The baby is so wanted that it must be really mine

By chance I noticed that this blog recently had the honor of being discussed on another blog. The blog "Right v. Easy," which is written by a woman who is raising the biological son of her cousin (conceived via her cousin's egg donation), discusses on her website how this blog has been on her mind for quite some time.

To which I say, that's great. The intent of this blog is to get people thinking about a perspective that they may not have encountered much. The rights of children in assisted reproduction continue to be far too marginalized in the field of reproductive technologies. The entire industry is focused on the desires of the customers (the intended parents) rather than on the rights or needs of the merchandise (the children, who are often not yet conceived when the transactions take place).

Anna from "Right v. Easy" is of course disturbed by the things she has read here. The typical arguments again rear their head:

1. The accusation of hate - this website is full of "vitriol".

In other words, I exhibit animus against people who use these technologies. How can I prove that I don't "hate" just because I disagree? Anyone is free to come to whatever conclusion they want about what I think. All I can say is, I of course have great sympathy for those who deal with infertility, or with whatever compels them to consider assisted reproduction. These are never easy situations. Most commonly they are extremely difficult life choices that involve deep emotions of grief and loss, among others. For many people, reproductive technologies offer the only hope of ever having a biological child - that's a huge thing to give up.

As much compassion as I feel for those who suffer with these difficult life choices however, I still can't blindly condone any and all actions they hereby decide to take in order to assuage their own grief and to heal their wounds. Pain doesn't make all things right. Just because you hurt, it doesn't give you the free pass to trample over other people to heal yourself. Some things are wrong and they stay wrong, regardless of why they are done or who does them.

Just because I can't have children, that doesn't give me the right to other people's children. I can't just go to my neighbour, who has 7 kids, and take one of hers. And what if she were to offer me one of her kids just because I don't have one? Should I take it? No, I can't do that. The kid, standing there staring at me with it's big blue eyes, has a right to its own mother, and she can't just pack up the kid's little suitcase and ship it off next door because she feels bad for me, the neighbour who has no kids. The fact is, even the mother doesn't have the right to give her kids to other people like that - because they are people too, not things, so they have rights of their own.

And yet, that's exactly what is happening today. Kind people who feel compassionate for the childless are trying to make them feel better by giving them their own children - before they are even born. The child still stares up at me with its big blue eyes, but this time, it has no chance to have its real mom, because she was out of the picture before it was ever born.

2. The "Most Wanted and Loved Child" argument

The gold standard of the fertility industry. Everything is okay because it was done "in the name of love". It's okay to make a biological orphan, as long as the baby is loved and wanted so, so, so, so, very much. Love and desire make up for AAAaaaaall the wrongs of the world.

If only this were so. But the donor-conceived children themselves (those ungrateful little grubs) say something different. Lots of them are saying that being loved and wanted was not enough. Having lots of fluffy toys and cake and things and things was not enough! These kids are aching to be loved and wanted by their biological parents, not by random, unrelated infertile people!

Having doubts about that? Look at adoptees. How many adoptees were loved and wanted? Probably just as many as donor-conceived children. Their infertile parents went through YEARS of adoption hassles and red tape to get these adoptive kids. Yes, they were wanted! Yes, they had their little scrapbooks and love and love and mountains of things! Their parents gave them everything, EVERYTHING. And yet, these kids still shut themselves in their large rooms, go on their brand new laptops and click on Facebook and send out plaintive little messages searching for their real biological parents. Why do they do it? Because biology matters, whether you believe it or not. Because being loved by random, unrelated strangers is NOT the same as being loved by people whose faces resemble yours, who have your genes and you have theirs, who understand you and who connect with you on a deep, instinctive, primeval level that we can't express in words.

No, love from just anyone is not all that matters. No, being wanted by just anyone is not all that matters. Other things matter too: like seeing your own face in your mother's face. Like knowing that you have your artistic talent from your father, and that you can develop it into something great because he did. Like being proud of your heritage and identifying with the heros in your family's past and present. Like having a feeling of belonging when you play with your own brothers and sisters, whose likenesses and differences reassure you that you are normal and yet unique.

