Hi Timocrat
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/7659430.stm
In UK today there is a court case of a woman who has had her dead husband’s sperm removed and she wants to have a baby. Normally the court requires the consent of the father before this procedure can be carried out No doubt she will succeed in changing the law, but how far would you go to have a baby?
Like Madonna would you go to another country where the rules are less strict and ‘buy’ one?
Or would you have a one night stand and not tell the father you were not on the pill?
Or would you try and adopt or foster?
Do you think the father should be aware of what is happening?
There is a big difference adopting a baby that is already here and for whatever reason its parents cannot/not allowed to be the parents and deliberately creating one as a single parent in these circumstances.
The child is a separate human being with its own rights. It sounds like this woman is being selfish and having a child for herself and not thinking of the child’s best interests – namely – to have a chance of having a father. It is bad enough when relationships breakdown or father’s die that children end up with only one parent, but to deliberately create a child without a father seems utterly unacceptable to me. as a father I believe children need both parents.
I think this woman has gone too far though. But is this worse than using a sperm bank or egg donor? They are all legal even for single women.
There are two basic types of IVF – so called assisted fertilisation – where the mother’s egg and father’s sperm are mixed in a lab and then reimplanted. And donor fertilisation – where someone else’s egg and/or someone else’s sperm are fertilised and then implanted in the woman.
The first type I have no problem with, but the second type raises important questions about who exactly is the mummy and daddy? I do not think we should go that far in making babies. That is where I would draw the line – at least at the state’s expense. if people want to create babies and have the money to do so they will always find a way – but tax-payer’s should not help these artificial families. It will be far too confusing for the child in determining its ancestry.
Once again the courts are being asked to determine the limits of feminism – how far can women go to have babies without men. I doubt if this woman will lose sicne the courts continue to do everything asked of them, by women, but not by men.
Tags: Anti-male discrimination, babies, gender
