Tag Archives: Artificial Insemination

News

A gay man and a lesbian decide to have a child through IVF

3 Comments

From the UK Telegraph.

Excerpt:

Seven years ago, when Sabrina Morgan, 33, was single and desperate for a child, she found herself chatting to Kam Wong, 41, a gay man who was longing to be a father, in an online fertility forum. ‘I instantly thought he was genuine, down-to-earth, laidback and flexible,’ says Sabrina.

‘We exchanged pictures. It wasn’t about sexual attraction, obviously, but it was important what he looked like. I asked him if he had any history of baldness and loose teeth. It was part humour but it was also my way to steer towards more serious questions, like does he have any genetic health conditions.’

For Kam, who is in a long-term relationship, contacting Sabrina was about more than being a sperm donor: ‘I adore children. The desire to have my own has always been with me. Because of my sexuality I thought it might never happen. The urge grew stronger in my thirties until one day I researched options. When I met Sabrina I was very nervous. This was my chance to fulfil my dreams.’

It took Sabrina six years to conceive through IVF. By then she had met Kirsty Slack, 37, who is now her romantic partner. Sabrina and Kirsty live together and are Zaide’s primary carers. Kam visits weekly, which will increase as Zaide gets older.

Kam and Sabrina are one of the growing number of couples in so-called ‘co-parenting’ relationships – biological parents who have a close but platonic relationship and both contribute to child-rearing . Co-parenting isn’t just for the gay community. Straight men and women are choosing to put romance aside in the name of reproduction.

[…]Catherine, 41, met Steve, 39, on the website [xyz]. He is gay and she has been single for two years. He lives in London for his job as an analyst but will join Catherine in Swansea if and when he gets her pregnant, through artificial insemination (AI).

It isn’t that Catherine doesn’t want to find love but that she wants a child more: ‘I’ve stopped looking for a partner. Of course I need love, but I can have a partner at any age. I can only have a child now,’ she says.

[…]Catherine started her online search after a break-up from a three-year relationship with a man who didn’t want children. ‘I’d just turned 39 and thought, “I don’t have time for this to happen again.” In a worst-case scenario I would seek an anonymous donor, but I’ve always thought a child needs a father. At the very least I wanted a donor who would visit regularly.’

Catherine chatted to Steve for a month online before meeting: ‘When I saw him my heart jumped. I thought, “Finally it’s going to happen!” I was happy for him to stay in London, but he wanted to be fully involved. Now I’m helping him find a job in Swansea.’

If Catherine conceives they plan to live together for a trial period: ‘We know we could end up like a bickering couple. If so we will live separately. I have friends with small children – I could see how hard it would be for me to live alone. Who would go out to get nappies and milk if I ran out?’

Mary actually found this post for me on the Boundless web site, where she found these two comments.

A very bad man: (Bryan)

We can condemn surrogacy by a single man or woman all we want. But at the end of the day, NO ONE can deny the fact that the biological urge to reproduce is strong and sometimes defy reason.

I do understand that young man’s desire to have a biological baby because to be honest, I feel that way myself. Boundless readers may want to condemn people like us but let it be known that there are people who, confronted with such a strong biological urge, have no choice but conduct surrogacy with a woman in India. I must admit, although I am a man and not a woman, I still long to hold the tiny fingers of a helpless baby in my hands, gaze at the cute eyes of mini-me and caress the soft baby skin in my arms. It is just natural. Boundless readers, if you want to condemn single young men with desires like me, go ahead. But let it be known that people like me exist but are just keeping quiet (until now, of course).

Men aren’t supposed to talk like that – they are supposed to protect children from the selfishness of predators. Not ruin the child’s life because of their own selfishness. It’s completely backwards.

A very good woman: (Kim)

My heart just breaks for men in our society (American). How horrible to always be faced with low expectations, being made fun of, thought of as the unneccessary “moron”… How wrong!

For what it is worth, a man who is willing to fight against culture and strives to be a man of honor and respect- with everything that entails- certainly commands my respect.

What a sad, sad society we have become. I feel for that child and the emotional and mental anguish he will feel. Read any literature on abuse and at the very least this arrangement will leave this child open for abuse via a low self esteem. Can you imagine being passed back and forth when it is convenient for your parents? Getting older and finding out you were a child of convenience and want, want in a selfish form and not a giving form?

I think it’s important for Christians to connect issues like this to their Christian worldview. Instead of tolerating and excusing every sin to make people like us, we should take a step back and ask ourselves if the Bible might not be correct when it prohibits certain conduct as sinful.  Obviously selfish atheists are going to want to blur the lines of morality, redefining it so that chastity, fidelity and sobriety are out, but yoga, recycling and vegetarianism are in. But there is no reason that we have to go along with them. We should be on the side of the children. The new generation of secularists have turned their backs on chastity, courting and traditional self-sacrificial marriage. Now they are struggle to desperately grasp for their happiness, no matter how much harm they cause to innocent children. Let’s tell them that some things are wrong.