Anyway, love and desire are feelings that are famously here today and gone tomorrow. How many people have fallen out of love? How many people have changed their mind about something that they really, really wanted at one time? Love and desire are not the most stable basis for a timeless relationship. The only sure thing is biology, which cannot be altered. Biology begets love in a way that desire itself cannot. Biology begets unconditional love that is based on immutable relationship - parents love their children, who contain parts of themselves - forever, no questions asked. It's instinctive, it's primeval, it's animalistic - but it's real, and it works, and it has worked for millennia. Whereas the love of strangers is never fully unconditional, because it is based on choice - and choice is based on desire, on a feeling that can go away. There is no underlying bedrock of immutability - indeed, even legal relationships can be changed.

3. The specific case of illness avoidance

Anna did not use egg donation due to infertility. She did it to save her future child from a terrible illness, and she paid a terrible cost for it - she gave up her own fertility, and chose not to have her own biological child. Her motivation was noble, and I sympathize with her difficult choices. She did indeed give up much, in order to spare her future child an awful existence.

And yet, I still believe that her actions went too far. She was free to choose not to have children. However, her concern for having a healthy child, and her decision to give up her own children, still did not entitle her to other people's children.

As the situation stands now, Anna paid a great price for her decision not to have an unhealthy child: she had no biological child of her own. However, she also made someone else share the cost of her decision. Her son has also paid a price: because he was chosen to be the healthy child, he has had to give up his own biological mother. So (biologically speaking) while Anna is childless, he is motherless.

Only time will tell what Anna's son thinks of this arrangement. It cannot be assumed, although he is wanted and loved by Anna, that he will be A-OK with being given up by his biological mother - and it is his right, as Anna will surely admit, to think whatever he wants, to seek out his biological mother in the future, and even to call her "mom" if he so chooses. This kind of right to his biological parents is a natural right, and no one can take this right away from him, only violate it (until he becomes an adult and can reclaim it for himself).

Do you think that donor-conceived children don't do these things? I invite you to read the latest post from the website of Umbillicly Challenged, who at 20 years old finally packed her suitcases and took off to meet her real, biological mother for the first time. She left her protesting "social" parents behind, even as they left umpteen messages on her cell phone. Her description of what she experienced when she met her real mother is worth the read.

Commercializing Human Life in Canada

Margaret Somerville is probably the most famous ethicist in Canada. She is a professor of both medicine and law at McGill University in Montreal, and she has a very special role in Canadian public life. In a testament to the fact that human nature has a need for a sure moral compass, for a definite right and wrong even when they no longer believe in God, Margaret Somerville is the unofficial priest of Canadian atheism. This is not a role that is only hers, because it is true of nearly every ethicist these days. But she is the most well known of these gurus of right and wrong, who tell people what is right when people no longer believe in an absolute right and wrong.

But I digress. Regardless of where Margaret Somerville gets her personal ethical convictions, she does seem to get it right most of the time.

The other day, Somerville wrote an excellent article in the Ottawa Citizen (she also wrote a similar article on MercatorNet). She discusses how in Canada, a growing coalition of disparate interests is trying to push for the further commercialization of human life in the "baby business", the reproductive industry. Currently Canada doesn't allow surrogates and gamete donors to be paid for their services. A lot of people who have something at stake are complaining about this and are gearing up to pressure for changes. Where would this lead us? Right down the ol' road to the depersonalization of the human person, basically: we are turning children, people and human body parts into objects for sale and ownership. Wombs for sale, eggs for sale, sperm for sale, embryos for sale, babies for sale (by traditional surrogates) - highest price based on highest quality, best quality to the highest bidder! People for sale, lives for sale. Buy a person, buy a life. Freedom for sale. That's called being "progressive."

These is a chance to do something about it right now. The Assisted Human Reproduction Office of Canada is holding a public consultation on this issue, and the deadline for comments is September 14, 2007. Anyone can comment. Please consider submitting your comments. You can read the consultation document and find out how to comment here (it's the first document at the top of the page).

