Well I thought the little news piece below was very interesting, as well as revealing.
Since it showed that much of the propaganda about gays having children is really nothing more then attempts to restrict the rights of single women to have children without the requisite male overseer.
As gay men have had the right to adopt children for decades with few bothering to do so.
AND as we can see from the article below most of the women using sperm donor services are single women wishing to be mothers and just not having an adequate partner, they are not lesbians.
AND I predict that we would see the same pattern in surrogacy arrangements as well as single parent adoptions, if anyone cared enough to check. Most would turn out to be ordinary single women wishing to have a family before it's too late, after being kept hanging around for years waiting for a commitment from some useless male reprobate (probably parked in front of the TV watching the Sports Channel for 75% of his existence).
Anyway, this whole uproar about gay marriage and parenting is a code for: men trying to be in charge of everything again and their ever more frantic attempts to exert male control over women (without having to move off the couch, of course, or relinguish the remote). In other words: restore the control over women men USED to have, without them having to make any real changes in their lives. Thus, limiting women's ability to be single mothers if we never happen to marry is the real motivation behind these crazed campaigns against gay marriage, procreating via sperm/egg donors, etc.
This was even the basis for England passing that ridiculous law last year making it illegal to use anonymous sperm donors anymore. Painting it as concern for children when in fact it was another sad attempt by men to try to regain control of women again.
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20061008-064613-7289r
United Press International
News. Analysis. Insight.
10/8/2006 8:03:00 PM -0400
NewsTrack - Quirks
'Bio-panic' leads solo women to parenting
LONDON, Oct. 8 (UPI) -- "Bio-panic," a term referring to single women's attempts at motherhood without a man, has driven scores of women to British clinics to embrace the endeavor.
Most of the women suffering from "bio-panic" are said to be in their 30s and have the mindset that waiting for the "perfect" man in order to have children could take too long, ultimately leading them to fertility clinics in increasing numbers, The Telegraph said.
"Many are suddenly realizing that this commitment-phobic man they are living with, who says he wants children 'at some point', cannot hear their biological clocks ticking," said the head of the British Fertility Society ethics committee, Dr. Gillian Lockwood. "These are wonderful, educated, professional women who are making a definite choice about motherhood."
While the number of single women forgoing relationships for motherhood has been increasing across Britain, recent figures have shown that the number of lesbian couples undergoing in vitro fertilization has also risen by nearly four times since 2001.
Altogether 536 single women in Britain underwent in vitro fertilization during the last year in comparison to 156 lesbians who attempted to become pregnant in the same way, the newspaper said.
32 comments:
nymom says: Thus, limiting women's ability to be single mothers if we never happen to marry is the real motivation behind these crazed campaigns against gay marriage, procreating via sperm/egg donors, etc.
Encouraging anyone to be a single parent, whether male or female, in my opinion is not in the best interests of the child. Study after study has empirically shown that children do best when raised in a low-conflict marriage by their bio-parents. England and a number of other countries did not ban sperm or egg donors; they banned the anoynmity of the donor so that children produced this way could know who their bio-mom or bio-dad is when they reach age 18. That decision was based on what the adult children concieved this way were saying about their need to know the other half of their genetic parent as well as complete their own identity. It had nothing to do in any literature I have read about males wanting to dominate females that I am aware of.
It seems that you have overgeneralized all men to fit a concept that males want to control females. While there is evidence to supprt that conclusion on a case by case basis, there is also evidence to support the exact opposite. There are many, many happily married men and women today...I would hope more than not. I fail to find sufficient empirical evidence to substantiate your opinion that men, in general, are out to "get women". By that, I mean control them. I work in a female dominated profession; my boss for the last 15 years has been a woman and I supervise nearly all women. I have been married nearly 27 years - to the same woman and find no need to control her or her I. I only disclose this to show that men and women can co-exist without the need to control one another. I don't even think about it nor do I hope they do either. That does not mean that there is no validity to your opinion nymom. I only point this out in hopes that a balance can be reached and if not, at least I shared another viewpoint.
