When Children Are Born Motherless
Elise Passamani’s article “Oedipus Child: When Children Are Born Motherless, Problems Await” (The American, 7/25/07), deals with the case of a man, Roberto d.B., who had biological twin daughters through a surrogate mother. She explains, “When the hospital put the surrogate’s name on the children’s birth certificates as the legal mother, Mr. d.B. sued to have the certificates reissued without a mother, on the grounds that the surrogate is not genetically related to the children.” Passamani is critical of Roberto, and warns against “motherless” babies.
I’m against Roberto, but not completely against him. Just as it is bad for children to be fatherless, it is also bad for them to be motherless. A wave of motherless children would be just as destructive as the current trend towards fatherlessness has been. I’ve condemned “single mothers by choice” who intentionally have children without a father, and I condemn Roberto for doing the same thing with the genders reversed. However, there are a couple of other points here which merit mention.
Given America’s divorce epidemic, given the fact that women initiate the vast majority of divorces, and given that fathers’ rights to shared custody of their children after divorce or separation have been abrogated on a large scale, the only way that a man can have a child today and be sure he can remain a meaningful part of the child’s life is to have a “motherless” child through a surrogate.
Mothers usually don’t have to worry about losing their children in a divorce, but fathers do. Roberto’s desire to have a “motherless” child and to not have the surrogate mother on the birth certificate may have been motivated by a desire to make sure he could always retain custody of his child. I don’t like it, but I understand.
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Stumble It!
August 2nd, 2007 at 10:58 am
One of the favorite proclamations of the left, of feminists, and even of conservatives like Dr. Laura is that biological fathers are only sperm donors and only find us men important when it’s convenient, like when child support is desired.
A mother is not determined by a legal document, except to enable government shenanigans. If a man can be determined to be the father for child support purposes based solely on his actions, like “acting as a father” during a live-in situation, I think this guy referred to above will find that the government can just as easily determine that his live-in girlfriend is his child’s real mother and award her custody and him child support in spite of no name being on the child’s birth certificate.
Under our current out-of-control government, nothing is for sure for men except that women will always be given the benefit of the doubt.
August 3rd, 2007 at 9:37 am
I wish to make one clarification concerning my last post.
I haven’t heard Dr. Laura say that all men are only sperm donors. She has said, however, that biological fathers who don’t act as fathers, as defined by her as to how a father should act to support (mostly financially) his children, are only sperm donors and the “real father” is the one who actually supports the child. So, according to her, any man can be designated the “real father” based on his actions after the baby is born.
Too bad we don’t have similar rules in this country applying to women who have children they can’t afford to support.