looks like me because I didn't look much like my father. I have her hair and eyes. I have her nose and smile. There was an increible sense of recognition. Just to see her gave me a sense of belonging to the human race. I no longer felt like I crawled out from under a rock or was dropped off by an alien spaceship. I had a mother and she looked like me. My brothers and sister looked like me too. She cried and held me in her arms and I felt like that tiny baby she had given birth to 17 years ago and was holding for the first time. I felt like I finally came home.
Because somewhere between the narcissistic, selfish or desperate need for a child and the desire to make a buck, everyone else’s needs and wants are put before the kids needs. We, the children of surrogacy, become lost. That is the real tragedy.
Brian C.
Son of a Surrogate
lostchildrenofsurrogacy@hotmail.com
Much more to come in March
Read more such accounts here:
We Deserve to Be Conceived in Love
The Ruling Class-Approved Discourse on Same-Sex Marriage Is Designed to Exclude Any Concern for How It Affects Children Conceived by Anonymous Gamete Donation, Which Is the Only Way a Same-Sex Couple Can Have a 'Child of Their Own'
I have written a very substantive explanation and defense of the view presented here in the chapter on same-sex marriage in my book, Divide and Rule: The 'Left vs. Right' Trap. It is available here as an e-book or paperback, and can be borrowed for free from your local library as an e-book (details here). If one has not yet read this chapter, then one cannot claim to have an INFORMED disagreement with the view expressed here. The ruling class has promoted a public discourse about same-sex marriage that was designed to exclude any consideration of the implications it has for a child's right to know and be known by both of its biological parents and why that is important. This public discourse was designed to be divisive, by declaring that the only question was whether to be for "equality" or for bigotry (e.g., Bible fundamentalism). As a result, most people have not experienced any discussion about the role of marriage in society as it relates to the welfare of children.
Ask somebody who says, "I believe any two single adults who mutually consent should be allowed to marry each other," if therefore siblings should be allowed to marry, and they cannot answer the question without refuting what they just said about "any two single adults...".
Ask somebody who says that the right to marry and the welfare of children are two completely different things because "procreation is not the only relevant reason for marriage," if it follows that, since driving a vehicle is not the only relevant reason for wanting a driver's license [many only want one to use as an ID card] therefore we should give a driver's license to a blind person. The person's confusion here is due to the fact that the ruling class censored from the same-sex marriage debate the key fact that in our society allowing a couple to marry constitutes formal social approval for the couple to produce a child of their own, and the decision whether to allow a couple to marry is properly and logically based not on what the couple might or might not choose to do but rather on whether we wish to give the couple approval to produce a child of their own whether they want to or not. This is why we don't allow siblings to marry, even siblings whose reason for wanting to be married has nothing to do with procreation.
These examples of illogical thinking have flourished in the context of the same-sex marriage debate because the debate was designed to exclude logical thinking and replace it with clever debaters' rhetorical tricks.
Another example of illogical thinking in this context is this. Many people, noting that the view expressed here focuses on the right of children to know and be known by both of their biological parents, immediately think of adopted children who are not being raised by both of their biological parents, and these people then say, "So, you must think adoption is a bad thing, uh?" This reflects a failure to think clearly about cause and effect, a failure to distinguish between an association and a cause. Adoptive parents are not the cause of the child not knowing its biological parents; whatever the unfortunate cause was it was something that happened before the adoptive parents were involved at all and they are doing a morally admirable thing by making life as good as possible for the child in spite of it not knowing its biological parents. This kind of illogical thinking would, for example, conclude that emergency room doctors are bad people because they are often around people with terrible injuries. In contrast to adopting parents, people who use anonymous third party gamete donation CAUSE the child to not know and be known by one of its biological parents.
Yet another example of illogical thinking is this. One person has denounced me for advocating the law proposed above; he says that by advocating this law I am attacking gays and lesbians, preventing them from marrying. First, not a single couple has been or even could be prevented from marrying by my merely advocating this law. Same-sex couples are getting married presently. Second, if the law I propose were enacted (meaning anonymous gamete donation would be illegal and same-sex marriage would be legal), then again it would not prevent a single couple who could get married before the law was passed from getting married after the law was passed--not a single couple! Third, the law I propose applies to both same-sex and opposite-sex couples and even to single individuals; it does not discriminate against people on the basis of sexual orientation or even on the basis of marriage status.
