The Wrong Embryo and Language

Just a quick coda to the recent case popularly referred to as “the wrong embryo case.”  (And yes, I’ve used that terminology, too.)  Thursday Carolyn Savage gave birth to a baby boy and the boy will be raises by the Morells, who are genetically related to him.

What’s most notable to me is the language the Morell’s used to describe Carolyn Savage.  In earlier discussions here I and some commenters touched on whether she would be considered a surrogate.   But the Morell’s chose to call her a “guardian angel” and the headline writer shortened that to “guardian.” 

A long time ago on this blog I struggled with word choice in various surrogacy situations.   Nothing like “guardian” ever crossed my mind. 

It’s an interesting choice.   I think, at least in this context, to be called a guardian is to given a certain amount of honor.   It’s a more favorable term than “surrogate.”  There is a way in which, particularly under these circumstances, it seems appropriate.   But there is a tinge of something there that makes me a trifle uneasy.  (Is it from the Handmaid’s Tale?)      

I wonder if the term has a future outside of this one instance?

The Father of Michael Jackson’s Children?

Just because the tabloids are all over every aspect of the Michael Jackson story doesn’t mean there aren’t a few interesting points that could actually make one think.  I’ve written about Michael Jackson’s children and the legal questions presented there a couple of times.   (I didn’t post when permanant custody of the kids was awarded to Katherine Jackson, their grandmother, but a court order to that effect was issued last week.)  

So here is the next twist in the saga–one that was almost inevitable given the fact that it has been widely rumored that Michael Jackson was not genetically related to his children.   Mark Lester–he played Oliver Twist in the musical Oliver! and I do vividly recall him singing “Who Will Buy,”–says that he donated sperm for Jackson and may well be genetically related to at least the middle child and only girl, Paris.

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.   

The Varieties of Motherhood

The post about the women in West Virginia makes me think about the varieties of motherhood.    The law draws all sorts of fine distinctions.    Some of the time they match up with reality and some of the time they don’t.  And in our more common conversations we also draw fine distinctions.

So the women in the West Virginia case are, legally speaking, foster mothers.   They are prevented by operation of law from becoming adoptive mothers, because only married couples can adopt and they cannot marry.    Some people also probably would call them co-mothers (or co-parents) and, of course, lesbian parents.    Some of these categories are not legal ones, they’re just terms we use to identify ourselves and the groups we relate to.   But other categories have legal meaning.

Crucially, adoptive parents are legal parents.  Foster parents are not full legal parents.   

Choosing Mothers?

There’s a recent case out of Michigan which has made me think about choosing mothers.  It also ties back a bit to the last post about the lesbian foster mothers in WV.   (I’ll come to that in a bit, I hope.)

I’m actually only going to use the Michigan case as a jumping off point, so I’ll start with a little story here.   It’s similar to, indeed suggested by, the Michigan case, but I’m not trying to summarize those facts completely or accurately.

Amy gave birth to a child.   She asserted that Tim was the father and at some point it was established that he indeed was.   (No need for the moment to worry about why or how.)    Amy and Tim were not together, however, and so they shared custody of the child.

Tim met and married Lisa.   That means, of course, that when the child was with Tim she (the child) was also with Lisa.

Over time, Amy became a less and less satisfactory parent.  (Remember, I’m not just summarizing the facts here.)   Eventually Tim gained sole physical custody of the child.   That means the child lived all the time with Tim and Lisa.   At the same time, Amy’s rights were never terminated.   She remains a (really the) legal mother.

Another Single Mother?

I’ve been resisting the coverage of Bristol Palin’s big break-up for several days.    But after several days, some of the coverage has actually become just a trifle more reflective.   This has actually made me think a bit more and I’ve decided that there might be something for me to say.

Now that it is clear that Bristol Palin will not be marrying Levi Johnston is she a “single mother?”   Of course, technically she was always a single mother–as in an unmarried mother.   I think part of the reason for the emphasis on her wedding plans during the past presidential campaign was to keep her out of the dread “single mother” category.   At the very worst, she was only passing through it briefly, on her way to the more respectable “married mother” category.  (Which, by the way, isn’t a category at all.  If she had gotten married she would not be a “married mother” but instead a simple, pure and unmodified “mother.”)

