Sorry to keep putting up posts without attending to comments, but I am on vacation and only on-line for a little bit at a time. I came across this story and as it revisits a topic that hasn’t been here for a while, I thought it worth putting up here.
This case is from Kansas. Angela Bauer and Jennifer Schreiner are a lesbian couple who wanted to raise a child. In 2009 They put an ad on Craig’s list seeking a sperm provider. William Marotta responded. Bauer, Schreiner and Marotta made an agreement–he would provide sperm but would not have any rights or obligations as a parent. Schreiner gave birth to a child–a girl–who is now about 3.
Now I’ve written about stories like this many times–you can use the tag of lesbian mother or sperm donor to find some. In this instance, only Schreiner was a legal parent. Perhaps Bauer was not allowed to complete a second-parent adoption. And in the fullness of time, Shreiner and Bauer split up.
But there’s an important difference between this case and the others I can recall writing about. Here all the parties went along and kept to the agreement. Bauer and Schreiner share time with the child even though Bauer is not a legal parent. Marotta has received occasional reports on the child but has made no attempt to play any particular role in the child’s life.
So what is the problem, you might wonder? Well, Shreiner (the legal lesbian parent) fell on hard times and applied for state public assistance. Because Bauer has no legal obligation to support the child, the state decided to seek support from the child’s legal father–and the state asserts that this is Marotta. Apparently the insemination was performed at home and so under Kansas law, it argues that Marotta remains a legal parent. Had a doctor performed the insemination, Marotta would not be a legal parent. And the agreement, I think, has nothing to do with it.
This really seems a bit of a mess. Parental status ought not to turn on whether insemination is performed by a doctor or not. That’s an invitation to confusion and mistake. The main error the people here made probably was not consulting a lawyer–who probably could have told them to use a doctor. But this is likely parenthood on the cheap–and why take on the expense of paying a lawyer when everyone agrees?
Surely it would make more sense for the state to seek support from Bauer–who is in fact acting as a parent of the child. But that would mean recognizing her as a parent (because the state has fused the requirement of support to legal parentage). And Kansas doesn’t want to say she’s a legal parent. Certainly that is the route I would go.
There was another case from Kansas I wrote about–quite a while back now. It’s one where the Kansas Supreme Court confirmed that employing a doctor did indeed sever the donor’s legal rights. So this case pretty clearly frames the ‘what does the doctor matter’ question. And I suppose we shall see.
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Wow it is so disturbing that this is even up for discussion. Of course this child is deserving of financial and physical support from both of the people who reproduced to create her. How dare the two of them get together to draw up an agreement specifically to shortchange their child from receiving all that she is do from her father! He does not have to be named on the birth record, his identity can be totally unknown and the child still has the right to his support should his identity ever be determined and thank goodness that law is in place and this child is being protected from the foolish and selfish agreements made by the mother and father before she was born. It’s a good thing that the mother’s partner was not named as a legal parent because it is more difficult to see what the child is missing out on when someone is there taking up the absent parent’s slack. Thing is that the partner could still be there doing what she’s doing but in concert with both parents fulfilling their obligations so the child is no gypped out of being cared for by them first and foremost. They could all just cooperate. They could all take responsibility for their act of reproducing and it was not even accidental it was totally intentional.
I think the idea that involving a doctor would mean he’s not a father is ridiculous and I think the idea that we would say under any circumstance that he is not the father and is not responsible is ridiculous unless he fails his paternity test. So its just as lame to say that he would not be a legal parent due to some pre birth agreement as it is to say he’s not a legal parent due to some doctor taking his sperm and putting it into the body of the mother. It would be just as ridiculous to say he was not responsible because he consulted a lawyer. I mean the kid still looses out in all those senarios I fail to see how one is less lame than the other.
