Culture

Who is my Dad?

We have become far too casual about reproductive technologies. The implications of the decisions people make are rarely thought through in any coherent way. Once our culture severed the natural connection between marriage, sex, and procreation, a whole host of difficulties followed in the wake.

Sunday’s New York Times ran an opinion-piece yesterday by an 18-year-old casualty of anonymous sperm donation. This is a boy who wants to know who his father is but never will. It’s gut-wrenching to read, but you should take the time to do so. He writes:

“WHEN I was 5, my mother revealed to me that I had been conceived through artificial insemination. This was before I understood anything about sex or where babies came from — I think I thought they just sprang from their mothers’ stomachs at random. Because my understanding of conventional conception was so thin, my mom remained vague about the details of my conception — in all its complexity — until I got older…

“My mom’s decision intrigued many people. Some saw it as a triumph of female self-sufficiency. But others, particularly her close friends and family, were shocked. “You can’t have a baby without a man!” they would gasp.

“It turns out, of course, you can, and pretty easily. The harder part, at least for that baby as he grows older, is the mystery of who that man was. Or is.”

Read the rest here.

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