Lesbian mothers should be on birth certificates

[SapphosRock]

Great article from Kathleen Stock.

unherd.com/2023/07/lesbian-mothers-should-be-on-birth-certificates/

It is surprising to me that anyone who supports women's rights would oppose lesbian parents having equal rights to straight parents.

From the article:

Naming a second lesbian parent on a child’s birth certificate is a family-friendly move. Arguably, if you squint a bit, it’s even a socially conservative move — though agreeing probably depends on whether you take, as your baseline, a society where lesbians will have children anyway; or whether you think of it as a cultural aberration that could, with discouragement, be stopped. Either way, putting a second lesbian partner on a birth certificate officially defines and legitimises her parenting relation within the family, allowing the burdens and joys to be shared between two adults, and adding a second layer of protection for the child. Family stability is important for good childhood outcomes, and this measure seems to provide some.

There are both arguments for abortions, and I personally agree with both. Life doesn’t begin at fertilisation, and also that it wouldn’t matter if it did, women have a right to bodily autonomy and should not be forced to carry a child if they don’t want to.

The fact that both of those are arguments doesn’t change the fact that a belief that the moment of creation/fertilisation is what creates a parent is incompatible with the mainstream view that life does not begin at conception.

I suppose in that view you could say it does begin at conception, you think it’s alive/human, but it doesn’t matter because a woman’s bodily autonomy trumps that, I just hasn’t met anyone who simultaneously held those two positions before.

I do stand by what I said earlier though, if you believe the act of fertilisation itself is central to the whole of parenthood, we will never agree.

@TangledRoots
I would say, without question, that the best way to create a child, is where two people together, without involvement, intervention or interference of anyone else, make one, and who intend to stick around and look after that child and look out for it, and any descendants, for as long as they live. They will go on to say “look it has your eyes”, “your feet”, “your fascination with insects”, “your sensitive skin”, etc, and this biological relationship deepens the bond and informs parenting, helping with understanding that thing the baby is trying to express before it knows words, etc, because you too, felt that same thing as a child.

There are a couple of points in your position that I’m confused about. When you say the ideal situation is where a couple make a baby “without involvement, intervention or interference of anyone else”, do you just mean in terms of no one else’s gametes and/or uterus being involved, or do you mean no ivf, iui, etc? I’m assuming the former, as I can’t see any reason for the latter.

As to the importance of parents sharing genetics with their children, you have also said in another post that you don’t think there should be any more experimentation with embryos. But what if such experimentation could allow a viable embryo to be created combining the genetic material of two women, so that they could create a child together and both have a genetic connection with it in the same way as a man and a woman can - would you think that was a bad thing, and if so, why?

I should say, I don’t agree with you on the importance of parents being genetically connected with their child (and it’s something I’ve thought about a lot, as, if my female partner and I have a baby, we would use her egg not mine) - but I can understand it as a viewpoint.

@aseriesofstillimages

no, she’s not just talking about donors, she spelled it out pretty clearly when she said this:

I talk about two people creating a baby together - with no one else required - (okay I will go there - no one else needing to stick needles in ovaries, wank into a flask, interview prospective ‘donors’ and extract their gametes, fertilise eggs on a Petri dish, implant embryos, run a gamete bank, run a clinic, etc. For these two people to create their baby, they do it all by themselves, in the privacy of their own bed).

she literally means straight sex

Thanks @Triplemove good point!

so @TangledRoots why do you think sex between a man and a woman is the best way to make a baby? I can see that it’s preferable to ivf from the point of view of the prospective parents (cost, stress, privacy etc) but are you suggesting it’s better from the point of view of the child?

Oh please. Plenty of times through history when a child has been known to be conceived through an affair of some sort, but socially accepted as a child of the marriage, for various reasons. Untrue claims of paternity being politely socially accepted was not invented with IVF (and in any case, I'd be willing to bet that IVF using donor sperm to treat heterosexual couples with male infertility predated medicalised sperm donation for single women and/or lesbian couples).