You say you’d make her exgirlfriend responsible for support because she built a relationship with the child. I say so what she is not responsible for the child’s existence so therefore it should not be incumbent upon her to maintain the child’s existence to adulthood unless she feels like it and also unless the people who are responsible for creating the child feel like letting her help The partners relationship to the child is via the relationship with the female – they are only getting to hang out because she said it’s OK, so if the relationship with the mother ends, so too does the relationship with the child which is as it should be because as you say all the time making someone a parent gives them all sorts of power and you don’t want someone having that kind of authority over the child if the no longer are with the mother. But the father’s relationship to his child is not via a relationship with the mother, she does not have to give her permission in order for him to be obligated to care for and support his offspring and she should not have to approve of letting him spend time with their offspirng. She soes not control the child’s relationships with the father any more than the father controls the relationship to her.
Ah, but is that so Marilynn? It is not unlikely that both halves of the lesbian couple wanted to parent together, and that the genetic mother would never have used a sperm donor to inseminate herself if the other partner were not present.
It seems like the court is turning a case that was about social security into a case so complex that the all-round consensus among sperm donor and acting parents may break down. Is that in the child’s interest — turmoil?
J
I’m questioning the reasoning behind donorship in general. If a person meets the criteria of donor (in whatever state they are in) they are exempted from accountability and responsibility for their offspring. They are just plain exempt and I ask you why is that fair to their offspring? Forget this woman’s lesbian partner or her husband or boyfriend or whoever else might like to raise a child with her because in reality only two people are reproducing to create a child here and donor laws say it’s OK for one of those 2 people to not take care of their child, not be named as a parent, not be accountable for their actions.
Why is it good for any man or woman to be exempted from being accountable for some or all of their offspring? Why on earth do we allow them to have private agreements not to care for their offspring? Are we worried that some children would never be born if their genetic parents had known they’d be responsible for raising them? Tough sht! Lots of people are never born because of the laws that require people to be accountable to and for their children. It’s family planning many people try to plan only to have children with someone they really like and at a time when they can afford to raise their children comfortably; do we worry about all the children those people did not create because they would have been responsible for them? If it is such a great idea for donors not to be responsible for their offspring we ought to expand the policy to all people so that all children are born with identical rights and expectations. Let’s just make it so that no child is born with any right to support physical or financial from his or her genetic parents. Because its working out so well for donor offspring – everyone born from now on deserves that very special abandoned experience. The state really needs the burden of being financially responsible for all children lets take that on so that every family is like a donor family.
Millions of kids are protected by the laws that hold both parents accountable for their reproductive actions. This kid is being protected! Judges hold both parents physically and financially responsible for the children they create together and require them to cooperate together for the sake of their joint offspring. If the parents happen to have other significant partners or spouses or love interests they inevitably play a roll in helping raise the couple’s child and the all cooperate for the benefit of the child receiving all that they are due from the people who reproduced to create them and all the additional that they can benefit from the relationships with their parent’s significant others. There is a lot of legal weight given to people and their step families as long as the marriage lasts; you can claim a step child on your taxes as a relative dependent, step children can receive military and social security death benefits. You can take time off work to tend to a sick step relative or attend a step relative’s funeral. The same cannot be said for a blood relative if their kinship is not legally documented by the parent being named on the birth record.
Let women inseminate themselves with donor sperm, fine. But when the donor’s offspring are born he’d better be held responsible for them as a parent named on their birth record. Any person that acts as an intermediary creating an anonymous system of donation so that donors won’t be named as parents ought to be thrown in federal prison for a long long time. Doctors should loose their licenses.
Marilynn, your views are very clear and consistent: all children deserve the right to be financially supported by both genetic parents in all situations, and others who are not genetic parents do not enter into the picture.
I would be curious to learn what your views on adoption are, as well as on the role of a violent/dangerous genetic parent in a child’s life.
I think violent/dangerous genetic parents are bad. I think violence and danger is bad. I think we have a legal system in place for punishing people that are proven in a court of law to be violent and dangerous and they should go to jail. I don’t think that people should get out of their obligation to support their children because of it. Then their children would have no right to support through no fault of their own because of their parent’s mistakes. There are stay-away orders and for people in a rehabilitative process there is supervised visitation. There is sole custody. There is all kinds of ways to protect the child from a violent crappy parent without terminating the child’s right to legal kinship and also to support and inheritance. Why should the child loose their rights when the parent behaves badly. Protect the child in every way possible while maintaining their rights. The least a crappy parent can do is leave them with social security death benefits if they die before the kid turns 18 even if they never saw the kid a day in their life.
Adoption is the best and most ethical mechanism we have for the placement of children into the care of people who are not their bio parents. I like aspects of adoption that involve an investigation into the reason for relinquishment which is suppose to vet instances of comodification by the parent but we fail to do anything about it when we find it as in surrogacy contracts. Adoption is not doing its job to protect children from being objectified by their bio parents. I don’t think adoption should eliminate the childs true identity as it does. It should be handled more like a name change rather than a wholesale identity change where it appears they were born to the adoptive parent. There should be a birth record and an adoption record, fluid stream of paperwork that is available to parties to the adoption including the child always unobstructed. There is no reason for it to be otherwise except to feed the desire of people adopting to be thought of as parents rather than as adoptive parents and really that serves the child in no way. Adoption needs an over haul but it does have redeeming aspects and its the best we have to protect kids at the moment. I think parents responsibilities should not be entirely terminated at adoption too. They will always be the child’s parents for medical purposes and their relatives will always be important for them to know and for the relatives to know them in order to avoid unintentional incest and the current set up does not take that into consideration. I deal with the obstacles every day trying to help these families get back together. It’s all set up to keep them apart. The goal should be to find people to help raise kids whose parents cant, not destroy the legal ties the child has to their bio family. That is unfair to the kid and the bio family.
Thanks for replying. I really appreciate your points on adoption.
What do you think? I mean about the most careful and respectful way to help a child whose parents are unable to take care of them?
I know millions of neglected children long to be cared for by good and loving people and there appear to be as many good or loving people willing to help them. I am interested in preventing the human rights violations that can occur when the goal becomes helping childless people get kids instead of helping children in need be placed with good people. One way its good if you run out of needy kids the other way when you run out of needy kids you need to make more on purpose to fill the homes of needy people.
I was reluctant to start a discussion about adoption on this topic, since it is — well, another topic. I agree that adoption is the best way to care for children who would otherwise have nobody acting as a parent. At the same time, it is very clear that many “birth mothers” are effectively coerced into giving their children up for adoption. Likewise, it is very clear that adoption creates huge identity struggles.
It would be more appropriate if parents who need some help to raise their own children (financial, mental health, logistical) could receive it. Adoption is, simply said, so tragic in so many instances.
Absolutely. It is too permanent a solution for a temporary situation. Sadly we think people won’t be willing to take on the responsibility of raising a child if they knew that the parents would be able to come back and take over responsibility for raising their child once they were capable. We look at children as something people deserve to keep because they earned them. We should be looking at the fact that when ever a parent becomes capable of fulfilling their obligations they should begin or resume fulfillment of that duty because they owe it to their child and the world at large to do whatever they can whenever that is possible. I think it is achievable if the system looked to have adults cooperate for the child’s benefit.
If people were less selfish, perhaps :).
As for children of violent/dangerous parents, I would never blame the other parent for keeping the child safe by staying away from that parent, even if this means removing access to that parent’s financial support — let alone emotional support. Violence is no example for kids to grow up with.
OK but why would the financial support need to end just because the contact was severed. For instance many parents are incarcerated for life. Their children are still their children and their children might be raised their entire lives by step parents. If their parent dies prior to their 18th birthday they’d receive his social security benefits. Why would they not deserve that? What point would be proven to the child’s benefit by taking their right to be a member of their bio family away from them?
Once we stop thinking of children as some sort of award parents get to keep for good behavior and start thinking of being a member of their own family as a child’s right as a person’s right then severing the child’s ties has less of a point. Nobody deserves to be someone’s father they are or they are not. But the child the person does deserve to be a member of their own family.