First of all making it illegal to be an 'anonymous' donor led to no donors at all...as why should a donor take a chance like that and be hit up with a child support bill at some point in the future? Since I understand Great Britian now has only ONE donor now in Scotland or Ireland and as you saw in the article almost 700 women underwent invitro fertilization using an anonymous donor last year.
Or the reverse why should a woman who wishes to have a child take a chance and be hit up with a court order for visitation or even custody after she already has a child????
Clearly this was an attempt to discourage single women who wished to be mothers (the majority of the people using the services now of anonymous sperm donors) from using these services. Since even though in theory it stopped men from using the reverse as in anonymous eggs donors, few men did this anyway...
So the people it hurt was women who were it's primary target.
It's just like when the South made it mandatory that to vote you needed to take a literacy test and/or own property in the district. No...they didn't put in big block letters after these requirments that they were primarily meant to stop black voters from exercising their rights after Emancipation and I'm sure they caught a few poor whites in the net as well. But clearly the disparate impact was on black people and that's who it was meant to impact.
Just as these laws against anonymous sperm donors were passed to impact single women wishing to be mothers.
"Children do 'best' when raised in a low conflict marriage with their bio-parents."
Yes, that's the perfect scenario. But you know what, we could fall into extinction waiting for everyone to be in that perfect scenario. Okay. As many people never get married today...AND most single mothers do quite well raising their children, in spite of the many statistical lies and propaganda about single mother.
I'm glad you've been married for almost 27 years but people like you are not in the majority anymore. Okay. Actually I just heard on CNN that married people are no longer the majority anymore. AND since England closely follows the US in many ways, it's probably the same thing there as well or will be soon.
So we are not arguing about the perfect here, but the good...and women who wish to be single mothers using anonymous sperm donors will prove to be good enough mothers and should be allowed to do so...
Passing that law was definitely another attempt by men to continue controlling women without having to change any of their own bad-boy behaviors. Which is what has led to many women wishing to have children w/o benefit of marriage anyway...
You'll have to get over it. As women are in the majority here and as soon as they figure out why men are doing these things, you'll just be outvoted...
So get used to seeing a lot of single mothers in your neighborhood.
"...men and women can co-exist without the need to control one another..."
Unfortunately this doesn't appear to be the case.
I'm afraid it's another example of how the aggression of men has a bad habit of turning against its own. Co-existence seems impossible with a group of people who are so greedy for power and control of everything.
As it is in the US (and I'm pretty sure it's the same in most of the other western countries as well, worse in other places actually) men control the Presidency (or head of state) both houses of Congress, MOST of the Supreme Court, the Pentagon, most police, sheriff depts., etc, every single instrument of power in the state practically...
YET it is still not enough for them...
They are so greedy they can't leave one freakin thing for their sisters to have...
Okay. That's the male legacy.
I think you are overgeneralizing by stating half of the world's population (the male gender) is "out to get" the other half. You almost make it sound like a war when in reality marriage has been and probably will continue to be the norm worldwide. The fact is most people marry in their lifetime. That is not to say they stay married, but they do, indeed, marry. Why? For many reasons and some very good ones too. I do not believe that males are out to exploit females anymore than females are out to exploit males.
I believe depriving children of their fathers is not in their best interests (unless of course it is for legitimate safety reasons). Single parenting is hard work and by no means close to ideal in meeting children's needs. I see single mothers struggling everyday to make ends meet and deal with all the varied issues of parenting. It is hard enough with two bio-parents. I can't imagine doing it alone....much less WANTING to do it alone.
I don't know what experiences you have had in your lifetime that have brought you to the viewpoints you have about male dominance/aggression/greed, but I definitely do not see it the same way (and I do not think I am in the minority). While I do not agree with your views on men, I respect your right to have that viewpoint. I hope, for the sake of children, that parenting will always involve a marriage of the bio-parents. I believe and hope in the ideal and think settling for less when one doesn't have to, is not in the children's best interest.
Leroy give it up. Y9ou know what they say about getting into a pissing contest with a skunk.
I told you already bloggernoggin to stay off my blog. You have nothing useful to add to the debate so can it already.
You pest.
"I believe and hope in the ideal..."
