PET PET
  • My Account
  • Subscribe
Become a Friend Donate
  • About Us
    • People
    • Press Office
    • Our History
  • Get Involved
    • Become a Friend of PET
    • Volunteer
    • Campaigns
    • Writing Scheme
    • Partnership and Sponsorship
    • Advertise with Us
  • Donate
    • Become a Friend of PET
  • BioNews
    • News
    • Comment
    • Reviews
    • Elsewhere
    • Topics
    • Glossary
    • Newsletters
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Previous Events
  • Engagement
    • Policy and Projects
      • Resources
    • Education
  • Jobs & Opportunities
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
    • People
    • Press Office
    • Our History
  • Get Involved
    • Become a Friend of PET
    • Volunteer
    • Campaigns
    • Writing Scheme
    • Partnership and Sponsorship
    • Advertise with Us
  • Donate
    • Become a Friend of PET
  • BioNews
    • News
    • Comment
    • Reviews
    • Elsewhere
    • Topics
    • Glossary
    • Newsletters
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Previous Events
  • Engagement
    • Policy and Projects
      • Resources
    • Education
  • Jobs & Opportunities
  • Contact Us
  • My Account
  • Subscribe
  • Privacy Statement
  • Advertising Policy
  • Thanks and Acknowledgements
PETBioNewsCommentMy daddy's name is adoption

BioNews

My daddy's name is adoption

Published 18 April 2011 posted in Comment and appears in BioNews 607

Author

Vince Londini

Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
CC0 1.0
Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.

On November 2, 2010, Elizabeth Marquardt testified before the Australian Senate. Her remarks included this statement: 'But I also want to make clear that - even with openness - the problems [allegations that donor-conceived children are more prone to social and legal trouble] do not completely go away. There seems to be something else about knowing that the person who raised you also deliberately denied you your other parent before you were even born'...

On November 2, 2010, Elizabeth Marquardt testified before the Australian Senate. Her remarks included this statement: 'But I also want to make clear that - even with openness - the problems [allegations that donor-conceived children are more prone to social and legal trouble] do not completely go away. There seems to be something else about knowing that the person who raised you also deliberately denied you your other parent before you were even born'.

To those who know about donor conception, the words 'deliberately denied you your other parent' are striking. They seem to allege a wrong. This is no accident of wording, but a foreshadowing of Marquardt's agenda of condemning all donor conception on the grounds that it denies the child access to his or her biological parents. This might be a respectable position, if Marquardt didn't simultaneously praise adoption, despite the end result being the same.

In May 2010, the Institute for American Values (IAV) released 'My Daddy's Name is Donor', a report co-authored by Marquardt. This report is the basis for her involvement in donor conception and her team continues to use the report to gain an audience worldwide.

Toward the beginning of the report, the authors state their goal: 'We aim for nothing less than to launch a national and international debate on the ethics, meaning, and practice of donor conception, starting now'. At best they delude themselves. This debate has gone on for decades. IAV is merely trying to recast the ongoing debate in terms favourable to their ideology.

Other authors, including Professor Eric Blyth and Wendy Kramer, have capably criticised the ethics and methodology of the report, see My Daddy's Name is Donor: Read with caution!. My concerns centre on the report's imbalanced treatment of donor conception and hypocritical preference for adoption.

I agree with several of the report's points. As a father to three donor-conceived children with whom I'm open about their origins, I agree with the report's call for openness. I support a movement to collect and preserve biological and identifying information. I support a call for mandatory counselling and limits on the number of children conceived by a donor's gametes.

However, the report consistently mistreats donor conception, while painting adoption in a rosy light to advance an adoption-instead-of-donor-conception agenda. The report praises adoption with glowing phrases like 'adoption is a good, positive, and vital institution' or 'adoption is a child-centred institution that seeks to find parents for children who need them'. The absence of such high praise in the report for donor conception implies by its silence that it is the opposite.

Yet these evaluations of adoption wilfully ignore the parent-centric reality within the adoption industry. The authors do mention and dismiss concerns about how adoption is practiced in the real world, but proceed to continually prefer adoption in its ideal form while referring to donor conception at its worst.

Adopting the same critical attitude the authors take toward donor conception, we could criticise current adoption practice by writing something like 'adoption as widely practiced is little better than a child market, where would-be parents selfishly buy children from impoverished countries and - in the process - irrevocably separate them from their genetic parents'. Would that be a fair assessment? Hardly. Neither is the report's assessment of donor conception.

The report concludes by advising lawmakers: 'Those who support the practice of donor conception often claim it is no big deal because it is "just like" adoption. If so, then treat it like adoption'. This false dichotomy is both a straw man and alarmingly bully-like.

Because adoption places a living, breathing human being with a family, processes are employed to ensure safe placement and provide recourse if those involved are accused of wrongdoing. It makes no sense to require couples attempting to conceive to face these same processes. At the same time, the existence of differences does not change the fact that the issues for the offspring are similar. It's not 'one or the other'. Donor conception is a bit of both.

The report's insistence on framing grey issues as if they were black and white leads me to suspect an inconvenienced ideology that leads its adherents to bully non-conformists and frighten bystanders. The height of the report's ideological bullying arrives in its counsel to would-be parents. The report presses this astounding advice:

'Please consider adoption, or acceptance, or being a loving stepparent, foster parent, aunt or uncle, or community leader who works with children. There are many ways to be actively involved with raising the next generation without resorting to conceiving a child who is purposefully destined never to share a life with at least one of his or her biological parents'.

Please re-read that last sentence. The authors want us to believe that donor conception will rob the resulting child of both biological parents? This counsel is hypocritical, manipulative, and ridiculous.

