The below is actually the writing of Marilynn Huff, presented as a comment in Julie Shapiro’s blog. The question Shapiro offered was essentially, How can we do what is in the best interests of the child, when the child in question does not yet exist? And if that child is to be created via third-party reproduction, would it not be in the child’s best interest to exist rather than not exist?
Marilynn responds:
I know which False Dilemma you’re using for this debate experiment – its False dilemma / False Choice (Hobson’s Choice) . The fallacy of the excluded middle, false dichotomy, false correlative, “either/or” fallacy and bifurcation involving a situation in which two alternative points of view are held to be the only options, when in reality there exists one or more other options which have not been considered. Hobson’s choice is “take it or leave it” take what is offered or get nothing.
So the Hobson’s choice you offer here is that abandonment by their biological fathers is essential to their existence. Had their biological fathers been required to support them the way people are made to support their children, those men never would have agreed to reproduce with our subject’s mothers and causing them never to be born lament their plight of genetic bewilderment. The false dilemma is that it seems we must allow some people to abandon their young in secret or millions of people will never have the chance to exist. Their fate rests on our shoulders unless we don’t think those people deserve to exist. Oh its so tricky!
The excluded middle of this false choice would be to focus our laws on how we treat individuals that are actually born. When those individuals are newly born someone has to be responsible for taking care of them or they’ll die. If a newborn is found in an alley starved and dead from exposure we would treat that neglect as a crime against the deceased infant. Who should the law hold accountable for that death? Who owed it to that child to try to keep him or her alive? Is the government the automatic parent of every person born who then picks and chooses parents based on the child’s best interests? That’s a pretty big burden for our government to take on. There would be an uproar if the government just randomly assigned people to care for infants they had nothing to do with creating. And while there are plenty of people who want to raise children they did not themselves create, there is not enough of them to handle the load if every newborn were unwanted. What would we do about the unwanted ones? Who should take care of them? What do they deserve? Who owes them the duty of providing physical and financial support if not the people who reproduced to create them then who? Another question is if people who have that responsibility should be able to sell their way out off the record before anyone knows its them that created the child.
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The alternative to underwriting the abandonment of millions of future people would be to offer them the dignity of equal treatment upon their arrival. We could, treat all human beings as people who, as minor offspring, are entitled to the financial and physical support of the people who reproduced to create them, who, in turn will be responsible for the physical and financial support of their own minor offspring. We could as an alternative to off the record promises to abandon require on the record consent to relinquish just like people do when they give up children for adoption. That solution would not stop people from generously donating their offspring to people who want to raise them, they just could not do it all yellow bellied and cowardly like.
If being held responsible for the results of their reproductive behavior will make some people choose not to reproduce and give up their offspring, then so be it. There are millions of reasons why a person may decide not to reproduce at any given moment and we certainly don’t mourn the non-death of all the individuals that never existed because of it.
We cannot be so foolish as to believe that expecting individuals to behave responsibly toward their offspring will cost billions of people their lives because it will prevent them from ever being conceived. I’m sorry its just the biggest load of hooey anyone ever heard. Everything would be just dandy if all men were held to the same standard of care with regard to the support of their young.
Single women giving birth to half spring [donor-conceived offspring] really illustrate where it is that donor offspring have fewer rights because there is nobody fronting and making it look like they’ve lost nothing. Half spring are entitled to the support of their mother who qualifies as a person so she owes the kid her support. But donor offspring don’t have the same rights as full blooded people, remember they are half donor half person. Donors don’t owe their offspring anything – so it really shows what’s lost when single women do it. These rights are still lost when the woman is not single, it just seems like not such a big deal because they get supported by someone else so its almost the same. Of course its not because it means the person has to assume the false identity of being that person’s child.
No its not in the best interest of any person to be treated as less than human and less deserving of rights afforded to all other people. Its horribly distasteful to suggest their lives are dependent upon having been abandoned by one of the people that created them. Of course that’s not true and what an awful thing to imply. If I could personally go and pluck those words out of the air before they reached the ears of every person that’s ever been humiliated by being told that I would in a heartbeat.