Well everyone wants the best, the perfect, the ideal. Unfortunately it apppears that this generation of women might have to settle for single motherhood instead and possibly even the next after them...until men start behaving themselves again.
Until that happens I see nothing wrong with the women this article is talking about deciding to use anonymous sperm donors to have families with. This is a well-educated, self supporting group of women, for the most part, not welfare recipients who can't support their children. Most of them are educated with good jobs and will make fine mothers. Unfortunately the men in their lives have decided to delay making a commitment (this is not uncommon today) and women cannot wait around forever. We are not like men who can hang around until their 40s and 50s w/o making up our minds about having children.
Actually it gives men far more social power then women to allow this sort of behavior to continue, which is just why men fight so hard to keep things the way they are. As it benefits them to continue stringing women along for years while men wait to decide if the woman they are with is good enough to marry and have children with...or to see what else will come along if he waits long enough...
Why should women continue putting up with this behavior.
In fact we shouldn't...
When men decide to grow up and act their ages, I'm sure women will still be open to having relationships with them. Until then there is nothing wrong with women having children in this manner. Men are just very threatened by single women who become mothers like this so they went to the extent of making it illegal.
Ultimately this winds up hurting men more then women.
Since once most women become aware of the implication behind this law, they will change it. AND men will have once again shown themselves to be petty and controlling...pretending to be concerned about childrens' best interest, when they are really trying to dictate the lives of women...
nymom, you said: "Ultimately this winds up hurting men more then women."
I think it really is a "lose - lose" proposition with ultimately the one in the least powerful position losing the most; that being the children born to single parents. I am not saying this as a propaganda speech. Numerous studies have shown that children of single parent homes just do not do as well as those who grow up with their bio-parents. Men or women who have children through artifical insemination and/or surrogacy would do well to talk to children born this way and have voiced their concerns. I am not saying every child living with their bio-parents is perfect nor am I saying that single parenthood in every situation is bad. Hardly. Most single parents find themselves in that situation through divorce or becoming widowed. That is a far different scenario than wanting to bring a child into the world only ever knowing one parent.
I do not disagree with you that many men string women along and may exploit them defering any commitment. Women sometimes do the same with men although to a lesser degree I believe. In either case, it can become a victimization of the other which is very sad. No one deserves to be victimized. Women, hopefully, will not allow themselves to be taken advantage of by a man "stringing them along" and hopefully, men will become ethical about their motives in relationships. Even the young educated women who work for me often move in with the guy before a firm commitment is made, and for the life of me, if I am good enough to live with then I should be good enough to marry. These women have much to offer and become willing participants in what I see as manipulation. Granted, nearly all of them end up marrying but I think they are taking the bigger risk.
I am concerned about the best interests of children. I have no hidden agenda and hopefully through further education, study, debate and discussion both men and women will come together to make the world better for the children they produce then the one they grew up in.
"I am concerned about the best interests of children."
As am I.
AND that includes their best interest not being fundamentally addressed when we permit a power inbalance between the sexes to continue. Because children grow up and I would like the 50% of them that are going to grow up to be women to have the same choices as men do...
For instance: NOT to have to move in with someone in the hope that a half-assed commitment will eventually lead to a full-fledged one...thus permitting the woman in the relationship to finally have children if she wishes.
IF it's not too late for her by that time...
Your scenario continues this power our society has given men to manipulate women. So you are helping these men you claim are manipulative.
Does that help children? How?
I observed the things you said many times on Family Scholars blog, although I never posted there I read and lurked. You and many others on that blog appeared to forget that 50% of the children you are discussing the best interest of will someday be fully-grown women.
Then what?
They should continue buying into this manipulation of men because people run around saying this is the way to promote the best interest of children?
Sorry, I don't buy it.
Children grow up and it's not in the best interest of 50% of us to have to be manipulated by the other half...
Okay.
Just to let you know. Your support on many issues enables men to continue exploiting women and this anonymous sperm donor business is just another example. Right now we could go find everyone of those 700 odd women, who had children using an anonymous donor, and I guarantee you that most of them, if not all, are raising their children just fine.
I find mothers, whether gay or straight married or single, generally know the best interest of their children far better then strangers...
