Seán H ([info]ohnefuehlen) wrote,
@ 2009-06-23 14:42:00
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Follow-up
The thought behind the cut is brief, and can be ignored by anyone who didn't read (or, having read, didn't care about) my last post.

Novak highlights the "natural" parents, i.e. the contributors of genetic material, as those who ought to be raising a child, a moral imperative almost on the level of a right to life. But take the example, used by Novak, of a lesbian couple, one of whom is inseminated by a man (friend or stranger, doesn't matter) so that they can have a child. This pregnancy, and subsequent child, is the product of two unions. One is biological, the man's (let's call him Ted) sperm with the woman's (let's call her Selma) ovum. The other is intentional, the two women (let's call the other woman Lisa) having decided together to raise a child.

Selma and Lisa have made this decision together. They're reading up on parenthood, setting money aside, turning the study into the kid's room, knitting baby clothes. Ted, on the other hand, ejaculated into a cup. Why is he given precedence as a parent (which he does not want to be, at least in the sense of raising a child directly) over Lisa, who desperately wants to be the mother of this child? And why does the child have a right to be raised by Ted, based on a shared genetic heritage? I just don't understand this privileging of the biological.



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[info]ohnefuehlen
2009-06-25 09:29 pm UTC (link)
Why do you think this?

I mean, if what you're saying is true - that a het couple raise happier children than a same-sex couple - it would be important. But the evidence isn't there. My understanding is that studies have pretty consistently shown that the children of same-sex couples are just as happy. If you're going to assert the opposite, you need evidence.

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[info]ohnefuehlen
2009-06-25 09:37 pm UTC (link)
So I'm walking the evidence walk and not just talking the evidence talk: meta-analysis of studies shows same-sex parents are just as good, the American Psychiatric Association says that "Numerous studies over the last three decades consistently demonstrate that children raised by gay or lesbian parents exhibit the same level of emotional, cognitive, social, and sexual functioning as children raised by heterosexual parents" (and a more detailed review of research concludes that "Fears about children of lesbians and gay men being sexually abused by adults, ostracized by peers, or isolated in single-sex lesbian or gay communities have received no support from the results of existing research").

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