Adoption, the report's favoured solution, often deprives the adopted child of 'sharing a life' with both biological parents, especially in cases of international adoption where children have little or no hope of ever reconnecting. Contrast with donor conception, where in most cases the child will 'share a life with at least one' biological parent. It is plainly hypocritical for Marquardt to condemn donor conception for severing biological ties while at the same time praising adoption as a 'good, positive, and vital institution'.

The wording of this recommendation is manipulative. It is no wonder the above sentence requires multiple readings, because it works too hard to weigh down its subject in emotional lading.

The report's suggested alternatives belittle the emotional suffering infertile couples face. This adoption-instead-of-donor-conception agenda too easily dismisses the mother's natural drive to birth and suckle her own. This counsel batters the reader with the implied pleading to choose anything other than donor conception.

Having reached a distorted, fever pitch with the bullying, the report surmounts another emotional peak with its scare tactics. On the final page of the main report, in the recommendations addressed to 'all of us', the report invokes genetic engineering and human-animal hybrids.

Introducing a new topic in one's conclusion is generally considered poor writing. But this invocation of highly-controversial issues at the final moment appears carefully calculated to paint the entire subject with borrowed controversy.

Toward its close the report asks the reader: 'Does a good society intentionally create children in this way?' Again, the phrasing is laden with false dichotomy and innuendo. Allow me to propose an alternate question, 'Do good people intentionally report in this way?' In both cases, the answer is almost certainly 'yes'.

To the report's question, I consider it good if society creates safeguards so donor conception is practiced in the best interests of the child, but does not bar would-be parents from this approach to family building.

To my question, I…well…the reader is welcome to consider how the answer to my question could be 'yes'.

Related Articles

Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
CC0 1.0
Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
Comment
9 January 2013 • 3 minutes read

Is intentional parenthood good for children?

by Elizabeth Marquardt

In today's debates about the family a new phrase can often be heard: 'intentional parenthood'. The term appears to have originated in the 1990s to resolve disputed surrogacy or lesbian parenting family law cases...

Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
CC0 1.0
Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
Comment
9 January 2013 • 3 minutes read

One Parent or Five — more of the same from the Commission on Parenthood's Future

by Professor Eric Blyth

'One Parent or Five: A global look at today's new intentional families' is the latest report from the Commission on Parenthood's Future (1). Authored by 'scholar Elizabeth Marquardt, a recognized family expert', it claims to offer 'the first-ever systematic critique of the concept of intentional parenthood [by] providing a global tour of today's new intentional families...

Image by Bill McConkey via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts sperm swimming towards an egg.
CC BY 4.0
Image by Bill McConkey via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts sperm swimming towards an egg.
Comment
14 November 2012 • 3 minutes read

The birth of donor offspring rights in the USA?

by Professor Naomi Cahn and 1 others

The fertility industry in the US state of Washington will be transformed in late July 2011, when a new law to recognise rights of donor-conceived people comes into effect. Under the changes, anyone who provides gametes to a fertility clinic in the state must also provide identifying information about themselves and their medical history...

Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
CC0 1.0
Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
Comment
14 November 2011 • 3 minutes read

Marquardt's off the mark

by Susan Kane

I have no doubt that Elizabeth Marquardt's report reflects the feelings of the donor-conceived people that she studied. However, since true scientific study of donor-conceived people is not currently possible, her claims must be qualified....

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

« When you've tried everything under the sun, should you look to the stars?

Data-Label The UK's Leading Supplier Of Medical Labels & Asset Labels

RetiringDentist.co.uk The UK's Leading M&A Company.

Find out how you can advertise here
easyfundraising
amazon

This month in BioNews

  • Popular
  • Recent
8 August 2022 • 2 minutes read

FILM: 200 Years of Mendel – From Peas to Personalised Medicine

1 August 2022 • 4 minutes read

Women's Health Strategy plans reflect rising needs of same-sex female couples

25 July 2022 • 4 minutes read

Was the Women's Health Strategy worth the wait?

25 July 2022 • 4 minutes read

Why the UK should extend the 14-day rule to 28 days

25 July 2022 • 5 minutes read

200 Years of Mendel: From Peas to Personalised Medicine

8 August 2022 • 4 minutes read

Citizenship and same-sex parents – about time, Sweden!

8 August 2022 • 2 minutes read

FILM: 200 Years of Mendel – From Peas to Personalised Medicine

1 August 2022 • 4 minutes read

Women's Health Strategy plans reflect rising needs of same-sex female couples

25 July 2022 • 4 minutes read

Was the Women's Health Strategy worth the wait?

25 July 2022 • 4 minutes read

Why the UK should extend the 14-day rule to 28 days

Subscribe to BioNews and other PET updates for free.

Subscribe
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube
  • RSS
Wellcome
Website redevelopment supported by Wellcome.

Website by Impact Media Impact Media

  • Privacy Statement
  • Advertising Policy
  • Thanks and Acknowledgements

© 1992 - 2022 Progress Educational Trust. All rights reserved.

Limited company registered in England and Wales no 07405980 • Registered charity no 1139856

Subscribe to BioNews and other PET updates for free.

Subscribe
PET PET

PET is an independent charity that improves choices for people affected by infertility and genetic conditions.

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube
  • RSS
Wellcome
Website redevelopment supported by Wellcome.

Navigation

  • About Us
  • Get Involved
  • Donate
  • BioNews
  • Events
  • Engagement
  • Jobs & Opportunities
  • Contact Us

BioNews

  • News
  • Comment
  • Reviews
  • Elsewhere
  • Topics
  • Glossary
  • Newsletters

Other

  • My Account
  • Subscribe

Website by Impact Media Impact Media

  • Privacy Statement
  • Advertising Policy
  • Thanks and Acknowledgements

© 1992 - 2022 Progress Educational Trust. All rights reserved.

Limited company registered in England and Wales no 07405980 • Registered charity no 1139856