News

What is it like to be a donor-conceived child?

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Marriage and family
Marriage and family

Yesterday, I wrote about children who are raised by same-sex parents. Today I want to link to an article written by two donor-conceived children.

The thing about donor-conceived children is this – the child’s natural father and/or mother’s absence has been bought and paid for by the adopting couple. One or both of the people who conceived the child is being paid by the adopter to go away.

From the article:

[M]y mother informed me of my true parentage when I was 14, and it was, as they say, irrevocable. My mother’s then-husband had waited until they divorced to permit her to tell me, and the revelation of his not being my biological father clarified an overwhelming amount of issues between us. For a multitude of reasons—his background, my personality and beliefs, our lack of biological connection—the cards were stacked against our having a conventional, loving father-daughter relationship. And we didn’t.

One of the greatest tragedies of donor conception is the loss of belonging: to family, to a culture. Essentially, one becomes malleable like an infant. I crave a home. I see myself as I travel in many directions—doing anything in order to find one.

Through the storytelling of other donor-conceived individuals, and scientific research pertaining to third-party reproduction and genetics, I have discovered that my situation is by no means unique, and I now understand the scientific explanations as to why my social father and I—up to a certain point—were unable to bond. It is natural for me to desire my father, for evolution has blessed those that secure such a bond with better survival rates.

The lack of my biological father’s presence is a devastating reality, a burden I will likely bare my entire existence. And now, knowing the truth of my conception, when I remember my past I remember everything that was absent from it.

The study she linked to in that paragraph says this:

It is on these grounds that we hypothesized, many years ago, that any and all sorts of abuse and exploitation would be seen to occur at higher rates in steprelationships than in genetic parent-child relationships, and that the differences would persist when possible confounds such as socio-economic status were controlled for… This hypothesis has since been abundantly supported in our own research and in that of many others. This differential (mis)treatment is what we refer to as the “Cinderella effect”.

[…][I]n several countries, stepparents beat very young children to death at per capita rates that are more than 100 times higher than the corresponding rates for genetic parents.

[…]The evidence for Cinderella effects in nonlethal abuse is much more extensive than that for homicides. Numerous studies from a diversity of countries indicate that stepparents perpetrate both nonlethal physical assaults and sexual abuse at much higher rates than genetic parents.

[…][S]teprelationships are difficult, and those who make it their business to help stepfamilies in distress are unanimous in cautioning that it is a mistake to expect that a stepparent-stepchild relationship is, or will with time become, psychologically equivalent to a birthparent-child relationship… Research tells the same story. Duberman (1975)… interviewed a select sample of well-established, “successful”, middle class, registered-marriage U.S. stepfamilies, and reported that only 53% of the stepfathers and 25% of the stepmothers felt able to say that they had any “parental feeling” (much less “love”) for their stepchildren.

It’s a well-known fact that mothers in particular have trouble treating their adopted children as well as their naturally-born children. This should be a caution to those women who want to put off marriage through their 20s and 30s, thinking that they can always adopt. Until you study the issues, it’s hard to know how to make a plan that takes into account the what children need in order to be happy, healthy and effective. Research should be consulted in order to make plans that will actually work.

More from the original article:

In the study “My Daddy’s Name Is Donor,” it was found that, “Regarding troubling outcomes, even with controls, the offspring of lesbian couples who used a sperm donor to conceive appear more than twice as likely as those raised by their biological parents to report struggling with substance abuse,” an alarming result displaying the reality of being raised without both genetic parents.

Some suggest that spending more money on making children means that they are more loved. Our children are definitively wanted, they say.

“The baby doesn’t care anything about the money,” says marriage and family therapist Nancy Verrier, regarding the issues surrounding surrogacy. “That’s not what hurts the baby. The baby is hurt by the separation, by the loss of that mother that it knows.” This ever-present realization of loss remains with both mother and child throughout their lives. Nature has ensured that mothers and children attach to one another, as it is a trait necessary to our survival; without motivation to love or instinctively care for her child, why would a mother protect her children from potential danger? She wouldn’t, and that would have heralded the end of our species. With this biological connection so immediate and meaningful, why doesn’t society view maintenance of that connection as more imperative?