News

New study compares donor-conceived vs biologically-conceived children

3 Comments

The study is here. (H/T Dr. J from RuthBlog)

Dr. J writes:

The Institute for American Values has just published a new study, My Daddy’s Name is Donor, of how donor conceived persons are doing in comparison with those who were born and raised by their biological parents and in comparison with those who were adopted.

And she notes this comment from a gay man who thinks that the fact that he and his partner PLANNED their donor-conceived child, that they are therefore justified morally in doing so.

The gay man writes:

I’m a gay man who has had a child, with my partner of 8 years, through surrogacy and egg donation. The egg donor and surrogate will be known to our son.

One way that I explain to people our experience with the artificial reproduction process is that it is the opposite of being ‘knocked-up’. We were very involved in the planning and conception and the growth and birth of our child. Our child’s conception and birth was considered, thought about, planned for, dreamed about, fantasized about. He was most definitely wanted. He is loved and treasured.

We did not have sex to have our child. We did not have wedded, heterosexual, within marriage, we-want-to-have-a-child-sex. We did not have wedded, passionate, spur-of-the-moment at the wrong time of the month (or the wrong time of our life) sex. We did not have wedded, spur-of-the-moment, right time of the month sex. We did not have any of these types heterosexual sex as unmarried heterosexuals.

But so many children are born to heterosexual couples via each of these eight scenarios. So many. Many more, around the world are born in wider range of unloving scenarios.

And then one of the authors (Elizabeth Marquardt) of the new study responds by citing evidence.

I just want to note that one way of looking at the My Daddy’s Name is Donor study is as a study of three groups: The first completely one hundred percent wanted and intended — that is, the donor offspring. The other two groups made up of a lot of unintended pregnancies — that is, the adopted and those raised by their biological parents.

Which group is faring the worst? The 100 percent wanted, planned, intended group. The donor offspring, overall, even with controls, are twice as likely to have struggled with substance abuse and delinquency, and 1.5 times as likely to have struggled with depression, compared to those raised by their biological parents (and these differences are significant). The adopted generally fall in between except with regard to depression in which case they were higher than both the donor conceived and the raised-by-biological.

No one is saying, T, that “all” of those raised by biological parents are doing great. But when you look at these populations, measured by our study, you find that, contrary to today’s conventional wisdom, being wanted isn’t enough. What the child is born into — who the child is raised by — matters.

Some more stats from Maggie Gallagher.

Excerpt:

Forty-five percent of these young adults conceived by donor insemination agree, “The circumstances of my conception bother me.” Almost half report that they think about their donor conception a few times a week or more. Forty-five percent agree, “It bothers me that money was exchanged in order to conceive me.”

Nearly half of donor offspring (compared to about a fifth of adopted adults) agree, “When I see friends with their biological fathers and mothers, it makes me feel sad.” Similarly, 53 percent (compared to 29 percent of adoptees) agree, “It hurts when I hear other people talk about their genealogical background.”

This is not fair to children – it treats them like a commodity instead of as a gift from God to be treasured and nurtured.

Commentary

Melanie Phillips has a radical plan to stop the breakdown of marriages

2 Comments

From the UK Daily Mail.

Here’s the problem:

Devastating new research by sociologist Geoff Dench shows that not only is one in four mothers single, but more than half of such mothers have never lived with a man at all and are choosing to live alone on state benefits.

[…]Back in the mists of time … relationships between men and women were based on a bargain between the sexes which, although never stated openly, everyone accepted as a given.

Women realised they needed the father of their children to stick around to help bring them up.

In turn, men committed themselves to the mothers of their children on the basis that they could trust they were indeed the father because the woman was sexually faithful.

Today, this bargain has been all but destroyed. A number of factors have conspired to make women and girls think they can go it alone without men.

The first has been that so many women work and are therefore economically independent. Next was the sexual revolution which saw women becoming as sexually free as men.

In short order, any stigma over having babies out of wedlock was abolished. Then there was the collapse of manufacturing industry, which deprived many boys of the job prospects which once made them an attractive, marriageable proposition.

Finally, the coup de grace was administered by welfare benefits to single mothers which enabled them to live without the support of their babies’ fathers.

The result of all this was that many women and girls decided they no longer needed their children’s fathers to be part of the family unit.

This has given rise to an increasing number of women-only households where fathers have been written out of the family script for three or four generations or more.

The consequences of such family disintegration – as is now indisputable – are in general catastrophic for both individuals and for society.

This problem will not be cracked, however, unless women come to believe once again that their interests lie in attracting one man to father their children and then stick with them. Which is where my proposal of a Man Benefit comes in.

Click here to find out what the “Man Benefit” is. This is a fine article, and every man and woman who wants to understand how big government government causes the destruction of the family should read it. Then forward it to all of your friends. I think that we have a problem today where we just don’t think intelligently about what it takes to have a good marriage. Does government help children to grow up in stable homes, or does government make it more likely for children to grow up in a broken home? What does the evidence say?

This column by Stephen Baskerville is a nice follow-up to Melanie’s article.