When Children Are Born Motherless

GlennSacks.com ^ | 7-31-07 | Glenn Sacks

[PercivalWalks]

Elise Passamani's article "Oedipus Child: When Children Are Born Motherless, Problems Await" (The American, 7/25/07)[http://www.american.com/archive/2007/july-0707/oedipus-child], deals with the case of a man, Roberto d.B., who had biological twin daughters through a surrogate mother. She explains, "When the hospital put the surrogate’s name on the children’s birth certificates as the legal mother, Mr. d.B. sued to have the certificates reissued without a mother, on the grounds that the surrogate is not genetically related to the children." Passamani is critical of Roberto, and warns against "motherless" babies.

I'm against Roberto, but not completely against him. Just as it is bad for children to be fatherless, it is also bad for them to be motherless. A wave of motherless children would be just as destructive as the current trend towards fatherlessness has been. I've condemned "single mothers by choice" who intentionally have children without a father, and I condemn Roberto for doing the same thing with the genders reversed. However, there are a couple of other points here which merit mention. [See article about fatherlessness here: http://www.glennsacks.com/are_boys_better_off.htm]

Given America's divorce epidemic, given the fact that women initiate the vast majority of divorces, and given that fathers' rights to shared custody of their children after divorce or separation have been abrogated on a large scale, the only way that a man can have a child today and be sure he can remain a meaningful part of the child's life is to have a "motherless" child through a surrogate.

Mothers usually don't have to worry about losing their children in a divorce, but fathers do. Roberto's desire to have a "motherless" child and to not have the surrogate mother on the birth certificate may have been motivated by a desire to make sure he could always retain custody of his child. I don't like it, but I understand.

[sodpoodle]

Glad you posted this article. I found an article on Fatherhood see:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1875405/posts

What a strange unGodly new world we have entered. It would appear that the human race is unhappy with sex for the purpose it was ordained (perpetuating our species) and is perverting, replacing and abandoning it.

Procreationism is dead!

[sodpoodle]

CORRECTION: IVF did not begin until 1970’s

http://history1900s.about.com/od/medicaladvancesissues/a/testtubebaby.htm

First Test-Tube Baby - Louise Brown
From Jennifer Rosenberg,

On July 25, 1978, Louise Joy Brown, the world’s first successful “test-tube” baby was born in Great Britain. Though the technology that made her conception possible was heralded as a triumph in medicine and science, it also caused many to consider the possibilities of future ill-use.