The answer is that we are becoming more secular as a society as belief in God and therefore in objective morality declines. We are elevating the need to pursue happiness in this life over respect for objective morality. That’s why laws are changing to promote adult selfishness over the needs of children. Abortion, no-fault divorce, same-sex marriage… these are all elements of the secular worldview which wants to avoid the demands that children place on us. We want to have fun – not be saddled with moral obligations to others, that diminish our fun. We as a society have decided – whether we admit it or not – that the universe is an accident, that morality is an illusion, that responsibilities must be avoided, and that this life is all we have.

It’s amazing how widespread this attitude is, not just among atheists, but among Christians as well. Usually, the Christians just put a little spiritual spin on it though – “God told me to pursue my calling, so you can’t assess the feasibility and destructive impact of my choice”. That works to fool many “spiritual” people who put more faith in feelings than competence, but it doesn’t work to prevent the destructiveness of not thinking things through.

News

Do Democrats want to deport illegal aliens who commit serious crimes?

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Jeb Bush and Barack Obama support amnesty
Jeb Bush and Barack Obama support amnesty

Let’s start with the raw numbers from CNS News.

They write:

According to weekly detention and departure reports from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, there were 167,527 non-detained convicted criminal aliens in the United States as of Jan. 26 of this year, a congressional hearing revealed Thursday.

House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah.) read the statistic aloud Thursday durin a hearing examining ICE’s priorities and procedures for removing criminal aliens currently living in the United States.

“In that report, it said that there are 167,527 non-detained, final-order convicted criminals on the loose in the United States,” Chaffetz pointed out while questioning ICE Director Sarah Saldana.“These are people that are here illegally, get caught, convicted, and you release back out into the public,” he said, adding that some of the crimes committed by those who have been released include homicide, sex crimes, child pornography, drunk driving, robbery and kidnapping.

The federal government announced Wednesday that ICE had released about 30,000 convicted criminal aliens from ICE custody in 2014 alone, according to The Washington Times, which first reported the statistic.

[…]During the hearing, Saldana said that ICE releases criminal aliens back into the community based on the agency’s “discretionary control.”

[…]“So you don’t automatically deport them, then?” Chaffetz asked.

“Automatically, sir? No,” Saldana responded, adding that “the law gives us that discretion.”

“And so when we say, if you’re a criminal, you’ll be deported, that’s not necessarily true,” Chaffetz said.

“It is true, sir. It’s in–”

“After they get released back into the public for untold number of times?” Chaffetz asked.

“It does happen. It does happen, yes, and that’s exactly what we’re here to do,” Saldana admitted.

“What does happen? That they get released?” Chaffetz asked.

“Yes,” Saldana said, “Even criminals that are released.”

“Those people were released under the laws of the United States,” Saldana added, explaining that according to “due process,” it can easily take “months and even years to deport folks.”

Meanwhile, the Washington Times reports on some criminals who were amnestied by Obama’s executive action.

Excerpt:

Nearly two dozen of the illegal immigrants picked up in a nationwide sweep for criminal aliens earlier this month had previously been approved for President Obama’s deportation amnesty, the Homeland Security Department said Wednesday.

All 23 were part of Mr. Obama’s original program for so-called Dreamers, which began in 2012 and which had granted tentative legal legal status to nearly 640,000 as of the end of last year.

Of the 23, 15 were still actively part of the amnesty, while eight had been approved once but had not gotten their status renewed after the first two-year period expired.

[…]Homeland Security spokeswoman Marsha Catron said 14 of the 15 Dreamers who were still part of “deferred action” were convicted of their crimes after they were approved. The other one had a has a pending criminal charge but hadn’t yet been convicted or acquitted.

Now I am all in favor of legal immigration and even naturalization of skilled workers who come here on work permits and prove over a long period time that they can 1) keep a job, 2) avoid committing crimes, and 3) not collect any benefits from the government. But I am really at a loss to understand why the United States shows almost no interest in getting skilled immigrants to settle down, but a great interest in giving special benefits to illegal immigrants who commit serious crimes. It really makes no sense to me – it’s not fair. It’s really a mystery to me how a “Republican” presidential candidate like Jeb Bush can be in favor of amnesty when this is what amnesty actually does, in practice. Why is Bush even running as a Republican? He should be challenging Hillary Clinton for the Democrat nomination.

