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Is Parenthood A Human Right?


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From the INDEPENDENT, in Ireland, comes this thought-provoking essay about the rights of children versus the needs of those who are infertile and don't want to be. What are your thoughts?

There are some things you can't change and some you shouldn't. A failure to conceive may be one of them.

Saturday August 11 2007

WE ALL have our views on whether or not gay couples should be allowed to adopt children. I have had an interesting communication from a young woman on the subject. She was adopted as a baby, and strongly objects to the trend arising across much of the European Union, of encouraging lesbian and gay couples to have equal access to adoption.

"It's tough enough growing up adopted, adjusting to the difference between your birth family and adoptive family, without having same-sex adoptive parents as another complication. Homosexuals or lesbians shouldn't be allowed to adopt," she said.

There should surely be more discussion and debate about this. The opinions of adopted people should be widely canvassed, as well as the opinions of that, thankfully, fashionable new breed of adviser, The Elders (former President Mary Robinson has just been nominated a Global Elder, along with the likes of Nelson Mandela). The Elders will have long, and sometimes painful, experiences of life and parenthood, and they will have something to say on this.

The real focus should be on the child -- not the "needs" of adults, whether straight or gay, to adopt.

In fanciful mood, I sometimes think I'd have enjoyed being adopted by a couple of gay men in the theatre. If science could have analysed my infant brain structure and perceived a fascination for anything theatrical, I should really have been placed for adoption with Micheal MacLiammoir and Hilton Edwards. But there is no way of identifying the particular needs of children in such a way, so we just have to go about adoption and fostering in the best way that we can.

If equality in adoption, then, is still too driven by the needs or desires of adults, so too is the whole In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) scenario. IVF has got to a point of dangerous over-use. And it now has a martyr in Jacqui Rushton, who died at the Mater Hospital in 2003, from problems arising from the hyperstimulation of her ovaries, following fertility treatment. It is sad that an otherwise healthy young woman should die quite needlessly. And it is also, in my opinion, foolish to pursue conception to such a degree that you are in danger of dying from the treatment involved.

IVF has been hyped up out of all proportion. It is being promoted by a competitive strain of medics who see both pioneering possibilities and 'loadsamoney' growth from the frantic desires of women who have, in most cases, left it too late to beget children in the manner that nature intended. If you want to educate people about fertility, teach them basic facts: nature wants women to reproduce young. The best age at which to have a baby is 23. But the IVF establishment doesn't teach that. Quite the contrary. They are talking about extending, indefinitely, the time in which assisted conception may occur -- 40, 50, 60 years of age. Borrowed eggs, fabricated sperm, and now, the latest horror -- spare-part babies. That is, babies conceived so as to provide bone, marrow or tissue for other babies.

Infertility has always been a source of sorrow -- it's in the Bible, it's in folk tales and sagas -- so biologists want to fix it. Sometimes they are able to. Then the issue gets into the hands of the consumerists, on one side, and the "equality" merchants, on the other. Howls go up throughout the land if IVF isn't "equally" available to all -- young, old, straight, gay, sick, well, poor, prosperous, married, single, separated, divorced, whatever. But why should it be "equally" available to all? Is it in the best interests of the possible child? Is it advisable that so many children are now being conceived through IVF? Questions remain about the long-term health of babies born through such assisted reproduction.

Parenthood is wonderful, but it is a gift, not a right. Not everyone is destined to be a parent and people can live happy and fulfilled lives without bowing before what is now a fertility cult of primitive dimensions. "We must have adoption for all!" "We must have IVF for all!" "We must go to any lengths to ensure that anyone who chooses to have a child, has the right to one!"

In my view, no we mustn't. And we certainly mustn't allow assisted-fertility fanatics to frogmarch civilisation towards the horrors of mixing and matching eggs, embryos, sperm (combining animal and human sperm is the latest wheeze) and all the rest of the ghastly experiments they have in mind.

The Elders should teach the wisdom -- which exists in all the great traditions -- of acceptance. There are some things you cannot change, and there are some things you should not change. A failure to conceive may be one of them.

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Wow! I would love to know where this guy is coming from? Has he been infertile?

