Wrongful birth in a me-first culture

When I first read the story of a wrongful birth lawsuit in Illinois, I could not believe my eyes. I thought it was a cruel parody, then I found out it wasn’t.

About three years ago, a lesbian couple in Ohio wanted a child, so they contacted a sperm bank in Illinois. But according to columnist Mitch Albom, even though the couple selected donor No. 380, a white, blonde-haired, blue-eyed man, apparently someone misread the number as 330, which was an African-American donor.

Now the women have a bi-racial child, and they have sued over it. I spoke with John Stonestreet of the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview about the case, which he said shines a mirror on our generation.

“Here you have a couple that is fully willing to take the risk of having a child without a father, without a biological father in her life, which almost every study we have tells us is ultimately important,” Stonestreet said. “But, when it came to the difficulty of raising an African-American child in a white [community]—which, by the way, we know that thousands and thousands of adoptive parents do—they’re not willing to take that risk.”

Stonestreet said the astonishing story also shows the selfishness of the current generation.

“We want sex and babies on our own terms,” he said. “We think our freedom trumps any possible … damage that we’re going to do with the next generation.”

Listen my complete conversation with Stonestreet about current cultural issues, including the debate over euthanasia and defending the religious liberty of Houston pastors, on The World and Everything in It: