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Dystopian Nightmares: When Nature Isn’t Normative
Just over the last few days, the following stories have drifted through my news feed. The first is the one you undoubtedly know about: Bruce Jenner has had himself surgically mutilated, and has (to great fanfare!) donned obscene amounts of make-up, and unveiled his new, feminine persona to the world.
Second, our newest class of More Authentic Persons is apparently the “transabled”: people who feel “like imposters” in fully functional bodies, and who deliberately deform themselves in order to achieve the disabilities they feel they ought to have. In this piece we are introduced to “One Hand Jason” (his preferred name), who cut off his own arm with a power tool because he felt, in his heart, that he was truly a disabled person.
Third, in Britain, a mother was denied custody of her own biological child on the grounds that — through an informal, handshake arrangement — she had originally agreed to sell the baby to the gay couple, one of whom provided the needed sperm. After the child was born, she reneged on the agreement (once again, never formalized) and chose to raise the baby herself. A judge ordered her to hand her daughter over to the two gay men, demanded that any visits from the mother be supervised, and for good measure insisted that she not speak about the case until the child is 18.
The judge’s justification? He thinks it’s in the little girl’s interests, since the two men look to him like more fit parents than the actual mother. The mother has not been found to be either negligent or abusive, though one grimly hilarious write-up I found tried to indicate that she must be, on the grounds that she breastfeeds the child, carries her in a sling, and shares a bed. Oh yes! And she keeps the little girl with her at all times. At 15 months. Call a social worker, quick!
Now, admittedly, there are elements to the British case that seem decidedly “off.” If, as it appears, the woman just wanted to have a baby, why promise to hand him over to the gay couple? There are quite a number of ways to secure a sperm sample that wouldn’t involve such deception and complication. The biological father might also have a fair case that his paternal rights have been violated (which is another good reason why babies really should not be conceived under such irregular circumstances.) But hard cases, as we all know, make for bad law. The legal precedent here seems to suggest that it’s all right to tear a child away from her mother, even against the mother’s stringent objection and with no evidence of abuse or neglect, simply because a judge thinks this is in the little girls’ best long-term interests.
I know many people here are nervous (or even contemptuous?) about the sort of ethical reasoning that holds nature to be morally normative. I understand that drawing the correct lessons from nature can be rather complicated. But if we aren’t prepared to view natural attachments as having any normative content, where does the crazy end? And what stops Leviathan from seizing everything that is most precious to us and reordering the universe according to the whims of our progressive overlords?
Here’s the sort of speculation that occasionally keeps me awake at night. (You can call me paranoid if you like, but keep in mind that my most progressive friends told me ten years ago that I was wildly paranoid for thinking that Christian wedding vendors would ever be shut down for refusing to service same-sex weddings. And in a world in which Bruce Jenner’s voluntary mutilation is celebrated as courageous and inspiring, can we really trust to “common sense” anymore? When people will actually debate whether a person who chops off his own hand because it “feels right” is acting rationally?)
There are gay couples in the world who would like to have children. Adoption is complicated. Surrogacy is expensive. And modern progressives have a bad habit of asking government to make up for the injustices of nature (see: HHS mandate). Is it the gay person’s fault that his sexual orientation hasn’t put him in a position to procreate naturally with the person he loves? Of course not. This seems like exactly the sort of injustice progressives would seek to address through law.
So how long will it take before someone muses, “You know, insane Catholic women like Rachel Lu seem to be having a lot of babies. More than decent people consider reasonable or seemly. There’s no way they’re going to be able to provide all those kids with a decent upbringing (which is to say, a full slate of “enriching activities” from age three, and constant supervision practically through adulthood). Meanwhile, Joe and Bob over here desperately want a child, and is it their fault that two men can’t have a baby together? Of course not. So wouldn’t it be more fair, and also in the best interests of those excess Lu children, to give them a better, brighter future with Joe and Bob? We’ll pay the mother for her gestational trouble, naturally. Think of it as eminent domain laws for babies.”
Paranoid? I hope so. But already, through surrogacy and the promotion of gay parenting, progressives are working to undermine the idea that there is anything important about the connection between a mother and the child she bears. What would prevent this scenario from eventually becoming reality?