Children grow up and it's not in the best interest of 50% of us to have to be manipulated by the other half..."
That is a gross exaggeration and you know it. By far, most women on this planet do NOT feel or believe they are manipulated by men. We will have to agree to disagree because I fail to find your logic persuading primarily because you grossly exaggerate and over-generalize that all men act like a minority of men.
No. It's not a minority of men and I think you are very well aware of that.
Why did you mention all the women you knew who were moving in with men, hoping to be married but settling to be an unmarried maid, cook and sex partner for the time being, if it's so few of you who are doing this?
In fact over 30% of births in this country are now to single mothers and the reason for this is the refusal of men to marry women when they get pregnant...Of course I know there are some women who turn men down; but I believe most of these women are getting pregnant to negotiate a marriage. That's pretty standard behavior for women, even today.
So even this high number of single mothers is directly related to male 'bad-boy' behavior.
AND I bet if we interviewed everyone of those 536 single women mentioned in the article about anonymous donors, every one of them would have been in a relationship with a man for years waiting for him to make up his mind...and clearly since they are using anonymous donors now, the answer was no...
Your support of the status quo serves no purpose but to continue giving men an unfair advantage in our society. It has nothing to do with the best interest of children but is about the best interest of men continuing the current social order. Where they get to dangle women, sometime for years, before they make a commitment...meanwhile a women's biological clock is ticking away and she could wind up having no children or having to go through all these unatural ways to conceive such as using donor eggs or even a surrogate mother...so you even are responsible for women taking advantage of their sisters. As they get so desperate for children that they are willing to use another vulnerable woman to make it happen.
All this due to the unfair advantage society gives men and you fight to help them keep it...
BTW, last point. You are also helping that Family Scholars blog take advantage of Whose Daughter. That woman is an ordinary woman, a stay-at-home mother actually, who is being used by that group to promote their own agenda...
They shut their blog to comments, I believe because too many people were challenging them and they couldn't handle the challenge. So instead they recruit people like Whose Daughter and try to get them to be a front for them.
I believe children of anonymous sperm donors could have issues but your group should stop using those people to promote your own agenda...which is not the best interest of children at all...but the best interest of men.
Leave that woman and others like her out of the blogosphere controversies. Settle them amongst yourselves w/o involving innocent people in them...
nymom, you are reframing what I have said to meet your own agenda. You see the world through what you perceive. I do not share the same vision as you do nor do I have the motives you apparently would like to assign to statements I have made. I would contend that even if the I could prove to you that it was in the best interests of children to have a father and have a nurturing relationship with both of their parents, you would read into it some kind of sinister plot that it was all only in the best interest of men.
In addition, I believe your assessment of the Family Scholars Blog is erroneous. There is nothing to suggest anything other then what they said for not allowing comments; that being the person who monitored the Blog left and when they replace her, they will resume comments. Again, you have made assumptions based on your own biasis without any evidence to support it.
Furthermore, I believe that Whose Daughter is quite capable of making her own decisions. It is through her blog (and others like her) that I have come to the conclusion that donor anonymity is not in children's best interests. The thought that this was somehow an exploitation of women by men never entered into my mind. Thus your assessment of my motives is again based on your own agenda - not mine.
I do not support exploitation by anyone. On the contrary, my entire career has been to protect children and families. If asked, I will give others my opinion. It is there choice whether to accept or reject that opinion, hopefully based on evidence.
"It is through her blog (and others like her) that I have come to the conclusion that donor anonymity is not in children's best interest."
Oh baloney.
You and others on that blog came to that decision long before you even knew that woman existed. You are just using her and other people like her now to promote an idea you already made up your mind about. Don't claim now that she made up your mind for you. It's just the opposite. You probably helped persuade her that the situation she experienced was far worse then it seemed and she should speak out about it.
Well it's your conscious if you wish to continue operating like that.
"It is there choice whether to accept or reject that opinion, hopefully based on evidence."
Whether or not you ever met that woman, you people were already dead set against single mothers...if you hadn't met her you would have invented her by asking leading questions of people in her situation to try and convince them they were unhappy.
That was an accusation already made by people against that blog and it's the real reason I think they shut down comments. It was becoming too much to defend themselves against those who were beginning to see right through them, what their real agenda was.