Just Because Someone Uses an Argument Based on Religion Doesn't Mean Their Primary Concern Is Not the Welfare of Children
The thing about religion is that people take their values TO the scriptures; they don't get their values FROM the scriptures. (The scriptures are full of contradictory parts; people pick the parts that confirm their values and ignore the contrary parts.) Thus, when somebody says, "I think X because of my religious beliefs," they are really saying, "I think X and choose to defend that position by citing the most authoritative thing I can cite, which is an old established religious scripture."
I think you, dear reader, would find it interesting, if you could do the following. Engage in a conversation with somebody who "opposes same-sex marriage for religious reasons." Ask that person how they feel about the issue of children being, or not being, prevented (by deliberate adult decisions) from knowing and being known by (as in traditional child raising) both of their biological parents (I call this the "concern for children" issue). It would be interesting to see if this person thought this "concern for children" issue was a very important issue in connection with the same-sex marriage question, or not important.
If this person's only (or main) objection to same-sex marriage is simply something such as that "the Bible says Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve," then this person would think that the "concern for children" issue was unimportant. Alternatively, if this person thinks the "concern for children" issue is important, then this would suggest that they are simply using religious doctrine as a way to defend a "concern for children" position.
So, this is an experiment that you, dear reader, might be able to conduct. Interested?
Of note, the Catholic Church--one of the largest organizations opposed to same-sex marriage, has a reason that is clearly about a concern for children, as one can read on its United States Conference of Catholic Bishops website here:
“Any honest consideration of marriage must think about children, the hope of our future. For millennia, people of every generation and of every culture have understood that the marriage of a man and a woman is the central pro-child social institution and the rock of the natural family. Marriage has never been about the relationship of just any two adults. Marriage brings together a man and a woman who unite as husband and wife to form a unique relationship open to welcoming and caring for new life. As the union of husband and wife, marriage is a union open from within to the blessing of fruitfulness. Children are born “from the very heart” of marriage, from the mutual self-giving between husband and wife (CCC, no. 2366). They are the “supreme gift” of marriage and its “ultimate crown” (GS, nos. 50, 48).“Made for Life,” the second video in the Marriage: Unique for a Reason series, discusses the gift of children and the unique love that fathers and mothers give to children. “Made for Life” is the perfect sequel to “Made for Each Other,” which explores why sexual difference matters for marriage. Only a man and a woman can authentically speak the language of married love, because only a man and a woman can engage in the act which, by its nature, is designed for bringing new life into the world.” [emphasis added]
See "Pope Francis approves blessings for same-sex couples if the rituals don’t resemble marriage." (Also here and here.)
What Do You Think?
I understand that these views are perhaps controversial among egalitarians. Please send me your thoughts on this topic and I will create a page on this website for them to appear on.
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* Obviously a law requiring merely "intent" is a weak law and one that is difficult if not impossible to enforce. The value of this law is that it establishes what society thinks is the way things ought to be. A marriage vow ("till death do us part"), for example, does this even though we know people sometimes get divorced. If this law were in effect, it would mean, for example, that when encountering two women on the street wearing identical wedding bands and pushing a baby carriage with a cute baby in it, one would be perfectly in keeping with social etiquette to reveal in one's conversation that one assumed the child's father was part of its family.
What about the case of, say, a woman using frozen sperm from a man, perhaps her late husband, who donated the sperm before dying, in which case the man would not be alive at the time of conception and could not therefore intend anything at that time? Such a conception is one that guarantees, by design, that the child will not know and be known by its biological father, and should not be legal.
** "Co-primary" because the biological mother and biological father are the two people who are primarily responsible for the child's conception. (At least for human beings this is true, even if perhaps not for mice created from two male mice and no female mouse as scientists made happen as reported here.)