Interesting thread in terms of different "feminist" takes on the merits of the nuclear family. 🤔

Some things that spring to mind-

1. It’s better in the way that it’s better to use your own kidneys to filter your urine than to need to go to the hospital for dialysis. Who wants all that hassle?
2. It’s better to not have a fifth wheel gamete gooseberry who is an integral part of the family, but sort of not, where the parents would prefer they didn’t exist and would rather not think or talk about them, but they are important to the child, their own genetic heritage and so the child would want to know them and think about them and any other ancestors or siblings, cousins, etc, more. It’s better if the parents’ and child’s interests are not at odds with eachother in this way.
3. Natural selection- sexual attraction plays a role in creating a healthy baby, leaving this decision to a clinic goes against the very reason that sexual reproduction works in most species.
4. IVF as a process carries more health risks for the child than natural conception.
5. It’s better for a child to have a relationship with both genetic parents (and the extended families) for a sense of identity and grounding and also information and understanding about why we are the way we are, particularly useful for health issues.

I thought I was going to only make a couple of points and then I realised I could keep going on infinitely.

I suppose in that view you could say it does begin at conception, you think it’s alive/human, but it doesn’t matter because a woman’s bodily autonomy trumps that, I just hasn’t met anyone who simultaneously held those two positions before.

This essay by Thompson was really influential in that regard:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Defense_of_Abortion

I am opposed to experimentation and interference with gametes and DNA from a ‘rights of the individual’ position.

I don’t believe that people have the ‘right’ to a child, - I see having children as a thing of fortune - some people have all the luck, others don’t. It’s the way it is.

For that reason, I do not subscribe to the ‘do whatever it takes’ view to enabling people to become parents. I favour the rights of the child.

I believe it is profoundly violating and unethical to interfere with a person’s DNA or founding gametes, allowing them to grow to full term, be born and live with the consequences of this violation for the rest of their life.

There need to be certain lines drawn about what is simply too unethical and inhumane to pursue to enable people to become parents or make ‘designer babies’.

I suppose in that view you could say it does begin at conception, you think it’s alive/human, but it doesn’t matter because a woman’s bodily autonomy trumps that, I just hasn’t met anyone who simultaneously held those two positions before.

I wouldn't have thought that this was a particularly unusual view?
It's certainly my view.
I believe that life does begin at conception and I also believe that a woman has the right to end it up until the legal limits.
Saying life begins at some other point just seems to obfuscate what abortion is in order to make people feel less guilty for wanting/having one.

@TangledRoots im familiar with the argument/essay, I just (erroneously) assumed that the essay granted the embryos personhood for the purposes of the thought experiment, not because people regularly hold both views in good faith.

Human life/personhood begins at conception is not the most common view I’ve encountered, and I’ve only generally encounter it among religious people who also oppose all abortion.

Saying life begins at some other point just seems to obfuscate what abortion is in order to make people feel less guilty for wanting/having one.

Other than the fact that is is a fairly nasty and judgemental take, I think that people are stating it in good faith that they do not believe in the personhood of a fertilised egg/embryos. I certainly do. “Alive” is vague and isn’t really the argument, although it’s often used as shorthand. An amoeba is “alive.” I certainly don’t believe in the personhood of embryos, and not just because doing so makes it easier to defend abortion, as we’ve already stated, that argument isn’t necessary to defend the right to abortion.

But granting embryos personhood does open up a lot of other moral and ethical dilemmas that are not addressed by the woman’s bodily autonomy argument.

I think you have shifted the goalposts there @Triplemove

We we’re discussing ‘human life’, and now you are discussing ‘personhood’.

Human life and personhood are not quite the same thing.

A human embryo is a human life because it is human (ie-not some other species) and alive (ie- not dead).

Personhood is something that gradually develops and I would argue that it is still developing after a baby is born right until they become aware of themselves.

There is no clear line when an embryo/foetus/baby becomes a person - which is why abortion is a dilemma about the legal cut off date for abortion, especially with advances in medicine which enable gestation to continue outside the womb, so the point of viability keeps shifting.

The reason that the point of personhood can be claimed anywhere along the line which it develops, right from conception, is because everyone is unique. So you can’t just replace one zygote with another to develop the same person to term. An abortion literally is the termination of a life of a potential unique human individual. As is each embryo created in a lab and then incinerated because it is no longer required.

So I think you are being unduly harsh and unfair scolding @ItsFunToBeAVampire for saying “Saying life begins at some other point just seems to obfuscate what abortion is in order to make people feel less guilty for wanting/having one.”

