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The Expense of Spirit (A lesbian’s sperm donor is hoist with his own petard.)
City Journal ^ | 25 October 2005 | Theodore Dalrymple

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.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: dalrymple; fatherhood; gaymarriage; gayrights; homosexualagenda; ivf; leftistperversion; lesbians; obligations; paternity; rights; spermbank; sweden; theodoredalrymple
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To: neverdem

"(A lesbian’s sperm donor is hoist with his own petard.)"

I don't understand this. Is this anything like "A lebian donor's petard are belong to us?"


121 posted on 10/29/2005 9:23:42 AM PDT by righttackle44 (The most dangerous weapon in the world is a Marine with his rifle and the American people behind him)
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To: andie74
when he donated sperm to make a life, he made a decision to make a child.

Clearly :-). I think they mean the mother decided to "have the children," in the sense of giving birth and rearing them, while the donor intended to not have anything to do with them.

122 posted on 10/29/2005 9:37:43 AM PDT by Tax-chick ("Neither the depth of despondency nor the height of euphoria tells you how long either will last. ")
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To: BackInBlack
It seems they were trying to "have children" together but obviously couldn't ...

Now THAT's a pathetic picture. Reminds me of an old dog ... never mind.

123 posted on 10/29/2005 9:48:31 AM PDT by gitmo (Thanks, Mel. I needed that.)
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To: Albion Wilde
5,000 years of Judeo-Christianity, dismantled in a single decade.

I think you are premature in your declaration of death.

124 posted on 10/29/2005 9:50:54 AM PDT by gitmo (Thanks, Mel. I needed that.)
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To: Michael.SF.
Actually, in this case, they are for turkeys(human variety).

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)

LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

125 posted on 10/29/2005 9:55:51 AM PDT by LonePalm (Commander and Chef)
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To: ClearCase_guy

"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have."

Excellent. Is the quote yours? I'd like my daughter to tell this to her stupid, liberal, socialist-loving government teacher.


126 posted on 10/29/2005 10:02:34 AM PDT by OldBlondBabe
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To: neverdem

"Her former lover was unwilling, because—after all—she was no relation of the children."

But, but...I thought lesbian women were so caring and committed to Hearth, Home & Family? I thought it was all "For The Children?" I thought that gays were the Standard Bearers that our heterosexual marriages were to be held up to, examined and judged against?

Oh, wait...my sister is gay. She's changed "girlfriends" over the years as often as I've changed my socks. Nevermind...


127 posted on 10/29/2005 10:05:02 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin (Save The Earth. It's The Only Planet With Chocolate.)
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To: OldBlondBabe

Senator Barry Goldwater. :)


128 posted on 10/29/2005 10:07:16 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin (Save The Earth. It's The Only Planet With Chocolate.)
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To: gitmo
I think you are premature in your declaration of death.

I said "dismantled", not "destroyed." Still hoping it can be put back together again by a younger generation disgusted with their hippie grandparents.

129 posted on 10/29/2005 10:15:19 AM PDT by Albion Wilde (America will not run, and we will not forget our responsibilities. – George W. Bush)
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To: OldBlondBabe
"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have."

Often attributed to Thomas Jefferson, don't know where (perhaps a letter).

The quote was used by both Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford.

130 posted on 10/29/2005 6:37:32 PM PDT by ClearCase_guy
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To: neverdem

Shows the quality of these lesbian "marriages". Both of them feel they're entitled to children, because in their own eyes they are "parents." Suddenly one of them decides she really isn't a "parent" after all -- even though she emphatically stated earlier that she was.

I don't know whose thinking is more distorted: this idiot of a father, who willingly gave his sperm without considering the consequences. Makes me wonder how the kids will turn out --genetically, that is. I think these kind of people -- both "liberal-minded" sperm donors and lesbians -- are of some pretty defective stock.

I really pray that sperm banks be closed down. Period. When conception has become considered little more than an assembly line, you know we have morally hit the skids.


131 posted on 10/29/2005 7:38:50 PM PDT by MoochPooch (A righteous person worries about his or her behavior, an extremist about everyone else's.)
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To: OldBlondBabe
Another result of "big" government.

Most people don't even know that the key word in Nazi is "Socialist."


132 posted on 10/30/2005 6:01:56 AM PST by bill1952 ("All that we do is done with an eye towards something else.")
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