Putting Pieces Together

I realized today that the last two posts actually fit together in a rather interesting way.  Perhaps this is not immediately obvious.  The first deals with an IVF mistake in the UK–the wrong sperm was used to fertilize an egg.   The second deals with a dispute between two men about who is the legal father of a child.

(Actually, before I take off on this I wanted to flag this subsequent story from the UK.   It’s from the Sun, always slightly hysterical in its approach to journalism.)

Both of the last posts illustrate the importance we place on the genetic link, on DNA.   For example, the problem in the case of the wrong sperm is that the couple nearly had a child that would not have been genetically linked to the male partner.   There’s no sign that a child, had a child resulted, would have been in any way unhealthy.

Indeed, the Sun article I just linked to seems to encourage people who have used IVF to have kids to eye their children just a tad more suspiciously–whose DNA is that in there, anyway?    Assuming here that all the sperm were relatively healthy, the only way you can see the horror of the “wrong sperm” problem is by focusing on the overriding importance of DNA. 

Too Many Dads?

A new case from Arkansas illustrates the problem of conflicting theories of fatherhood.   The facts are not terribly uncommon, actually.

Michael Stevens and Kathleen Harris were married.   Harris gave birth to a child (TMS) in February, 2003.   Stevens and Harris divorced in 2004 and Stevens was awarded custody of the child.  He moved to Arkansas some time after that.   Stevens claim as a father rests on the fact that he was married to the mother at the time the child was born.

Stevens is not genetically related to TMS.   Steve Wolfe is.    Apparently Harris told Wolfe he was “the father” of the child while she was pregnant.  He remained “in the child’s life” (I’m not exactly sure what that means) until August or September 2004.  In any event, it appears that the parties agree that Wolfe is genetically related to the child.  This, too, is a conventional basis for claiming parenthood.

Stevens knew he was not genetically related to TMS from shortly after TMS’s birth.  But Stevens didn’t challenge the presumption of parenthood arising from his marriage to Harris and chose to stay on as father after the divorce.  Indeed, as I noted above, he received custody of TMS.  Some time after he moved with TMS to Arkansas, Wolfe filed a paternity action. 

The Wrong Sperm

A month or so ago I wrote about a wrong embryo case in Japan.   Here’s news of a case in the same general genre (ART mistakes) from the UK.    The story is pretty simple and I’m not sure how much there is to say about it.   The reporting seems a tad more interesting.

Three couples were using IVF at the same London hospital.   It appears that these were different sex couples and for each couple the plan was to use sperm from the man and an egg from the woman, to create an embryo, and then to transfer the embryo into the woman’s uterus.   The problem, for each of these three couples, was that they used the wrong sperm.

Now in this instance the mistake was caught within hours–it’s not clear to me that fertilization had even occurred.   This is quite a bit different from the case in Japan where the embryo was transferred and pregnancy resulted.   As soon as the mistakes were discovered, the sperm and eggs were discarded.   

Gay Father Entitled to Social Security for Kids

This is one of those cases that really shouldn’t be a case at all.   It’s also an instance where being legally recognized as a parent is critical.   Plus it shows something about the current situation of lesbian and gay parents.  All reason to note it here.   The case was litigated by Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund and you can find both a press release and the actual complaint on Lambda’s website.

Gary Day has two children.   There’s a boy (identified as “CDG”) born in 2000 and a girl (“EDG”) born in 2003.   The most critical fact is actually lurking in the first sentence of this paragraph, though you could certainly miss it.   Day is unquestionably the legal parent of both of these children.

Note that I wrote “Day has two children.”    That’s actually a tad ambiguous, even though it is a common enough usage.   The thing is, common usage doesn’t tell you legal status.   What does it mean to “have” children.  Sometimes we mean a person gave birth to a child.  Sometimes we mean that the person occupies the role of parent in the child’s life.  In this case, Day doesn’t simply occupy the role.  He has legal recognition as a parent of these children.  

The Nature of Gender

Part of the reason I invested the time in writing yesterday’s post, which was rather less connected to my topic than might be usual, was to set up today’s post.   And now I find I can also tie it to the Modern Love column in today’s New York Times.   It’s a lovely column by Jennifer Finney Boylan about her experience of being Maddy.  (Or is it being a Maddy?)

Boylan is transgendered.  She began as her children’s father but, during the course of their childhood, transitioned to female.   It’s her older son who christened her “Maddy” when it became clear to him that continuing to call her “daddy” was going to be absurd.

Part of what Boylan writes about, of course, is gender.  What I want to think about here is gender and parenting.

That’s hardly a new topic for me.     It’s also a topic of particular concern for lesbian mothers and gay fathers and their advocates, as well as for single parents.  That’s because lesbian, gay and single parents are subject to the criticism that their kids won’t/don’t have a mother and a father.  

Being Suspicious of Nature

It should be clear from the last couple of posts (as well as a number before that)that I am somewhat suspicious of the invocation of nature, especially in the context of the discussion of family forms.    There are really third main reasons for this.

First, these invocations are usually accompanied by (an often unarticulated) assertion that “natural” is good.   As the last post points out, sometimes the natural is good and sometimes it is not.  We need to be very careful not to stop thinking critically just because nature is invoked.

Second, I’m not at all convinced I or anyone else really knows what actually is “natural”  in these contexts.   Is it natural for a man to love or feel protective of or feel responsible for children who are genetically linked to him?  I think reasonable people could probably differ on this.   At best, what I’d say is there’s a wide range of observable conduct in this regard.   Some is more socially desirable and some is less so.    Given that I don’t know what is natural in this context, I’d rather spend my time trying to figure out what is socially desirable and how to encourage that behavior, be it natural behavior or not.   These questions are quite hard enough for me without working on the “what is nature” question as well.   

