Heather MacDonald has an outstanding article in National Review on the impact of artificial reproductive technology on the family.
Every time a homosexual couple conceives a child, there is another parent offstage somewhere whose sperm or egg has allowed conception to occur (and, in the case of male homosexuals, whose womb has allowed gestation to occur). In some homosexual families, that parent will be involved in his child’s life; in others, he will remain completely anonymous and unknown. Parental identity and responsibility for children in a homosexual family do not flow from biology; they result from choice and intent….
My only beef with this article is with this paragraph:
The institutionalized severing of biology from parenthood affirms a growing trend in our society, that of men abandoning their biological children. Too many men now act like sperm donors: they conceive a children then largely disappear, becoming at best intermittent presences in their children’s lives. This phenomenon is increasingly common among the less educated, and dominates in the black community. Too many children — including the great majority of black children and large numbers of children of struggling working-class mothers — are now raised in single-parent homes; many do not even know who their fathers are. The negative consequences of this family breakdown for children include higher rates of school failure and lack of socialization. Moreover, in a culture where men are not expected to raise their children, boys fail to learn the most basic lesson of personal responsibility and self-discipline.
My beef with the italicized sentence is that the problem with Artificial Reproductive Technology is not so much that men are abandoning their children, as that women are kicking men out of the family. For the growing Single Mothers by Choice movement, the intent to keep father out of the family is the defining feature. And the no-fault divorce revolution has a large element of kicking men out of family, not just the “dead-beat dads,” who get so much press. In some families, the woman initiated the divorce. And if there is little of the abuse or infidelity reasons that used to constitute “cause” for divorce, that means that in at least some homes, the wife initiates the divorce with little that would have passed muster as “cause.”
Hence, my discomfort with blaming the trend toward fatherlessness all on the men. But I digress. MacDonald’s article is really outstanding, including this concluding gem:
gay marriage moves the separation of parental status and biology to the center of the marriage institution. To be sure, most of the attributes of gay procreation and gay marriage can be found individually in other family structures. But those attributes — most important, the absence of a child’s biological father or mother from his life — have been considered exceptions and second-best solutions to the norm for child-rearing. (Contrary to gay-marriage proponents’ favorite rhetorical strategy, the existence of an exception does not mean that a norm or rule does not exist.) When gays procreate and marry, all those exceptions become the rule. To the extent that you worry about, rather than celebrate, the dissolution of biological ties between parents and children, gay marriage could be a straw that you are reluctant to add to the camel’s back.
I have to say that I have made many of these points myself, in a variety of contexts, including in my four part lecture series, Same Sex Marriage Affects Everyone, lectures 2 and 3. But I am delighted to have an author of Heather MacDonald’s talent weigh in on these important questions.