I would never fault a parent from keeping a child from a violent parent. I’d fault that parent if they took away the child’s rights to punish the bad parent. The child always deserves support and contact with both parents it just may not be safe for the child to have that contact. Support is never dangerous.
I see your point, but what you envisage requires the intervention of an active and supportive government. That does not exist everywhere, and I dare say is rare on a global scale.
In what way? How would the government of any country need to change in order to treat all people equally at birth and obligate all people equally for the offspring they create. Good grief I’d like to know.
I am replying to this: “In what way? How would the government of any country need to change in order to treat all people equally at birth and obligate all people equally for the offspring they create. Good grief I’d like to know.”
I live in a post-communist country that doesn’t care much about human rights, and where good rules are sometimes created but they cannot often be enforced due to lack of will or lack of resources. I find your response fascinating, because I find it hard to believe that people anywhere are treated equally at birth. People are not equally held responsible for the offspring they create anywhere, either.
Others who are not genetic parents do not enter into the picture unless of course they are step, foster or adoptive parents and then there are legal obligations and rights associated with that particular legal status. They just don’t default have an obligation to someone else’s offspring. The connection to the child is through someone else that has the authority, like a bio parent or like the court or department of child services. They need permission to be involved in the child’s life and the record should reflect that accurately especially so that the child does not loose legal affiliation and connection to their parents simply because they are receiving help and are affiliated with someone else.
“Let women inseminate themselves with donor sperm, fine.”
Why? There is no right to do it, and it screws up people’s lives. Why not just end the practice completely? What would be wrong with that?
John Howard: You’re absolutely right! See my article that is about this (in the context of the same-sex marriage issue) at http://www.newdemocracyworld.org/culture/sameletter.html
Look John people can do what ever the hell they want before their offspring are born. Once their offspring are born they need to take responsibility. She can inseminate herself with dog sperm for all I care none of that is any of our business.
Marilynn, “our business” is to protect future people from injustice and preserve a decent world of ordered liberty for posterity. Posterity means future generations. When we allow women to inseminate themselves with donor sperm, we violate the rights of those children and fail in our obligation to posterity. There is no right to inseminate yourself with donor sperm, no right to donate sperm to someone else, no right even to have sex with someone you are not married to, and certainly no right to intentionally conceive offspring with someone you are not married to. All of those things should be crimes, though they don’t have to all be policed or punished to the same degree. We could certainly shut down sperm banks and punish people who sell sperm or seek sperm donors on the internet. To fail to do so is to condone the practice that you seem to recognize is harmful and horrible. Are you biased by your job of helping people find their bio parents? I can assure you there will still be plenty of work for a long time, even if we succeed in prohibiting use of donor gametes soon. You should know better than most people the pain that donor conception causes won’t go away if we merely end anonymity, we need to end the practice. Why not? It’s offensive to me that you say you don’t care if a woman uses dog semen instead of marrying a man and having his children. That is me being passed over for dog semen, me and every other guy.
Oh John you said the worst thing to me that you could possibly ever say. No I am not hoping to continue the practice so that I have a steady stream of people to reunite. Its also not my job I do it for free on my own time.and I’d like to quit actually but there keep being more people who need help.
No I don’t have a problem with people donating their sperm if it has zero effect on their responsibilities as a parent later on when their kid is born. My whole point is what happens before a person has offspring is none of anyone’s business. They can make all the little agreements they want but they should not be honored by the law. As far as I’m concerned I don’t want to get involved with banning anything I just want to obligate people to their offspring. the ban on donating would take care of itself since it would not get anyone what they want anymore. If all they are really doing is donating gametes, not children it should not bother anyone that the donor will not be giving up parental obligations and won’t be walking away from his child when born.