I agree. I personally agree with Thompson, that bodily autonomy is a standalone right, whilst unflinchingly recognising that an abortion is the termination of human life and the termination of a gradually developing person.

Personhood is the word already very commonly in use in the legal and academic literature of the status of embryos, I was aligning with that and being more precise to clarify.

aside from the fact that you contradict your self a lot here (does personhood develop with a sense of self? This has off scary implications for intellectual disabilities, etc…..or does it result of the unique genetic code present at fertilisation? This is the catholic view, accompanied by the idea that it’s also imbued at that moment with a soul) this entire discussion is an aside because you claimed that the manner of fertilisation is central to connecting biology to parenthood. This does not account for the fact that fertilisation can happen through violence, fertilisation can happen when people are blind drunk and have no intention or recollection of each other, and all sorts of other situations. The vast majority of human sex is not had for the purpose of fertilisation.

Maybe you’ll go on to say that you are only speaking what you think is the most ideal situation for a child, and none of those situation count/matter for your argument, but you can’t just pick and choose when the manner of fertilisation matters and when it does not.

For the vast majority of human evolution, human children were raised in social groups with unknown paternity. Even if you go with 200,000 years for Homo sapiens (instead of 2 million for all homo species evolution) it’s still only about 10% of evolution (20,000 years) that humans have even vaguely connected sex to paternity.

Perhaps the most frustrating part of this entire discussion in that on a supposedly feminist forum, the primary themes that have surfaced are views that align perfectly with conservative Christianity:

Sex for procreation as the best way to create a family, the superiority of the heterosexual nuclear family structure, that human life begins at fertilisation, etc etc—— with friends like these, who needs enemies?

Personhood is the word already very commonly in use in the legal and academic literature of the status of embryos, I was aligning with that and being more precise to clarify.

You don’t get to redefine and clarify the terms someone else is using. Particularly when you are scolding that person. You either ask them to define and clarify their terms so you are on the same page of understanding, or to own up and state “I believe ‘personhood’ and ‘human life’ are synonymous and interchangeable terms” and leave yourself open to be refuted. Anything else is moving the goalposts and is a dishonest argument.

aside from the fact that you contradict your self a lot here (does personhood develop with a sense of self?

I do not contradict myself there. I believe that personhood gradually develops along with a sense of self, but there is no clear point in time where it begins or is complete. On the other hand, I believe human life, begins at conception. I outlined in my argument that I believe ‘human life’ and ‘personhood’ are not the same things, they are not synonymous and cannot be used interchangeably.

This has off scary implications for intellectual disabilities, etc…..

You’ll need to explain this, you can’t just throw it in and expect it to be understood.

or does it result of the unique genetic code present at fertilisation?

Again, I am not clear on what you are saying. Conception is when the two gametes unite and the DNA of two people (the genetic parents) combines, to create a completely unique individual. This combined DNA is their ‘genetic code’ if you want to call it that.

This is the catholic view, accompanied by the idea that it’s also imbued at that moment with a soul)

Hold up…. Now you are bringing the soul into it. Where did that come from? Stop throwing in all these red herrings to distract from the discussion. Red herrings show bad faith as much as shifting goal posts.

this entire discussion is an aside because you claimed that the manner of fertilisation is central to connecting biology to parenthood.

You brought the subject of abortion into it as a tactic to deflect from your absurd claim that the uniting of two gametes is an insignificant factor in the creation of life. You presumably were trying to shame me into silence by association: ‘your arguments sound vaguely like anti-abortionist arguments, anti-abortionists are anti-feminist, so therefore you are anti-feminist and do not belong in a feminist discussion’. That’s not cool and bad faith too.

This does not account for the fact that fertilisation can happen through violence, fertilisation can happen when people are blind drunk and have no intention or recollection of each other, and all sorts of other situations. The vast majority of human sex is not had for the purpose of fertilisation.

This point is completely irrelevant and can be scrapped. It is doing no work to hold up or refute any argument.

Maybe you’ll go on to say that you are only speaking what you think is the most ideal situation for a child, and none of those situation count/matter for your argument, but you can’t just pick and choose when the manner of fertilisation matters and when it does not.