One step closer to artificial wombs

An artificial uterus has been created to allow eggs and sperm to come together, and the early embryo to grow, in more "optimal" conditions.

Having babies with sister's ovarian tissue

According to this article, scientists have now successfully transplanted ovarian tissue from one non-identical twin sister to the other, who started menstruating normally. If she gets pregnant, she will get pregnant with her sister's eggs - but they will have been matured and released within her own body. So she is only a tiny sliver of a distance away from being the "real" mother. The genetics don't come from her, but they are stored, matured and released in her body. The game of chance (regarding which egg will develop and be released) is played out within her belly.

Then there is the case of identical twins, which have apparently also successfully undergone ovarian tissue transplant-donations.

What about the resulting children? Who is the "real" mother?

Even as I maintain that the "real" mother is clearly the biological mother, the woman who originally produced the eggs and whose genetics are in the children, this twisting of nature is still enough to produce a massive migrane.

UK babies as sources of spare parts

Do you have a sick child that is in need of a kidney donor or a bone marrow transplant? In the UK, you need look no further. Now you will be able to skip the organ donor waiting list and have a new baby to provide these services for your existing precious child.

The UK is considering legislation that would allow parents to create "saviour siblings" to treat their ailing current children. The conditions these children have need not be fatal or life-threatening, only serious. They include "sickle-cell anaemia, renal failure, kidney disorders and spinal diseases."

A tiny voice of reason peeps in at the end of the news story, saying: "This process is wrong because choosing one embryo means discarding the others, and because the purpose of creating that child is not for its own sake but for its cord blood."

Exactly. Imagine being created for your kidney, bone marrow, or cord blood. All the other embryos didn't make it through the selection process - your brothers and sisters were thrown into the garbage not because there was something really wrong with them, but simply because their tissue failed to match the tissue of an existing sibling. You are the survivor, only because you have the kidney that they want and plan to take.

You of course have no choice about donating these things. So in reality, it is not a true donation. It is a "harvesting" of the ripe product once you are born. The first thing your parents think of as the nurse presents you to your mother's arms is: "The kidney is ready!" And off you go to the operating room.

Great. That's how I always wanted to be welcomed into the world. And after the kidney is transplanted, you of course have to hang around for the next 18 years, since they can't very well get rid of you. But if they could have had only the kidney, without having all the rest of you attached to it - who is to say that they wouldn't have done it?

You are a product, like a tree that is grown for its apples, like a cow that is kept for its milk. You are not their equal, because your body belongs to them, and they take from it what they want, before you are even old enough to realize.

And these people are your parents, and society lets them do it. Of course, the parents who want to create saviour siblings are calling this legislation "a great step forward".

Yes. Forward...and down the cliff, like lemmings. Forward...into the pagan past. Forward...beyond ethical bounds and into the darkness. Forward...because forward must mean improvement and progress, right?

The incredible resemblance of parents and children

It's nice to see your own face reflected in someone else. Somehow you don't feel like a total alien anymore. You belong in the world, there are others like you! You were not a freak accident but part of a plan. You were meant to be this way, and yes, you do fit in!

Congratulations to the lucky donor-conceived girl who found her real dad.

Another similar article about other happy reunions is here.

A sperm donor reaches out to his kids, and they want to call him "Dad"

This is what all those "intended" parents dread. They spend so much of their energy convincing themselves and each other that the biological parents don't matter to the child. They talk about how their child is happy and well adjusted, successful and popular, and well, nothing is missing from the child's life.

Then one day, the sperm donor shows up on the scene. And the child calls him DAD! How could this aberration have happened?

The moms in this article don't seem to mind, because they are mostly single moms "by choice." Their children don't have a father figure at all, so they are all just delighted to make contact with their real father.

But for those people who have spent their parenting years convincing the children that the sperm donor is a nobody, that he is a "friend" or a "good man" or an "uncle" who merely donated a cell to help "mommy and daddy" make baby, this story must be the source of shivers and nightmares.

For all those who think that the donor isn't the real father - this one admits it openly! And the kids couldn't be happier about it.

Read the story here.