I think historically, the responsibility of a father is to be married to the mother, not to provide money, so that means your solution is to require the sperm recipient to marry the sperm donor before accepting the donation, which is the same as my solution. They can divorce later, as any couple can. If you think the only obligation of a parent is to send money, then that sends a bad message about fatherhood and parenting I think. But I agree that requiring that would probably end sperm donation almost like a ban would, but I also strongly disagree that how people get pregnant is none of our business, so I think it’s important to assert that with laws that stop it rather than condone it.
I don’t think fatherhood is only about money at all its just that is what the law deals with and that is what I’m interested in changing – the law.
I’ve just learned that it IS possible to do a second parent adoption in Kansas, which means that with proper legal help both women could have been legal parents. (I imagine the man would have been willing to terminate rights at the time, given the facts here.) But of course, it didn’t happen and more’s the pity. Again, this could be a money issue–although I believe that costs of a second parent adoption can be claimed under the adoption tax credit, at least for the moment. It could also be that people just do not realize how important the legal formalities are. And I can tie that, too, back to wealth as I would guess that the more money you have, the more likely you are to think of talking to a lawyer about stuff generally.
The child would get far more out of a step parent relationship to the mother’s spouse than he or she would by a step parent adoption. Even if he was deadbeat and never paid a dime of support the child would retain rights as legal kin to their bio family, ss death and military death benifits, access to birth marriage and death records etc. And get step family benefits. Better for the adults to all cooperate to give the child all the child is due. The step adoption serves the wants needs and desires of the adults with no consideration as to the rights of the child. If the women could not marry in Kansas take a trip to Hawaii or live there for 6 weeks. It worked for Nevada divorces why not Hawaii marriages.
Although step parent adopted kids have the benefit of access to their original birth record and can change their name back at 18 and they can just start using the old birth record and everything goes back to normal. I know two people who have successfully reversed the step parent adoption this way as adults. Their real fathers did not mind and their step fathers and mother’s did not know anything about it other than they started using their real names again.
That opens up an interesting question — second parent adoption could have prevented this messy situation, yet the decision to complete that step clearly lies completely beyond the sperm donor. He is now being held legally accountable because of something the person/people he gave his gametes to did or failed to do. Is that reasonable, since he surrendered control after giving his sperm away? Or not, since he had no part to play in that decision?
J
You can’t make the partners of the people reproducing important here because they don’t owe the child anything. If they are married to one of the reproducing people they would owe the child something so long as the marriage would last as a step parent and the child would be connected to their family as step family. But they are of no medical significance to the child and their relatives are not people the child will need to avoid dating to prevent incestuous contact.
When two people reproduce their offspring is dependent upon those two for their existence they are not interchangeable people they must be the same or the child would not exist as the person he or she is. Those people’s partners and spouses can change a million times or not exist at all and it won’t have any impact on the existence of the child or the child’s true identity. The obligation level of those interchangeable spouses and partners should reflect the transient nature of their relationship to the child which is through one of the childs parents and not directly with the child. Adoptive parenthood makes it clear how adoptive parents come to have an adopted child – with the approval of the court. The whole donor thing and quasi-marital child thing is black market adoption getting named on an original birth record as a parent when there is no direct relationship to the child. I help people who have had their identities robbed this way they really hate it no matter how much they love the people that did it to them they hate what they did.
Julie sometimes makes the old ‘well otherwise they would not exist and how could that be better’ argument about donor offspring arguing against the practice. They lost a bunch of rights but we had to take those rights otherwise they never would have been born. If their fathers knew they were going to have to support them they never would have had them in the first place. It’s important to allow some fathers to not be responsible for their offspring so that we can have a steady supply of neglected and abandoned children for all the people that want them. The world is short on foundlings so we bend the rules and let some people reproduce without responsibility because otherwise people would generally take responsibility for their offspring and there would not be enough neglected foundlings to go around.
I’m so tired of people who make it sound like donor offspring lost their rights like they’d loose a leg being pulled from a burning car or something. We took the leg to save your life be grateful. They were never in any danger they were born and lost their rights to serve the growing market for artificial orphans and artificial half orphans.
Nobody cares what’s really going on.
