In 1987 Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) in his then-office of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued Donum Vitae (The Gift of Life), which among other things condemned artificial insemination by donor (AID), meaning from someone other than the father.
Donum Vitae defended the right of children to know their biological parents. Every child has a right to “be conceived, carried in the womb, brought into the world and brought up with within marriage.” In the flurry of excitement over all the new forms of reproductive technologies and genuine compassion for infertile couples, the warnings in Donum Vitae have been ignored.
Many people did not see what was wrong with a woman using another man's sperm to conceive if her husband's sperm were inadequate for the task. The couple would keep it a secret; the child would be brought up as though the husband was the biological father. After all, it was argued, what matters is not genetics, but love.
Things have not turned out as expected. Even before they discovered the truth, many of the children conceived in this manner sensed there was something wrong. Their relationships with their “fathers” were strained. Many felt betrayed when they discovered that their family had lived a lie. Some have tried to find their biological fathers, but few succeed. Margaret Brown, a product of AID, writing in Newsweek, complains that her interests were not protected: “…children are not commodities or possessions. They are people with an equal stake in the process.”
Once sperm banks and AID became accepted, single women and lesbians applied and now we have the first generation of purposely fatherless children. The woman's right to have a baby trumped her baby's right to have a father. Now female couples who conceive by AID are demanding that birth certificates recognize their relationship. Instead of listing “mother” and “father”, they want the document to refer to Parent A and Parent B. They argued that the acceptance of AID for male/female couples established the irrelevance of biology.
Everything is not rosy in this Brave New World. Some same-sex relationships often do not survive the changes brought about by the conception of a child and the courts are left trying to sort out the pieces. Should the non-biological “mother” have the same rights as the biological mother? Should the non-biological “parent” be forced to pay child support? What about visitation? And what about the situation in which the biological mother stops being a lesbian? These issues are currently being litigated.
More importantly, what about the psychological effects of planned fatherlessness on the child? Children are designed to love and trust their parents. Every child has a deep need to believe that his parents want what is best for him, but here we have a situation where three adults — the biological mother, the biological father, and the non-biological mother — have conspired together to create what is a second best situation.
All the feminist rhetoric in the world is not going to convince a 6-year-old child that two mommies are the same as a mommy and daddy. Eventually the child will understand that his lack of a father is not a tragedy which he has to accept, but something that was calculated and planned by those who claim to have his best interests at heart.
Not only that, but he will be made to feel that his desire for a father is unacceptable — a rejection of his “mommies” courageous decision to defy outdated ideas. He will be taught that family diversity is normal.
Donum Vitae has not received the attention it deserves either from the hierarchy or the laity. The effect of employing techniques which disregard the right of children to be conceived in marriage and raised by their biological parents is not immediately obvious. It is easy to be entranced by the charming babies conceived by objectively immoral techniques. It takes years before the victims are able to speak for themselves.
No one wants to stigmatize the victims. The children conceived with donated sperm or eggs have enough problems, but ignoring the ways in which these children's fundamental rights were violated only adds insult to injury and guarantees that more children will suffer.
