Adults don’t have a right to conceive children

A gay couple in New York is suing for the right to receive insurance coverage for “fertility” procedures and surrogacy to conceive a child. They filed a class action complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against the city, alleging “unlawful workplace discrimination” for failure to compensate fertility treatments that are covered for single women or lesbian couples. 

In a world where baby-making is business, these men believe they’re entitled to the use of a woman’s body to make a baby. They also believe they deserve to have this kind of reproduction by contract paid for by medical coverage. This really takes human trafficking (defined as coercing someone to supply a service for money) to a new level. 

Think I’m being dramatic? Not even. Egg donors (a completely misleading description) and surrogates don’t just do this out of selfless altruism. Most do it for money. Big Fertility targets low-income women, such as college students or poor women overseas, because they know who needs cash. 

In short, surrogacy exploits women for the benefit of those rich enough to buy their bodies and their babies. The babies are, then, born into a form of trauma when they are callously ripped away from the only body they’ve ever known and handed to those who purchased them. Cutesy photos of a swaddled newborn in the arms of their new parents sitting in a hospital bed follow, the surrogate mother all but forgotten. 

Meanwhile, medical journals attest that mothers and babies have “a physiologic need” to be together as long as possible in the days and weeks following birth. Even puppies must stay with their mother for 8 weeks before they are adopted. How much less dignity do we bestow children? The human trauma starts at minute one.

Later on, it will manifest as an identity crisis. A study out of the United Kingdom found that children conceived by “donors” are traumatized by the idea that they will never know the genetic identity of one or both parents. 

This isn’t just a guess. According to an American Adoption Congress survey reported in the book Them Before Us by Katy Faust, 94 percent of those surveyed said they would like to know which parent they most resembled. In a separate survey, this one of donor-conceived children in Washington, D.C., 81 percent wanted to know what traits they shared with their biological parent and 77 percent worried they did not have a complete and/or accurate family health history.

A friend of mine was adopted at birth into an incredible family that she loves deeply. Nevertheless, she has struggled with depression and suicide as an adult, recently writing that growing up “blessed” did not “erase the trauma of being removed from my birth mother almost immediately after birth.” She said she now understands, as a licensed therapist, that the body “stores trauma.” 

Donor fertility ignites that trauma from the moment of conception.

Make no mistake: It is wrong to produce and purchase human beings like handbags. We cannot buy someone’s kidney, or sell our own human tissue in the United States. Why, then, is it considered legit to do so with eggs, embryos, and sperm? 

Furthermore, denying children their God-given right to a mother and father epitomizes secular narcissism. What is best for the child is never considered. Unfortunately, the practice has gained popularity. Celebrities like Anderson Cooper and Khloe Kardashian are celebrated for creating babies through surrogacy. 

Certainly, there are circumstances in which adoption is necessary, where single motherhood or fatherhood is unavoidable. But this is, presumably, not the intended outcome for the child at conception. 

The couple in the New York case claim the insurance policy they’re fighting against is due to prejudice against gay men. It’s easy to see why they feel discriminated against if lesbian couples and single women are covered by the insurance plan. The problem, however, lies at the root of the concept. The bias in cases of donor fertility is against children. 

We cannot ignore statistics that show children who grow up with a married, biological mother and father fare much better in every single way. Why is that? It’s because that’s how the human family was created by God to function—and it cultivates and incubates the best results. If you want to talk about equality, this is the ultimate way to provide children with the very best possible life. 

Gay parents or single parents may have the capacity to be capable caregivers—since most human beings desire the well-being of children. But the primary concern of all adults should be the best interest of the child. That’s clearly become an optional consideration. All babies deserve better than this.