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It’s hard on adoptive parents, certainly, to lose a baby they thought they were going to keep. Often they find temporary foster parents to keep the baby through the mandated waiting period just to spare adoptive parents some of that pain. I’ve known people who had adoptions fall through, and yes, it’s very hard. But I still think it’s necessary to allow the mother a choice postpartum. A woman in an early stage of pregnancy, especially if terrified by the prospect of unexpected parenthood, can’t really understand the nature of the bond she will forge with that child by the time of birth.
That reminds me of a case where a mother kept a kid against court order and was successful for several years. When the father was finally successful in tracking them down there was actually debate over whether the mother should be able to keep teh kid. Are you willing to encourage flouting of the law and kidnapping in the hopes that possession will become 9/10’s of the law as the saying goes? As I say, the rights of biological parents should be strong, and willful undermining of those rights by one of the parties should not weaken the case in the eyes of the law.
I agree. Why cite “biology”, then leave the biological father out?
If the bio-father should receive no consideration, then what’s being prioritized is maternity, not biology.
How else are you going to regulate this insanity than through law? Doctors today are proscribed from performing or doing or handing out a prescription for certain things. If you don’t believe in laws to regulate, then a doctor should have the freedom to perform whatever an idividual feels he wants to, even cutting off an arm he thinks he should not have been born with. “As long as it doesn’t hurt someone else”? Right?
True of the Human Genome Project as well. So great was the excitement and promise, so slow the results.
It really made me laugh–apparently there are something 23 to 26 separate genes that are like our very own letters of the alphabet in number and random associations. Computers are unable to calculate the total number of combinations possible from our alphabet. Same is true for our genes.
Back to the gene Scrabble board for us. :)
What the dog-petting cop and diminutive reptile said.
That is true.
That’s a cat, and it’s more like a defensive or authoritative gesture than a caress. You know, since cats are evil.
I’ve gone through the adoption process (we have an adopted son), and in my opinion no child should be put up for adoption until he is born and handed over to an orphanage. That could be the day of his birth or months afterward. No one should have “dibs” on an expecting birth. A lot of these issues would go away.
Biology does bond children more closely to their mothers. That isn’t to say that fathers aren’t also very important, of course. But in order to contend that the mother and father have equal claim (even in this case, when the father had no existing relationship) you’d have to hold that gestation, birth and early mother-infant bonding have no real significance.
Before I answer that, are we agreed that “support” is not synonymous with “declining to outlaw and/or regulate”?
On the assumption that we do agree on that point, the question then turns to whether this is an appropriate or wise place to outlaw or regulate things, and — if so — what means of doing so is best.
As I said, I haven’t fully thought through my position on sex-reassignment and transabled surgeries, but I’m 1) quite sure they shouldn’t be subsidized 2) leaning toward the idea that they are unethical and should be treated as such by doctors’ associations, and 3) not wholly opposed to their being regulated by the state, though I lean against it.
I probably need to read the case more closely, but isn’t part of the reason why the father has so little relationship with the child because she has made it difficult for him?
I’m not sure what all the hand-wringing is about regarding the British case.
I tried to find the text of the decision to no avail. Most of the cases I did find from Europe favored the birthmother.
Without reading the decision, there is no way for any of us to know if there wasn’t some compelling reason for this ruling that the media (don’t we usually not trust them anyway?) left out of their reporting.
Yes, the mother has made it difficult. Again, so what? From my perspective, you’re already going completely wrong if you think the primary consideration should be what the involved adults think/want/deserve. The father was treated somewhat unfairly, but then again, his method of acquiring a child was highly unethical to begin with. The mother was put through a terrible ordeal, but admittedly she partly brought it on herself.
But the most fundamental *natural* tie in this instance is clearly between the mother and the infant she carried and nurtured. The genetic fact of biological paternity, coupled with an informal email exchange, should not be near enough to trump that immensely significant tie.
Once family arrangements are treated primarily as a negotiation of adult interests, all bets are off.
As long as in those cases they don’t come looking to the rest of us to bear the cost of raising those kids.
I agree that should be taken into account and — all other things constant — weigh things toward keeping the baby with its mother. We likely disagree over what other factors could/should incline the decision toward the father and by how much, but this just seems like the usual mess that family court always is.
All this speaks in favor of making really smart, careful decisions about who to mix your genes with and under what circumstances.
Agreed, of course. But again, I brought this forward not so much out of my extreme indignation over the details of this particular (admittedly messy) case, but more because of the sorts of precedents we’re seeing. If the law simply doesn’t regard itself as bound or limited by natural ties and attachments, further, more insidious developments are likely to follow.