Heather

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Here, for those who are interested in this debate, is another perspective, this one from researcher Glenn McGee, as quoted on the American Journal of Bioethics website:

Children have been adopted for thousands of years, and relationships between adoptive families and children have taken many forms and been articulated in many ways. The enormous institutional wisdom accumulated in what we call the adoption model can be very important for bridging the gap between reproductive liberty and pediatrics. The adoption model can move the debate about cloning and new reproductive technologies from its present, highly politicized rancor into a more constructive arena in which interdisciplinary and bipartisan consensus may be possible.

Parents who seek to adopt children are required, in virtually every nation, to seek prior approval from a regional authority or court. In many nations applicants are required to undergo psychological testing, home visits or other pre-screening. In most cases these pre-screens take place before a particular child has been identified for adoption; in many cases the pre-screen is independent and antecedent to the identification of a pregnant birth parent.

From the reproductive rights model, it might seem odd that such fulsome oversight is allowed. After all, fertile parents are not pre-screened before the state permits pregnancy. It could be argued that the screening of applicants for adoption is a manifest invasion of reproductive privacy and an incursion on the rights of parents to reproduce in the manner they desire. We might very well have converted adoption to the model of reproductive rights, following for example the U.S. precedent of leaving surrogacy and egg and sperm donation to the marketplace. Why when we tolerate a virtual free market in all donor-assisted reproduction, with no pre-screen or judicial oversight, do we insist that adoption so closely monitored?

The answer is that adoption, in many respects, embodies the best features of both the reproductive rights and pediatric models. Adoption law is framed out of a recognition that the adoption of a child is an unusual way to enter into a family, devoid of pregnancy and birth and textured by its own social and moral features. The adoption process cannot replace these elements of gestation and preparation for childbirth. However, in an important sense it gives communal imprimatur to the creation of a family, drawing on other social rituals for sealing a permanent and loving commitment (marriage).

The adoptive parents are not screened in search of perfect parents, only with the aim of determining whether or not this particular set of parents can provide some bare minimum features of parenthood that have been historically important in the adoption setting. In this respect the adoption judge is much like the divorce court judge. When parents split up, a judge is in the unusual position of determining what sort of family is best for a particular child given some constellation of exigencies. What appears to us to be Solomon’s wisdom embodied by such judges is actually the product of long-term study of human families in a particular communal context. While their decisions are imperfect, the ethical responsibility of the judge is identified with the representation that judge makes for the community and for the laws of the state or nation as they apply to adoption.

The adoption judge or magistrate is in an important sense a community historian for the dimensions of family, tracking some of the important features of the community so that they can be accounted for in matching parents and children. Parents who are not judged to be good candidates for adoption may plead their case, but are finally at the mercy of the community leaders.

The adoption model for human family making is predicated on several simply and profound assumptions. First, where unorthodox parenting arrangements (as in adoption or divorce) pose special challenges, the responsibility of the community to provide counsel and oversight is compelling. Second, where arrangements for parenting have not worked or are likely to present special problems, the court and community ought to be empowered to enact short- or long-term restrictions on certain kinds of family-making. Just as regional governments decide how marriage will work, who may inherit, and what kinds of schools provide a sufficient education, the family courts have a quite proper jurisdiction in prohibiting certain kinds of family relationships (e.g., incest, cloning, and polygamy). Third, the formation of a family is both a deeply personal and profoundly social act. The interests of children who are adopted or made through new reproductive technologies are best served when a spirit of openness and honesty about the meaning of the process is evident.

Additional perspectives to consider:

Revolutions in Parenthood: The Emerging Global Clash Between Adults' Rights and Children's Needs

United Nations University: On Bioethics of Reproduction

Children by Choice: Reproductive Technology & Boundaries of Personal Autonomy

An Examination of "Best Interests of the Child" in Assisted Human Reproduction

Children Have Rights: Say No to ReproTech

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Going back to the topic title, "Is Parenthood A Human Right?" it would appear so from a human rights perspective. From protesting China's one-child policy to ending the forced sterilizations of the mentally retarded, the mentally ill and targeted racial groups (which occurred in the earlier part of the 20th century), it would appear that human rights organizations across the spectrum have said that, yes, parenthood is a right.