Thinking about this seems to demonstrate that the label–”single mother” is deployed for a variety of reasons, some of which are clearly political.   I’ve taken to wondering about what it means–what is summoned up when you hear “single mother?”   I think it can mean many different things, and that can be unhelpful or confusing.  

Donor Siblings

A new topic seems to be making the rounds–well, not really all that new.   (I wrote about it over  a year ago.)  But surely making the rounds.  There is this from Slate and this on NPR tonight. Part of me just wants to sit back and have you go and compare and contrast.  (That’s the teacher in me.)  But just in case you are not inclined to do so, I will offer some thoughts.

Both stories are about the donor sibling registry.   The registry allows people who used or were conceived with donor sperm to track down other people who used or were concived with the same donor.   I’m not sure what exactly happened in the last couple of days that made both stories turn up–it seems to have been the publication of the article  in Human Reproduction. (I’ll try to give that a read myself soon.  Nothing like primary sources.)

Although starting with the same substance, the stories seem to be quite different.  The Slate blog is somehwat sensational in tone and a bit sloppy.   I do sort of get this, being a blogger myself.   But it’s quite a leap to compare the sperm donors involved here to Ghengis Khan on the one hand and Nadya Suleman on the other.    I actually think sperm donors who donate to reputable sperm banks are fairly responsible.  The only people who will be using your sperm to create children have given it quite a bit of thought.

Now that said, the idea that 55 kids might have been created using the same donor is quite startling.   There may well be a problem with too many people carrying common genes, I suppose.  But the sibling registry might address that.  And I wonder how big a problem it is. 

The Octuplets Yet Again–Will It Never End?

Some of you might be thinking that it would end if I’d just stop writing about it?  Perhaps so.   But still, interesting little bits do keep coming along.   I actually am quite restrained.    There are many many items I have not written about.

This is really a meta-comment about the octuplets, anyway.  Which is to say that it is not about them directly, but rather about the reaction to them.   I take this AP article from today as my starting point.   It does a rather nice job of tracing the trajectory of the story, reminding us how Nadya Suleman went from being the beneficiary of a miracle of modern medicine to a pariah in about two weeks.     It’s amazing to think back on how quickly the story pivoted.

The AP story recites a list of factors that turned Suleman (and her ART doc) into the villian of the piece.  Most of these I’ve touched on.   Single mother, receiving public assistance, already has six children.  Add to that the fact that Suleman apparently resembles Angelina Jolie (news to me).

It’s possible now to have a tiny bit of distance on the reactions to Suleman and it seems to me there are at least two things going on.  

100% Natural

Sorry–ended up taking a couple of days off there.  I’m back now.

My just finished discussion about Utah has made me focus again on language, and in particular, on the use of the term “natural”.   There are several places in which you hear this in a parentage context and they are sometimes contradictory.   It’s worth thinking about.

Sometimes a person is referred to as the “natural parent” of a child.    It’s a trifle archaic, I think, but you do still hear it.   It means (at least as I think about it) a person who is genetically linked to a child.   So the natural mother is, barring use of ART, the woman who gives birth to the child.  The natural father is the man who had sex with the woman resulting in pregnancy.

Put less nicely, it is the parent of an illegitimate child.  I do think the term is almost exclusively used with regard to unmarried parents.   Thus where a married woman gives birth to a child, her husband isn’t referred to as the natural father of the child, even if he is genetically related to the child.  He’s simply “the father.”  Indeed, I went and looked it up in one of the on-line dictionaries and  “natural father” is defined as “the father of an illegitimate child.”

Quick Notes on Single Parents

There have been a couple of small items in the news recently that relate to  single parents that I wanted to comment on.

First, from yesterday’s New York Times, a story about the current run of some series called “The Bachelor.”     Looks like some modern variation of The Dating Game of my youth.   It seems, after a gentle but extended decline, the show is a hit again.  Here’s the quote that matters to me:

The reason for the surge is surely this edition’s bachelor, Jason Mesnick. What’s he got that some previous hunky heroes (a football player, an actor, a doctor, a “global financier”) didn’t? A little boy. (Ty is 3 years old.)

Now I’ve written a bit about single mothers.   And I’ve written a bit (maybe more than a bit) about gendered parenting.   (If you are really interested you can use the tags for those topics and find a lot more than the one entry I’ve linked to.)    This little story just wants me want to say “See?”