Clearly Western societies are currently mulling over the question: how much moral significance should we attach to the fact that *this particular person* carried and bore me, or even that she rocked and nursed and cared for me through my earliest days? Some people have a strong interest in eroding any respect we might feel for that tie, and the implications of that could be frightening.
I don’t think contemporary society and social mores encourage smart reproductive decisions Tom. Quite the contrary as this case shows.
The general legal rule in most US jurisdictions is that no writing or other formality is needed to create a contract. A “handshake” is enough to create a bargain. Departures from this are by statute requiring a writing, which generally called a “statute of frauds.” Further, in most instances, an email exchange would be a sufficient writing to overcome a statute of frauds defense.
I don’t know about the law in the UK, though I believe that oral contracts were enforceable historically.
No, by support I do mean outlawing. If you don’t support outlawing then it’s just a personal choice. You’re still talking the Liberal/Libertarian language of personal freedom. I do not believe people should be free to do things that are detrimental to the fabric of society. Notice I used the terminology “fabric of society.” Just because one is free to do things that are only hurtful to oneself does not mean that society is not shaped and altered by such freedoms. Let me classify these freedoms as radical, egoistic freedoms. Legalizing pot for instance would be in this catagory, since pot is only mildly personally detrimental. But I think society is deminished as a whole by its legalization.
No state in the union honors an adoption contract made before the child is born.
And we are still dealing with the issues resulting from Isaac and Ishmael….
I understand what you are saying, but I disagree with you. I have never met a woman who dreams of being on welfare, but have known several women who I suspect may have gotten pregnant out of a conscious or subconscious wish to keep the father of the child in their lives. Then, when the father splits, some of them end up on welfare. I believe in a social safety net, but if we made it crystal clear to young women that they can make no claims at all on the biological fathers of their children, there would be far fewer out of marriage births.
There have also been cases of birth mothers who want to place their children for adoption but are prevented from doing so by biological fathers asserting their rights. Continued.
I am sexist. Life is unfair, and life is unfair in different ways for men and women. Some may hate me for saying this, but I just find it galling that carrying a child to term and giving birth seems to not count for much, if the biological father can claim all the same rights as the birth mother. If the biological father is married to the birth mother, that is totally different, but I just don’t think it’s right that unmarried biological fathers can claim all the same rights as birth mothers. Plus, many of our societal problems, especially illegitimacy, would be greatly reduced if being married made a difference.
In cases of surrogacy, when one woman arranges for her own fertilized egg to develop in another woman’s womb, the ” surrogate” should have all rights, and the woman who donates her egg none. If the ” surrogate” decides when the child is born to give the child to his or her genetic mother, that is her right, but she should also have the right to keep the child. I really don’t care who provided the genes; both surrogacy and giving unwed biological fathers rights stem from a profound lack of respect for pregnancy and child birth. I say this as a woman who has never been pregnant.
So the biological father can be on the hook for 18 years of child support, but you don’t think he should have rights of the mother? Since the decision to have the child or abort is 100% in the womans hand, you would have men in the position of having no say in the decision to continue the pregnancy, and then no rights in the childs life if the mother decides to deliver, but just gets to be an animated wallet if the mom or society decides to go after him?
Any wonder younger men would just rather not …. bother?
Kozak, I am not sure if you read everything I wrote: unless he is married to the mother, the biological father should not be on the hook for anything. I believe we should totally dispense with the idea of dead beat dads; women have no right to expect anything from a man to whom they are not married.
Also, I am totally against abortion. I realize it’s legal, but that is not my doing.
I have been rambling quite a bit, so maybe I haven’t been clear: unwed biological fathers shouldn’t have any rights, but they shouldn’t have any responsibilities or obligations either. Women should absolutely not be able to sue unwed biological fathers for child support. If there is or was a marriage, that is totally different.
I read this post and wanted to believe it was too extreme. Then I read the thread, picking up the actual disdain for the birthmother, and realize we’re basically there.
Afternoon Rachel,
What type or degree of deviant individual behavior should society control? We are confused and reluctant to even calibrate deviancy, or even admit that deviancy exists. Do you think one of the first signs of society’s confusion was the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s? Our current zeal to be seen as non-judgemental or our desire to defend individual liberty in the extreme is really a measure of our weakness and immaturity and not a measure of compassion or principles.