DO CHILDREN NEED A MOTHER AND A FATHER? Mike Pignatello replies to Elizabeth Marquardt

[You can find Elizabeth Marquardt's posts on this topic by scrolling down from here.]

Elizabeth's issue appears to be with methods of procreation other than married intercourse--methods that allow for families where one of the biological parents will never be present.

Why do people choose reproductive technologies? Because a single, unmarried woman wants babies. Because a husband is infertile. Because a lesbian wants her best gay friend to be the daddy. And people have the freedom to make these choices. If a lesbian woman wants to raise a baby, she has every right to do so. Elizabeth is correct in writing that legalizing same sex marriage wouldn't make the second parent the automatic "biological" parent (of course!). But we don't place similar restrictions on heterosexual single parents' relationships--the other parent can get married and become a legal guardian of the child. Yet when it comes to single gay parents or same sex couples, some argue that there should be limits--limits that apply only to single gay parents/same-sex couples and not heterosexuals or opposite-sex couples.

Elizabeth also mentions that kids raised by a biological parent plus an unrelated parent will always seek out their biological family. As they should. Adopted children also look for their real moms and dads. So, by Elizabeth's logic, any totally parentless kid who can't be given a "satisfactory" mommy-and-daddy household should neither (1) be adopted or (2) be brought into existence in the first place. How about kids that don't have, or never had, a mommy or daddy to grow up with--is that an acceptable situation where same-sex adopting parents are better than no parent at all?

That a child wonders who her biological parents are has nothing to do with the sexual orientation or marital status of the parents involved. It's a result of an adult's reproductive and family choices that the adult is at liberty to make.
posted by Eve at 4:51 PM | link

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home