Commentary

What can Winston Churchill teach us about deterring aggression?

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Winston Churchill on appeasement
Winston Churchill on appeasement

Famous economist Thomas Sowell explains.

He writes:

Despite Churchill’s legendary status today, he was not merely ignored but ridiculed at the time, when he was repeatedly warning in vain. Knowing that his warnings provoked only mocking laughter in some quarters, even among some members of his own party, he said on March 14, 1938 in the House of Commons, “Laugh but listen.”

Just two years later, with Hitler’s planes bombing London, night after night, the laughter was gone. Many at the time thought that Britain itself would soon be gone as well, like other European nations that succumbed to the Nazi blitzkrieg in weeks (like France) or days (like Holland).

How did things get to such a desperate situation, with Britain alone continuing the fight, and struggling to survive, against the massive Nazi war machine that now controlled much of the material resources on the continent of Europe?

Things got that desperate by following policies strikingly similar to the policies being followed by the Western democracies today, including some of the very same notions and catchwords being used today.

Just recently, a State Department official in the Obama administration said that Americans have remained safe in a nuclear age, not because of our own nuclear arsenal but because “we created an intricate and essential system of treaties, laws and agreements.”

If “treaties, laws and agreements” produced peace, there would never have been a Second World War. The years leading up to that monumental catastrophe were filled with international treaties and arms control agreements.

The Treaty of Versailles, which ended the First World War, imposed strong restrictions on Germany’s military forces — on paper. The Washington Naval Agreements of 1922 imposed restrictions on all the major naval powers of the world — on paper. The Kellogg-Briand pact of 1928 created an international renunciation of war — on paper.

The Munich agreement of 1938 produced a paper with Hitler’s signature on it that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain waved to the cheering crowds when he returned to England, and said that it meant “Peace for our time.” Less than a year later, World War II began.

Winston Churchill never bought any of this. He understood that military deterrence was what preserved peace. With England playing a leadership role in Europe, “England’s hour of weakness is Europe’s hour of danger,” he said in the House of Commons in 1931.

[…]While Russia and China increased the share of their national output that went to military spending in 2014, the United States reduced its share. Churchill deplored the “inexhaustible gullibility” of disarmament advocates in 1932. That gullibility is still not exhausted in 2015.

“Not one of the lessons of the past has been learned, not one of them has been applied, and the situation is incomparably more dangerous,” Churchill said in 1934. And every one of those words is more urgently true today, in a nuclear age.

Here’s another article by Thomas Sowell that explains it more.

Excerpt:

In France, after the First World War, the teachers’ unions launched a systematic purge of textbooks, in order to promote internationalism and pacifism.

Books that depicted the courage and self-sacrifice of soldiers who had defended France against the German invaders were called “bellicose” books to be banished from the schools.

Textbook publishers caved in to the power of the teachers’ unions, rather than lose a large market for their books. History books were sharply revised to conform to internationalism and pacifism.

The once epic story of the French soldiers’ heroic defense against the German invaders at Verdun, despite the massive casualties suffered by the French, was now transformed into a story of horrible suffering by all soldiers at Verdun— French and German alike.

In short, soldiers once depicted as national heroes were now depicted as victims— and just like victims in other nations’ armies.

[…]France, where pacifism and internationalism were strongest, became a classic example of how much it can matter.

During the First World War, France fought on against the German invaders for four long years, despite having more of its soldiers killed than all the American soldiers killed in all the wars in the history of the United States, put together.

But during the Second World War, France collapsed after just six weeks of fighting and surrendered to Nazi Germany.

At the bitter moment of defeat the head of the French teachers’ union was told, “You are partially responsible for the defeat.”

Charles de Gaulle, Francois Mauriac, and other Frenchmen blamed a lack of national will or general moral decay, for the sudden and humiliating collapse of France in 1940.

Is the same thing happening in our public schools? Are our children taught to think that wars can be prevented by unilaterally disarming?

The lesson we need to learn from history is that the way to stop wars is by making the people who want to start them understand that there will be a price to pay if they start a war. That means that we need a certain amount of military power, and that we should have demonstrated that we are willing to use it. That is counter-intuitive to people on the left who cannot imagine that evil tyrants really are evil tyrants. They want to believe that problems can be solved with talk, but history teaches that talk is cheap.