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I think that if you open up this topic like the writer for the Indpendence did, then it only leads to the question of the right to parent for all...not just those who are infertile but those who are also fertile. If it can be decided that infertile people shouldn't be able to have children just because they can't conceive the natural way then it brings up the fact that there should be screening of anyone who wants to have a child...just because you are fertile doesn't mean you have the right to parent, right?? Does it work both ways or is this someone's idea of the Survival of the Fittest?

Edited by KeithandErika
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"It is important to note that a needs perspective tends to be influenced by a welfare ideology and rights by a justice ideology (Daniels 1994). Haimes (1992) makes an important point when she says, "If the language of rights replaces that of needs ... at least two things happen; first, a social dimension replaces the individualized claims of ..."psychological" needs; second, the idea that an exception is being made for this particular group of people is removed and is replaced instead by the idea that they are simply being brought into line with the rights enjoyed in a much more routine manner by most others in society." www.eubios.info/EJ85/ej85f.htm

Let me play devil's advocate, here.

If parenthood is a human right and not a matter of personal need, then surely fertility treatment should be equally available, free of cost, to all who wish to parent, regardless of their economic resources or sexual orientation or marital status or age or race or religion or health concerns or geographical location.

Still, from the far corner of the ring, listen as the Church enters the fray:

"Though some have likened the response of the infertile couple to childlessness to that of a person grieving over a death, the analogy between infertility and death is no longer accurate. Death is final and undeniable, but infertility is not. Few couples are ever told that they have no chance to conceive. The open-ended nature of infertility is, to the infertile couple, a mixed blessing: though they can always hope to have a child, this hope makes it hard for them ever to resign themselves to infertility... This attitude makes it exceedingly difficult for many couples to stop pursuing parenthood... When infertility was considered a predestined state, infertile couples were probably more influenced by religious interpretations. Appeals to moral rights and wrongs are less convincing when we believe we can change our condition through technical know-how. Accepting the Vatican instruction’s approach to infertility requires a spirit of resignation -- not a common spirit among couples pursuing infertility treatment." www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=807

So then, what happens when the rights of every human to procreate potentially encroach on the rights of the resultant children?

Donor-conceived young people point out that the informed consent of the most vulnerable party—the child—is not obtained in reproductive technology procedures that intentionally separate children from one or both of their biological parents. They ask how the state can aid and defend a practice that denies them their birthright to know and be raised by their own parents and that forcibly conceals half of their genetic heritage. Some call themselves “lopsided” or “half adopted”... “kinship slave.”center.americanvalues.org/?p=49

Some of the above-cited links do raise valid concerns, about the rights of children to know their donors, or the medical risks prevalent among children produced by IVF, etc. Is it simply a chicken-and-egg question, then, as to whose "rights" are greater, those who desire to parent or the children then produced through the best medical treatments that money can buy?

"It is time to admit that what reproductive technologies have given to parents, they have also taken away from children." http://www.childrenhaverights-saynotoreprotech.blogspot.com

Even within adoption, we have not yet resolved one basic human rights issue: that of each human being's rights to access their own birth records, despite their adoptive or birthparent's desire to keep that information secret! Amazing, isn't it? that the right of each person to know the truth of their beginnings is still subject to the whims of those who bring them up?

Granted, these are painful issues for us all, but if our discomfort in considering them leads us to greater understanding of the needs of parents and the rights of children, then perhaps we will have succeeded at making the world a tiny bit better for all?

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This is a very interesting debate, but for clarification purposes, we should distinguish between civil rights and human rights. Civil rights are rights bestowed by governments; human rights are rights bestowed by the virtue of birth.

I think Elizabeth, recognizing the difference, was very careful when she chose the headline for this thread. I just wanted to spell it out further. The original article seems to come down on the side of parenthood not being a human right, but instead being a civil right (and a debatable one, at that).

There have been numerous worries about "playing God" when it comes to the ethical implications of modern genetics, so there is a valid question here: How far is too far? Frankly, when we start engineering the process of procreation to predetermine sex, that's too far for me. Others may find that perfectly OK.

When it comes to the children, however, I think we can all agree. It is a human right to know where you come from. It should be a civil right, too.

One last thing, and it is a purely personal observation not transferable to others. I view parenthood as a privilege. The minute I allow myself to think about it as a "right" is the moment I become more important than the child I am parenting. That, for me, would be very dangerous.

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