I commented on that linked post. Julie you’d be pleased that none of the comments are from people that believe this child deserves the support of the people who reproduced. They all feel that it is perfectly acceptable for a person to off the record and off the books agree not to support his offspring.
He is a donor and that means his child gets nothing from him. Fk the baby who cares about her what’s important is that the man did not think he’d be held responsible otherwise he never would have agreed to donate. Well poor guy lets throw him a pitty party. Someone wants to make him take responsibility for the children he creates. Call all three of them a whambulance. I cannot believe that people are arguing over whether or not this child deserves the support of both the people who created her. I cannot believe that someone would suggest that the woman’s spouse or ex spouse or whatever she is would be a more appropriate person to foot the bill. Its not her damn kid. I don’t think she’s volunteering either. Know why? Because she does not have to and she can provide all the support she wants and the kid could still receive support from the father and should for pete sake. How can we give some children less than others? Oh so frustrating.
I really do not get the focus on money. Money is just money, as long as there is enough to provide for the child’s needs. When I read about these unethical adoption cases (or any other case where a child is separated from a fit biological parent who wanted to raise them), I certainly don’t think “Darn, that sucks that the kid is going to grow up getting the wrong person’s money to pay for their needs,” I think “That’s so sad the child lost the chance to know and grow up with and be raised by a biological parent that wanted them so badly they fought for years.” If anything, money is the most replaceable part of a parental relationship.
agreed rebecca.
after all, if money was the most important thing then the kid should always be given to the richest of the potential caregivers. The whole reason why it matters who a person’s parent is, is because it’s about the relationship not about money.
no its about meeting ones obligations not relationship or money
you’re addressing it from a punitive point of view
Sure I am. Its easier that way
You are really missing my point which means I had better get better at making myself clear.
The law cannot say that all children have a right to $X from each parent because each parent may not have that amount of money. Life is not fair and you may not have wealthy parents or even interested parents. The law however is suppose to be fair and is suppose to hold people accountable for their own actions. So its fair to hold all people accountable for their own offspring and it’s fair to say that all offspring have a right to rely on those particular people to provide that support. Having someone else do it for them places accountability in the wrong hands with someone not responsible for having created the child. There are very practical reasons why the child benefits from having those particular people provide the support and physically raise them and because of that nobody should block those people from doing their job unless it is absolutely necessary for safety sake. Anyone else that comes along to help raise the child is offering assistance in addition to what the child deserves to be receiving from their parents. I believe that it is wrong to terminate their rights with regard to their parents and bio family just because someone else happens to come along and start taking care of them, even for just cause because too much is lost and there is no need for them to terminate the right in order to receive benefit from a third party. The parent can be a dead beat and never do a thing but maintain the child’s right to receive it even if the obligation is not fulfilled. Its like saying it is someone’s right to be safe but then if someone violates that right to be safe its all over and then we take away the right.
Oh i know its about deeper issues but money is the only thing Julie cant argue back on sayin not everyone feels the same – the money issue is black and white no arguent the kid is loosing out
I haven’t heard Julie make that argument.
If I said that there was an emotional bond between the child and their bio parent that there was a natural right to be brought up by one’s own biological parents due to societal norms and the laws of nature that bond children to their genetic parents and that there would be deep emotional scarring to any separated child – you don’t think Julie would snap back that every person is different and not all people experience emotional harm from not being raised by their bio parents? You don’t think she’d say that not all people would experience the same sense of loss? You know she would.
The things that cannot be argued are things like the inability to access information about their bio families that others can freely access or the inability to receive physical or financial support from bio parents that others not only have access to but that the state will fight for when its caughers are at stake.
The only successful arguments around here are ones that are unemotional and not related to psychology or anything that differs from person to person. As long as I stick to losses universally experienced by any person with a biologically inaccurate birth record be they adopted donor conceived or victim of paternity fraud I’ve got a solid position that is difficult to challenge which is how I like it. I started out saying all the mushy stuff – you know I believe it, I do the reunions for the Oprah like moments but Julie is right not everyone cares about meeting their bio parents and not everyone feels taken advantage of by the system – but they don’t all have equal rights and that is clear as day.