Doing What Comes Naturally, II

I wanted to tie yesterday’s post back to an earlier one that was also about “natural” parents.   I’m spurred to do this by the hearings on allowing same-sex couple to marry that have recently occurred in both New Hampshire and Maine.  (I won’t link to them here, but you can find tons of stuff on the web.)

In the course of these debates, there’s a lot of discussion about what the purpose of state-sanctioned (as opposed to religious) marriage is.   If marriage is an expression of love and commitment between two people, then it is difficult to justify the exclusion of loving and committed same-sex couples.

One general argument against allowing same-sex couples access to marriage goes something like this:   The main purpose of marriage is to ensure the propagation of the species and the continuation of society.  If this is so, then it “naturally” follows that marriage can only be between one man and one woman, because only a man and a woman can “naturally” reproduce (i.e. without assistance from others).  Further, only these “natural” parents can properly raise up the children to be good citizens of the land.   And certainly a child can only have two parents–it’s just in the nature of things.

I guess the point I want to make here is that starting from a simple observation about biology (humans reproduce sexually using genetic material from one man and one woman) you can construct an entire social structure (here a society based on male/female marriage and child-rearing) and assert the whole thing is simply “natural.”

Doing What Comes Naturally?

There’s an interesting column by Anna Quindlen in this week’s Newsweek.   Her point is, in the main, a modest one:   Many of us can be much better parents if we are actually taught something about how to be parents.

What’s interesting to me is that I think there is another underlying assertion here as well–that parenting is not something that we all just naturally know how to do well.   It’s not instinctive, as learning how to walk is.   No one teaches us to walk–we are just programmed to do it.   Parenting isn’t like that.  We don’t just know how to do it.    It does not just come naturally.

I think this ties into my general skepticism about the importance of a genetic link in determining who a parent is.   Parenting isn’t something one knows how to do automatically and that’s true whether one is genetically related to a child or not.  I am quite sure that many people feel deeply bonded to their children because of the genetic link, but I’m just as sure that many people feel deeply bonded to their children where there is no genetic link.  I’d bet (though I confess I have seen no studies) that the presence of a genetic link does not cause one to be a better parent.

We sometimes speak about the “natural parents” of a child.   By this we usually mean the people genetically related to the child, and it often stands in contrast to “adoptive parents.”   But while the creation of children may follow naturally from certain acts, actually living the role of a parent does not.   That’s what Anna Quindlen is writing about.   People become parents–parents in a true sense of the word–when they take on the obligations and responsibilities for a child.    They may do this in the presence or the absence of genetic linkage.    When they do this, if we are all lucky, the put the time and effort into learning how to be good parents.   (I don’t, by the way, mean to suggest there is one right way to be parents.)

In the end,  I think we live with a powerful myth about the naturalness of parenthood.   It has two aspects.  First, that a child’s parents are naturally determined, by virtue of the genetic link.   And second, that parenting comes naturally, rather than being both taught and learned.    It’s worth thinking hard about whether these things are true.

Lesbian Mothers, Litigation, and Doing the Right Thing

Over the last year I’ve blogged about any number of cases like this one from New York. These are cases where, in the course of a struggle over the child, one woman asserts that the other is not a parent to the child.  As a legal strategy, this is a powerful argument.   If you are a parent and your adversary is not, you will almost always win the case.   (I’ve discussed this feature of legal parenthood before.)

I find these cases and the frequency with which they arise quite distressing.   (They are also, as I noted here,  a phenomenon primarily associated with lesbian (as opposed to gay) parenting.)  It isn’t simply that lesbians argue over child custody cases.  That is probably just a regrettably human trait.   It is the nature and implications of the particular arguments that are offered in some cases.   To the extent the arguments offered undermine lesbian parents generally, the conduct of the litigation is, in my view, extremely problematic.  It is doing the wrong, rather than the right thing.

It is one thing to argue that I am a better parent than you are, and that the child would be better off spending more time with me than with you.  That is particular to the facts a specific case and doesn’t undermine lesbian/gay parenthood generally.   It is quite different to assert that you are no more than a legal stranger to the child and that, as such,  you have no rights to any contact at all, particularly if the heart of your argument is that you cannot be a parent because you did not give birth, or you did not adopt, or you are not genetically related to the child, or we are not married, or a child gets only one mother.    These arguments undermine the status of all lesbian and gay families.  

Posthumous Sperm Donor as Father?

Within the last several weeks I’ve discussed two cases of posthumous sperm collection–one in NY and one in Texas.   (I had been calling it “donation” but I’m now thinking that collection is more accurate.  “Donation” seems like an act by a donor, and in these cases the donor is dead.)   I’ve also written about one instance in which a man was able to use his own sperm for reproduction 22 years after donation.   (There are also some similar older posts.)

The main question for the courts in the posthumous collection cases is whether or not to allow the collection.  These are cases in which the deceased man didn’t leave clear written instructions and wasn’t in the process of finalizing arrangements for donations.   Instead, in both cases someone (mother in one case, fiancee in the other) can testify to the general desire of the man to be a father.    In general, I see no real harm in allowing the collection in these cases.

But there’s a second question that I’ve brushed by in passing and would now like to move to the center.   If the sperm collected after death is used, will the “donor” be the (or a?) father of any child that results?

There’s really no suspense about my answer to this question–”no.”