Tuesday, May 8, 2007

WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN

When women gain the right to control their reproduction or sexuality, repressive societies get scared. The response may be that of Islamic theocracies, where the government sanctions killing or gang-raping women as punishment for their, or their family members' infidelity.

In the United States, Christian theocrats seem to admire the Ayatollahs who dictate law and policy in countries like Iran. They are frightened to death of the fact that lesbians are creating healthy families without the participation of male parents.

In Kansas, a male friend agreed to donate sperm to a woman who wanted to have children as a single parent. They signed no contract giving him any rights whatsoever. His donation was made in a medical clinic. After the woman's twins were born, the man decided he wanted joint custody!

Below is my response to the article, entitled "What About the Children?"

"What about the children? The children have the right to an intact family of the parent(s) who chose to have them, NOT the confusion and chaos of shared custody with someone who happens to share their genes but is not a member of their family. With your logic, all parents who give their kids up for adoption should share custody with the adoptive parents. That is utterly wrong.

Infertile couples and their children created with the help of anonymous sperm donors have the legal right not to have a stranger interfere with their families.

You are suggesting that a family with an infertile husband who chose a sperm donor be forced to endure 18 years of interference by the "real" father.

Likewise, women who choose to have children without a male partner don't sign up for decades of "marriage" to a sperm donor either.

Oh, you only care if the parents are women. If you hate lesbians that much, don't pretend your concern is that the children have a "dad". The children's parents are the couple who is raising them, not a stranger who signed away his legal rights.

I donated my embryos left over from IVF to an infertile couple. My family does not expect the right to make decisions for those children or have legal visitation rights just because we helped another family have children. No donor has, or should have, that expectation. If the real parents who are raising the children wish to allow the donor and child to meet -- and most do -- that is their choice, not our right.

Children know their families are "real" whether or not their parents had help cretaing them. Why don't you know that?"