Laws that treat people unfairly are wrong whether or not the people being treated unfairly mind or not. The harm is resident in the inequity of law, not in how people being treated unfairly perceive the loss.
Julie will have to step in and speak for herself here but I don’t recall her ever making a financial argument. the financial argument is has nothing to do with a child’s rights. A child may be missing nothing financially with a wealthy step parent instead of a poor parent. The child’s loss is not financial. So the child’s equal rights is not an issue here.
What’s unequal is the treatment of adults- that some deadbeats get away with shirking their obligations but others don’t. But that’s true about everything in life.
No she never made a financial argument, I did and she does not generally strike back because it is not an emotional argument. She’s got a great answer for emotional arguments which is that not everyone feels harmed by the absence of their bio parent in their life. I make the financial argument by saying that according to the UPA all children are entitled to the support of their bio parents whether the state chases them down or not the entitlement is there.
A rich step parent cannot and does not make up for a lack of support by a child’s absent parent. The rearing bio parent’s income is improved by marrying a rich spouse so therefore the amount of support she owes to her child is increased by the marriage to a rich guy. It is still just her and the estranged parent supporting their child – it is just that some of her income is earned by her wealthy spouse. Her wealthy spouse will be obligated to help her support her child by another man until the child is 18 unless their marriage disolves sooner. That is what he signed up for when he got married. He does not have to adopt to have that obligation nor does he have to adopt to have the right to claim the child as a dependent on his taxes or add that step child to his medical insurance and that child will receive social security death benefits if he dies prior to 18 because his income helped the mother support her child as well as herself. The child is entitled to all that wealthy step parent support and is still entitled to support and benefits from the father because well, its his responsibility to do what he can for the child he created and the mother and her spouse should not have to shoulder that burden on their own even if they can afford to. It’s the principal of taking responsibility for ones actions especially when the action results in the existence of a dependent person.
I guess it depends on what a person thinks a parent’s obligations are/should be. I think the parent’s responsibility should be to make sure their child is taken care of. That usually means taking care of the child physically and financially, or doing as much as they can, but if they are unwilling to take care of the child it’s best they find someone else responsible to take care of the child so the child is not neglected or abused.
Every person is born entirely helpless and unless the government takes financial responsibility for every child born, and takes them all into government run orphanages until it selects the very best most qualified people to take them home and raise them – society needs a default source of physical and financial support for every person born. Its unreasonable to say that someone who did not reproduce would be a child’s default supporter and caregiver. If it is not the person actually responsible for reproducing and it is someone else then there has to be a reason why that person is not the one reproduced we need to ask how they got into that position like DID THEY PAY SOMEONE FOR THAT POSITION? DID SOMEONE GIVE THAT POSITION TO THEM AS GIFT ALONG WITH THE KID?
If so that is really bad. The only reason why people wind up adopted is because something bad happened to separate them from their family. Its not like its ok to go around making your offspring specifically for other people to raise. that is horrific and demeaning. to plan to fail to take care of the kids you make in order to provide people with dolls to play house with is just so wrong.
It’s fine for others to step in and raise abandoned kids but lets be clear the abandonment is a bad thing a sad thing. All the people raising donor kids make out like their families were started some happy kind of way. No. There were not enough orphaned kids to go around so they went ahead and found someone really negligent to get pregnant by who would abandon the child sight unseen for a few bucks and go away thinking he’d done a good deed.
If you had said:
“that there was an emotional bond between the child and their bio parent that there was a natural right to be brought up by one’s own biological parents due to societal norms and the laws of nature that bond children to their genetic parents and that there would be deep emotional scarring to any separated child”
then you would have been absolutely correct.
You SHOULD say it. We all should say it.
See more discussion of this in my article about this (in the context of the same-sex marriage issue) at
http://www.newdemocracyworld.org/culture/sameletter.html