It starts getting messy quickly doesn't it?
None of this is about the well being of a child. A child doesn't get a choice and they become a commodity.
Its always about the third party who decides to 'commission' a baby via surrogacy or perhaps a sperm donation with 'special visitation arrangements ' (which i note dont exist in law in terms of grandparents visitation rights).
Identity is a funny old thing but there do seem to be universal needs that persist throughout the centuries. The idea of who we are and where we come from and our heritage is one which seems to be timeless. I dont think that adding genetic mother/birth mothers/multiple fathers etc is going to shake the desire to explore all parts of that despite what surrogate parents might hope.
We are now seeking to somehow undermine these foundations deliberately despite knowing how it can cause distress and uncertainty in adopted children (especially when the truth is withheld) even in loving adoptive families and where they have been adopted in circumstances which are beyond anyones control.
I really think we are undervaluing the importance of this inner need to know 'who we are' and the need to how 'foundation stones' of where we came from.
A child born long after their parent has died at such a young age is going to end up in a situation where their dead parent almost has 'mythical godlike angelic status' and they themselves will have almost a 'miracle status'. How do you ever live up to the shining star of your deceased parent you were created to feel the void of? I'm not too sure the wider family dynamics on that are particularly healthy either. (Imagine being a sibling or the child of another sibling where your grandmother / mother has fought for years to have the miracle child of her lost angel.. ).
I dunno. I cant help but think not enough is being considered here.
Children dont know any different than the circumstances they are born into, but it doesn't ultimately stop them being curious or asking questions to themselves and others about it either. They accept it because they have to, but it may become something that they struggle with in later life.
I do think we need to think very long and very hard about the safeguarding aspects that separating the idea of a birth mother from a genetic mother and adding additional fathers might create. I think we need to think about the psychological aspect of all this and how finding out youve been bought created in a different country with less rights sits with family dyamics and whether someone might still feel like they are missing an important part of their 'heritage' if removed from their birth mother even if they have no genetic link to them. Or being told your mother is your father and your father is your mother and how this affects your understanding of the wider world.
These are moral and ethical questions i really don't think are being asked hard enough. And thinking about throwing grandparents into the mix too?
Are we REALLY putting the welfare of children first?