You need to explain this better before I can respond. I can’t make sense of it.

For the vast majority of human evolution, human children were raised in social groups with unknown paternity. Even if you go with 200,000 years for Homo sapiens (instead of 2 million for all homo species evolution) it’s still only about 10% of evolution (20,000 years) that humans have even vaguely connected sex to paternity.

And…..?

Perhaps the most frustrating part of this entire discussion in that on a supposedly feminist forum, the primary themes that have surfaced are views that align perfectly with conservative Christianity:

See what I mean?

Sex for procreation as the best way to create a family, the superiority of the heterosexual nuclear family structure, that human life begins at fertilisation, etc etc—— with friends like these, who needs enemies?

You are combining a little fiction, a little emotional manipulation here.

To be honest, this whole post demonstrates such bad faith I am annoyed with myself for giving it a serious response.

@TangledRoots It’s neither fiction nor emotional manipulation to factually point out that you have unequivocally said:

-Sex for procreation as the best way to create a family
-the heterosexual nuclear family structure is the best way to raise a child
-that human life begins at fertilisation

and to point out that these align well with conversation Christianity, which is not a feminist tradition.

This is a barefaced lie. At least acknowledge your liberal use of interpretation and paraphrasing.

to factually point out that you have unequivocally said:

‘Factual’? ‘Unequivocal’?

Good grief. If you are going to make such claims at least look for the quotes to prove it!

-Sex for procreation as the best way to create a family

This is something you said I said, not something I said.

-the heterosexual nuclear family structure is the best way to raise a child

As is this.

-that human life begins at fertilisation

I said something close to this, I’ll hand you that, but it’s still not quite what I said. I don’t use the word ‘fertilisation’ because it has a lack of clarity, in my opinion. Because of IVF, fertilisation could mean ‘conception’ or ‘implantation’ of the embryo.

and to point out that these align well with conversation Christianity, which is not a feminist tradition.

I could say that you saying “Jesus Christ is the saviour and none are saved except through him” aligns with conservative Christianity too - ie- stop making shit up.

My summary:

-Sex for procreation as the best way to create a family

your actual words:

I would say, without question, that the best way to create a child, is where two people together, without involvement, intervention or interference of anyone else….

…[feetility treatment] unnaturally allows biological parents to procreate without ever meeting each other and perhaps never even finding out who one-another are, a situation requiring lots falsehoods and taboos

I talk about two people creating a baby together - with no one else required - (okay I will go there - no one else needing to stick needles in ovaries, wank into a flask, interview prospective ‘donors’ and extract their gametes, fertilise eggs on a Petri dish, implant embryos, run a gamete bank, run a clinic, etc. For these two people to create their baby, they do it all by themselves, in the privacy of their own bed).

My summary:

-the heterosexual nuclear family structure is the best way to raise a child

Your actual words:

The thing is, the only kinds of couples who can enjoy this simple experience of creating a baby together, all by themselves, are couples involving a man a woman,

A child is best looked after, either by their biological parents, other biological relatives if their parents don’t have capacity

I only recognise the word ‘parent’ to describe biological (genetic and/or birth giving)parents, legally adoptive parents and step parents.

so that the thread watchers can decide for themselves.

What do you mean by “sex for procreation”?

It’s an odd phrase. Seems rather loaded.

the heterosexual nuclear family structure is the best way to raise a child

It is such a stretch to summarise that from what I said, it’s pretty much a work of fiction and it really aggravates me that you swap out the word ‘create’ for ‘raise’, to suit your purposes again. They are not the same thing and we have already been through this.

I have never said ‘the heterosexual nuclear family structure’ either. Again, that is you swapping things out to suit your purposes.

The thing is, the only kinds of couples who can enjoy this simple experience of creating a baby together, all by themselves, are couples involving a man a woman,

Are you denying that only a man a woman can create a baby together with no involvement from anyone else? You are quoting a stated fact as though it is an opinion.

A child is best looked after, either by their biological parents, other biological relatives if their parents don’t have capacity

This is an opinion which few would dispute. It is better for a child to not be given up for adoption, better for a child to not be estranged from their genetic heritage or extended family, unless it is for its own protection. I know a situation where a sixteen year old girl was deemed unfit to be a mother, so her mother (the grandmother) adopted her and raised her, and the baby still had a relationship with its mother. This was the best outcome judged by social services.