Sadly you are all about the rights of men, not children and certainly not women. You are all supporters of the status quo, no matter how many people's lives get destroyed through it's continuation. I guess change is just too scary for people like you.
Sad, really.
Okay, I'll bite. Nymom said: "You probably helped persuade her that the situation she experienced was far worse than it seemed and she should speak out about it."
I have been an 'advocate' for the rights of the donor conceived (DC)to know and be known by their 'donor' parents for over two years now. I just stumbled across the Family Scholars blog about a year ago. Another DC blogger and advocate for identity rights posted on a DC forum that there was a 'debate' happening on the FS blog involving DC issues which I participated in. I continued to read and ocassionally comment. I found the discussions very thought provoking and appreciated hearing arguements from different perspectives. BUT reading the Family Scholars discussions/debates has not influenced my opinion. I still advocate for identity rights, nothing has changed.
Donor conceived people have been advocating for identity rights for quite a long time. Although people might assume that this is the first wave of DCP speaking up, in fact, DCP have been speaking up for over 20 years now. The message obviously has not been widely heard. If the folks from the Institute for American Values have begun to listen and are bringing our issues to the forefront of the public debate I certainly do not have any problem with that. As I mentioned in my speech, I will not and cannot address any issues regarding who should or should not marry or parent....and I don't believe that this is the 'agenda' of the IAV. No one is suggesting the single motherhood be outlawed and I do believe that single mother's deserve alot of respect and support. But I hope that we don't loose sight of the fact that biological/genetic/social mothers and fathers matter...to children and to society. This is my personal opinion and I do not spend my time advocating these points. I keep it simple, anonymous gamete donating/vending should not be allowed....see my blog for the reasons why.
I believe you are sincere in your views and I appreciate your honesty.
However, I also think that Family Scholars blog is using you and others like you...as they were against women using anonymous sperm donors to have children long before they met you...
Now they are claiming they are against this practice because of your blog and others like it which have convinced them that donor anonymity is not in the best interest of children.
Sorry if you got your feelings hurt, but I have to say this isn't the case. I don't believe you influenced them one iota with your story...but they will claim you did now to use your story for their own propaganda purposes.
As I said, donor conceived people have been saying this for over 20 years now. IAV are not "using" me, but perhaps they are paying attention more to DC and assisted reproduction issues because no one has really been paying attention. It's become in vogue to use these proceedures to start a family for many different social reasons.
It's also become 'in vogue' for those who wish to undermine womens' rights and return to the traditional father-headed family to try to paint non-traditional families in a bad light. I see this fixation on women who become single mothers using anonymous sperm donors to be part and parcel of that...
Most of these groups never said a word when married couples used anonymous sperm donors if a male had low sperm counts, for instance. Then it was fine. You never heard conservative groups worrying about how unfair this procedure was to children and as you know, from your own life, this has been going on for over 40 years. It was not so uncommon.
Yet suddenly now that single women are using the procedure, all those traditional family groups are crawling out of the woodwork concerned about how it will impact children.
I find the timing odd. AND I don't mean your timing, but theirs.
As I do not feel their concern is as genuine as yours is...nor do I feel their concern is about the best interest of children either.
What NYMOM generally says and opinies leads one to believe that women are feeling acutely uncomfortable and threatened at the idea and prospect of men getting aware of their rights and that men have started to assert themselves in areas where they were not doing so earlier.
Traditionally these areas were mailnly discussed by women which has made women wrongly believe that they 'belong" to women and that men are "intruding".
It is too bad that women are unwilling to face the reality and the changed conditions....
If men assert themselves, women are feeling that women's rights are being undermined. It is so strange!!!!!!
Women have changed radically, social structure , values, manner of evaluation and attitudes have changed drastically over the years, but women feel threatened if men change.
Women have to start maturing up since the next 30 years will be traumatic,dramatic and explosive on the social scale.
The gender war is heating up and women have to start sniffing the coffee.
