Posted on 10/28/2005 6:07:22 PM PDT by neverdem
We can usually sympathize with one or another party to a dispute: one is usually more in the right—or less in the wrong—than the other. But with the breakdown of accepted conventions, it increasingly happens that neither side arouses our sympathies.
Take a recent case in Sweden, where a lesbian couple wished to have children. An understanding and liberal-minded male friend agreed to donate his sperm, and three children were born to one of the two women between 1992 and 1996. But then relations between the two women deteriorated, and they split up.
The mother of the children found herself alone and in difficult straits. Who would support her, in her—and her children’s—time of need? Her former lover was unwilling, because—after all—she was no relation of the children. The sperm donor had made it clear from the first that he had no wish to be a father in any but the most literal biological sense; he thought he was merely doing the couple a favor. He therefore felt no moral obligation to support the children, and his conscience was clear.
Nevertheless, the government’s department of social security—the potential surrogate parent of every child—sued to force the sperm donor to pay. After a case lasting four years, he found himself obliged henceforth to support the mother and children financially.
The president of the Swedish Federation for Sexual Equality declared the legal decision an outrage. “It is scandalous,” he said. “The man has been condemned to be a father even though he did not take the decision to have the children. Above all, one of the women who took part in that decision has been absolved of all responsibility. If one desires equality of rights for lesbians, it is anomalous that it should not be she who was obliged to support the children financially.”
It would take considerable space to elucidate all the errors in the president’s statement. But I think that the language of rights, and above all of equal rights, is what leads us into this sordid legal and moral swamp. If women have a “right” to children, in the sense that not having them if they want them is an infringement of their rights, then of course lesbian women can no longer accept childlessness as the natural consequence of their condition. Let it not be said that new medical technology is responsible for this change in attitude, incidentally: the kind of artificial insemination offered in a domestic setting by the sperm donor has been possible for a very long time. No, the culprit here is the idea that the fulfilment of our desires, no matter what our condition, is a right. As for the well-being of the children in this case—beyond the provision of sufficient financial support for them—that seems to have entered into no one’s thnking.
A plague on all their houses, then: the idea that one “condemns” a man to support children is in itself both revealing and chilling.
There was a convention in the long development of family law that the man to whom the woman is married and with whom she is living at the time of the conception and birth is the legal father of the child. He has either been duped or he has accepted the child without suspicion, and the state ostensibly had a greater interest in the marriage remaining stable than in forcing the issue of biology. Those were the days, not so long ago, when scandal was also to be avoided.
Neither are many men who are forced to support a child not their own. The other woman should have been the one forced by the courts to cough it up.
It was a different shade of meaning -- not for the State to avoid responsibility per se, but for the State to foster the taking of personal responsibility by the free individual who performed the act that created the child. This was the standard before creeping socialism. The legal phrase often used was that the court wished to avoid "piercing the veil of the family."
ping
Oh, I know, I know!!!! Pick me!!!!
The one responsible is...
The company that made the turkey baster!
Mark
I was once threatened by just this sort of thing, and I had to remind the former girlfriend (and evil b***h from hell) that we had never had sex!
Mark
That would be Jean Luc Petard, the captain of the Enterprise on Star Trek, The Pepsi Generation.
Mark
And if we don't, we just make things up! Or refer to a Monty Python sketch or movie credits, or some poorly worded gaming dialog. We may not really know everything, but we never forget!
Mark
That's true but not by God's law. To say she should be held accountable for support would mean I acknowledge the relationship, which I don't.
There is no mention of any kind of legal status of the lesbian couple. I don't know if in the case that were in some kind of civil union she would be required to pay, but one would think that would be a prerequisite.
I do.
Actually I have waited for 10 years for somebody to ask that question!! Finally, you did. Thank you!
Hardly. We are talking about a married woman bearing a child fathered by a man who is not her husband -- it's the husband who was stuck with supporting the child, not the one with the 'personal responsibility'.
'Marriage was not a contract, but a covenant'
'the "contract" view of sexual relations began to rise: the couple's agreement with one another, not with the rest of society.'
I agree that marriage is a covenant. But the covenant aspect is not the same as the legal aspect. The fact is that the Swedish government allowed the virtual marriage of the two lesbians. As much as we may disagree with that, we should understand that those two people then have to be held accountable for their actions. If the government wanted to say there's no such thing as a responsibility-free sperm donation, which I think would be a perfectly reasonable position, then that's something the man should have known from the outset.
"To say she should be held accountable for support would mean I acknowledge the relationship, which I don't."
Out-of-wedlock sexual relationships aren't legitimate either, but that doesn't mean both parents don't have a responsibility to the child. I realize that the fleeing lesbian wasn't a biological parent, but she still took on the responsibility and should have to pay something.
LOL!!
See, I DID know what a Petard was, after all!
Anyone that makes a comitment to care for a child, sister, brother, grandparent whatever has a moral obligation to do so, somehow IMO. Out of wedlock involves a woman and a man. The parents should be the one's legally responsible.
I don't know, but it seems like when he donated sperm to make a life, he made a decision to make a child.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.