I only recognise the word ‘parent’ to describe biological (genetic and/or birth giving) parents, legally adoptive parents and step parents.

Yes. I know that people might informally describe their mum’s boyfriend as “my dad” or their parent and their parent’s partner together as “my parents” for convenience and avoidance of time-consuming explanations, but I don’t think it is describing the truth. Parents are either biological, adoptive, ‘step’ or ‘in laws’. Maybe lesbians need to define a new term in addition to these if none will suffice.

Your ‘summary’ is nonsense.

My thoughts on ‘heterosexual nuclear family structure’ as a term, is that it doesn’t just apply to heterosexuals either.

Upthread I was talking about facsimiles, it’s this that I am talking about. You get same sex couples - it can even be as overt as one ‘butch’ and one ‘femme’ having a traditional heterosexual wedding ceremony. Then seeking out either an egg donor and surrogate mother, or sperm donor by accessing all the clinical facilitation services required (but minimising this bit in their minds as insignificant), then declaring “We’re having a baby!”, getting all excited, doing all the stereotypical stuff that heterosexual people do. Even though they need to push all thoughts of the gamete gooseberry and/or birth-giving gooseberry from their minds to maintain it. Their family is a ‘heterosexual nuclear family structure’ even though they are a same sex couple.

On point 1, that’s a benefit to the prospective parents, not the child.

on points 2, 3, and 5, those are all about cases involving use of donor gametes rather than cases of IVF using the eggs and sperm of the couple involved, which is what I was asking about.

on point 4, do you have any evidence for that? In fact, IVF allows embryos to be screened for chromosomal abnormalities, which can help to avoid a baby being born with significant health issues.

You may not believe that people have a right to have a child, but surely that doesn’t mean that scientists should be prevented from developing techniques which enable people to have children who could not have had children without intervention, or that those people should be prevented from making use of those techniques? As long as the methods are properly researched, tested and shown to be safe, what would be the basis for prohibiting people from using them?

You haven’t really explained what would unethical about creating an embryo from the genetic material of two women who want to have a child together, should that become scientifically possible. What would the consequences be that the child would have to live with for the rest of their life?

This thread has certainly disabused me of any doubt that lesbians are the vanguard of our transhumanist dystopian future as a species.

How do you feel about cloning, so that people who hate everyone else can become a parent of their own mini me?

How do you feel about parents interfering with DNA so that they can have designer babies, with traits they prefer?

How do you feel about scientists creating specialist embryos, perhaps like a Plato’s Republic, where people could be shaped to make perfect soldiers, or scientists, or factory assembly-line workers? You could even create people with an extra arm or eyes improved for night vision, or lopsided ears like an owl.

How do you feel about ‘trialing’ designer people while they’re developing the techniques. How many people born with manufactured congenital defects are acceptable until they’ve become consistent with their designs?

How about any future offspring of those people born of engineered genes and gametes, how about their fertility or the viability and health of their children and grandchildren?

How about people who feel disturbed, violated and freaked out all their lives to know that they’ve been manufactured in a lab by Frankendoctors, at the request of their parents who didn’t stop for a minute to think about it?

Where do you draw the line with this?

This thread has certainly disabused me of any doubt that lesbians are the vanguard of our transhumanist dystopian future as a species.

I'm sorry?

Read the bloody thread. It’s disturbing.

You have long suspected that lesbians (by our very existence? Or due to our dubious politics?) are the Trojan horse leading to a 'Brave New World' kind of imaginary future? Possibly via rapists in women's prisons and cheating men in women's sports, otherwise I'm not quite clear how the FWR angle fits?

I've read the bloody thread. I still think your assertion is astounding.

Wow, that took quite a turn! I think that many medical advancements will have caused concern and alarm when first developed (blood transfusions, transplants, vaccines…) because they ventured into unknown territory and seemed ‘unnatural’. I think the possibilities of all new medical capabilities should be properly explored and carefully considered in terms of safety, practical ramifications, ethical implications. If we allow ourselves to be swayed by scaremongering and what-ifs then society will miss out on lots of innovations that could change people’s lives for the better.