I know that there are thousands and thousands of children in foster care throughout the US, where did they come from? They came from WOMEN! I think it's great that gays are willing to adopt a child that has be tossed into the black hole of society. I've seen a few cases where a sperm donor was actually dragged inot court to pay child support. It's all about the money, I would be willing to bet that some of the recipients of a sperm donor have thought "Hmm, I wonder if I can get compensation for my good deed?"
This is not what it's about. People in today's society want something for their good deeds and that's a fact, it's a pity.
"Traditionally these areas were mainly discussed by women which has made women wrongly believe they "belong" to women..."
Does "mainly discussed" mean women are the ONLY ones to bear children. To go through all the suffering, disfigurement, blood and tears while men stand on the sidelines doing nothing????
Then you're right...women make the most investment in children, men nothing but a quick drop sperm deposit. So just like everything else in life, the person who makes the greater contribution gets the greater return...
Too bad if men don't like it.
Take it up with God or nature to petition for men to have a greater role in the life-giving process...
Typical lie bloggernoggin.
There has NEVER been a case where an anonymous sperm donor has been dragged into court...
Maybe not anonymous, but a donor has, I should have left out the anonymous part. If you google "Anonymous sperm donor child support" you'd be suprised what you get.
You're not a sperm donor if you aren't anonymous. That part of the entire package of being designated as a sperm donor. Every man who has followed the law and gone through a doctor or reproductive clinic to donate sperm has never been hit with a child support lawsuit.
That is total propaganda to try to discourage men from doing it. More of the ongoing male attempts to control women...
Well, a woman's peak fertility is at age 23 - so she should already be locking down Mr. Right by age 21. Those who waste away their 20s partying and being workaholics will have nothing to choose from at 30 but leftovers and anonymous loads scraped off the pages of "Big Booty" from sperm banks. And then depriving their bastard child of a WELL-NEEDED father!!! How utterly SELFISH and IRRESPONSIBLE!!
Fact is, Mother Nature doesn't wait for women, so women better get back in tune with their own bodies and timetables!
"In fact over 30% of births in this country are now to single mothers and the reason for this is the refusal of men to marry women when they get pregnant...Of course I know there are some women who turn men down; but I believe most of these women are getting pregnant to negotiate a marriage. That's pretty standard behavior for women, even today.
So even this high number of single mothers is directly related to male 'bad-boy' behavior."
WRONG IDIOT! It's due to the drunken thrill-seeking sluts dissing all the stable providers for dirty bad boys who wanted to show their "independence" like Murphy Brown. So, these girls all willingly made their own beds (as well as their poor kids'). That's what happens when you give women too much empowerment, they will make every decision based on emotion and self-centeredness. So, quit making excuses for their complete lack of logic and responsibility. When you enable, you disable, woman.
Well unfortunately due to the irresponsible behavior of men, women cannot just marry in their 20s and have kids. Since few men in either that age group or the one immediately preceeding it wish to settle down.
It is very common today to find men even in their 40s, who think they are too young to settle down. Women simply don't have that kind of time.
Thus, we've had to re-order our lives differently and the way we live today is the result.
You know what they say: action = reaction.
So men's continuing irresponsible behavior and failure to mature in a reasonable time frame has led to our current situation...AND you might as well get used to it as it's not changing anytime soon.
Once again nymom you have shown your utmost stupidity on this subject.
nymom - Right, these same girls who go out drinking, drugging and slvtting every night...are looking to "settle down" before 30? What world are you living in???
And do you EVER hold women accountable for ANY of their own actions & choices???
This is a blog about women in their roles as mothers...not single women per se going out clubbing.
Surely you can find other outlets on the internet to discuss that issue.
nymom said Well unfortunately due to the irresponsible behavior of men, women cannot just marry in their 20s and have kids. Since few men in either that age group or the one immediately preceeding it wish to settle down. "
Why would they? 70% of women file for divorce! Since 1975 the divorce rate quadrupled because of the feminist movement, & the monetary incentives for women who leave a marriage. The divorce rate didn't 4 fold because of men, I highly doubt that all the men/husbands in the U.S. just suddenly went from great to worse in a 1/4 of a century. Feminist women/lobbyists,politicians created what we are in now 25 years ago, they are just trying to propogate the blame on the male now, for what bullshit we are in today.
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