*** Here is how a same-sex couple could have a child "of their own" (i.e., not an adopted child) without breaking the bond between the child and its biological father (or mother, as the case may be). Say two lesbian women are married and want a child of their own. One of the women could get pregnant with the sperm of a man, and then that man (the father) and the two women would live together in the same house (perhaps one bedroom for the father and one for the two women) as a family, in which the child would know and be known by both its biological mother and father, as much so as in a traditional opposite-sex marriage-based family. An analogous arrangement could be used by two married gay men. This way, both biological parents of the child are still raising the child and still know and are known by the child as its co-primary parents. This way, the child's biological father (or mother) is neither completely unknown to the child (as is the case with anonymous sperm or egg donation) nor known merely as a person who lives across town or in another state. The principle that the needs of a child trump the desires of adults is the reason why the same-sex couple and the other biological parent should should live together as one family, even if this is inconvenient or not what the same-sex couple or the other parent desire. When people produce a child they have a moral obligation to do what is right for that child. Before dismissing this notion as bizarre, read here how even the very liberal (and pro-same-sex marriage) Young Turks agree with it. If people don't want to do this, then they can adopt an already-existing child instead of insisting on producing a child.
Here is another true-life example of how a lesbian couple and the father of the child arranged to ensure that, despite the mother and her lover living together the father remained a part of the family unit so that the child would know and be known by both its biological parents and be raised by both of them. In her autobiography, Out of Line, Barbara Lynch--a woman raised in a South Boston housing project who became a James Beard award-winning chef and owner/operator of many wonderful restaurants in Boston--describes the story of her husband, Charlie, her lesbian lover, J, and her daughter (with her husband), Marchesa. The story in the excerpt below starts with Barbara informing her husband for the first time that she was romantically involved with a "family friend," J, (who had children of her own) with whom Barbara had been spending a lot of time.
"I was making dozens of lobster rolls for the guests, mostly food-industry friends. But once J told her kids, word might leak to Charlie, so I had to pull him aside. 'There's something you need to know," I began.
"At first, he said only, 'Hmmm...okay...' It was a lot to process.
"Later, as we talked it through, he asked, 'Is this a phase? The change of life? Something you needed to get out of your system?'
"I didn't think so, but I honestly had no clue. On some level, Charlie was relieved that I'd fallen for another woman instead of a guy. And if it had to be a woman, at least he knew and liked J and her two boys.
"'Are we getting a divorce?' he asked.
"Weirdly, I hadn't considered it. Charlie and I were intertwined, to some extent professionally in that he'd helped me build the business and had remained my truest ally, but even more because we shared a daughter. We'd be in each other's lives forever. But we didn't live together full-time, so my romance with J wasn't destroying a household rhythm. Couldn't we keep the same pattern of space and connection without putting Marchesa through the pain and upheaval of divorce?
"'We're great parents, and we can stil be,' I told Charlie. 'You're a fantastic father.'"
"It was true. He'd risen to the challenge of caring for three kids alone after his wife's death. When Marchesa came along, she united us as a family; and Charlie, as our friend Sarah Gulati puts it, having reached a life stage when he was no longer 'rushing,' experienced a 'rebirth.' We'd visit the Gulatis at their summer place in Gloucester, where Charlie would help Marchesa, as a toddler, climb over the rocks to the water's edge. There, he let Marchesa explore, turning over stones, peering into the water to spot the little fish, just 'enjoying her inquiring mind...He was so patient,' Sarah said.
"Now Charlie was patient with me too. A more straitlaced husband would have hauled me into court in a heartbeat. But Charlie had already enjoyed a traditional marriage and recognized that ours would be different (though even I didn't expect that it would be this different.) He 'got me'--accepting my restlessness, my impulsiveness, my relentless work drive, my need for solitude. He knows who he is and was secure enough in himself to give me what some might consider a lot of breathing room.
"Over the coming months, we functioned as a unit that must have looked strange from the outside. We all spent that Christmas Eve with J's family, the women with whom I'd made cappelletti--J and I as a couple, J's sons, and Charlie and Marchesa as my guests. It was awkward, but, with the truth known, I felt unchained. Charlie's family, unshockable, was more accepting."
Here's yet another example, reported by a person on Quora, of how same-sex couples can have children who will know and be known by, and raised by, both of their biological parents:
I had an online friend a few years ago who had (and presumably still has) the most fascinating family setup. She and her wife had formed a family with a gay male couple, and at the time I knew her they had three kids.
My friend was the biological mother of all the children, and they called her Mama. She was a stay-at-home mother, focused entirely on the children.
Her wife was Mom, and worked full time.
The biological father of all the children was Daddy, and also worked full time.
The nonbio father was Papa. He was an artist of some sort, and created his art at home while also doing the cooking and housework.
All four parents were very engaged with the kids and shared all decision making equally.
Still think that's one of the coolest families I've ever heard of.