Humans are not objects for trade
This is a portion of a speech delivered by Michael Knowles at Clemson University on Wednesday, December 6, 2023.
Kids are not commodities to be bought and sold. People are not property and children have rights.
This issue has come up recently because same-sex couples have begun to purchase children through surrogacy and in vitro fertilization. Liberals celebrate this novelty. Most conservatives find it instinctively abhorrent. But even some self-styled conservatives celebrate it too. The reason for this unusual degree of confusion and controversy is that the issue is entirely new. Nothing like this has ever happened before in human history.
And the reason for that is two-fold: first, our political order has, for the first time in the history of our civilization, denied the necessity of sexual difference to marriage — that is, our system of law has, for the first time ever, denied the difference between men and women. The second reason is technological: For the first time in the history of the world, we can create and gestate human life outside of the conjugal act. For the first time ever, we can make babies without sex.
Unfortunately, technology and ideology have outpaced bioethical inquiry. To quote Jeff Goldblum’s character in “Jurassic Park,” “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.” The full quote from that scene is even more apt. Goldblum’s character says, “The lack of humility before nature that’s being displayed here staggers me.” He describes the scientists’ actions as “a violent, penetrative act that scars what it explores.”
Entirely true. And in the case of surrogacy and IVF, what the discovery — both technologically and politically — explores and scars is people, specifically, innocent little babies.
WATCH: The Michael Knowles Show
The case of homosexual men purchasing children through surrogacy is particularly and most obviously egregious because it involves creating babies with the express intent of denying them their mothers. The bond between babies and their mothers is the most intimate bond human beings ever experience. The mother is the very environment in which a baby forms. The mother’s voice is the first voice the baby ever hears. Mother and child share the nutrients that sustain them, both before and after birth.
Many children grow up without mothers. For all of history, motherlessness has been a rare and unfortunate event in a fallen world that leaves a wound to be healed as best it can be. Today, motherlessness is an intentional political program undertaken with the blessing of the law, which now holds the presumed right of men to children trumps the actual right of children to their mothers.
Sadly, this phenomenon, though recent, has now occurred for long enough we can read the accounts of children who lament the trials that accompany this unnecessary hardship. The writer Katy Faust has detailed such anecdotes in The Federalist. The biological hardships: Children conceived through surrogacy and IVF face more health problems and they tend to be born premature and underweight. Worse still, there are the psychological and spiritual hardships: Envy of their friends with mothers, the hatred of Mother’s Day, the pressure not to express their anguish because it might make the men who raised them sad. The social adjustment issues. The difficulties bonding with the non-biological father. The identity issues. The constant wondering about half-siblings, the existence of whom they are legally barred from knowing. The increased risk of depression. The increased likelihood of being prescribed antidepressant drugs. The total neglect of their reasonable suffering by a society more concerned with stamping out imaginary phobias than with protecting the natural rights of children. The basic, universal longing of children for their mothers because moms and dads are different.
It’s ghastly, absolutely horrific. It is just about as rotten a thing as a society can possibly do to a child. But unlike many who have opined on this issue, I don’t even really blame the homosexuals. It’s easy to look at the situation and accuse these adult men of selfishness. And they are selfish — obviously. They put their own desires — their natural desire to have children along with their disordered desire to exclude women from the process — ahead of the rights and interests of their prospective children. But I suspect most of them don’t know it. In their defense, they’ve been told by the culture for some 60 years now that men and women really aren’t different. And if men and women aren’t different, then moms and dads aren’t different. And if moms and dads aren’t different, then why would anyone need or even want to have both? What’s the difference between a family and a couple of fellas?
I don’t mention these harsh truths to make the men who have fallen for this lie and temptation feel bad. I don’t suggest we take away their children, though we might endeavor as best we can to introduce these children to their mothers. But this is a fallen world. There is no way to undo the terrible crime that has been perpetrated on many people — the children, most of all, but even the men who were told they were doing nothing wrong. The men who sincerely believed that and who might now be listening to this speech thinking in horror, wondering, “What have I done?” It’s a terrible feeling. We’ve all made mistakes — some, of course, more egregious than others. But there’s no sense in trying to undo the past. There’s no sense in dwelling on past sins after we’ve seen the error of our ways. The reason I mention all of this is to stop this crime from spreading. To prevent it from happening again in the future.
I don’t primarily blame the homosexual men for the growing evil of surrogacy and IVF. I don’t blame the women either. We all know the statistics about children who grow up in fatherless households: the significantly higher risk of behavioral problems, of going to
What are the consequences and potential injustices faced by children intentionally created through surrogacy and IVF, particularly in terms of their relationship with their mothers and their overall well-being
Situation and point fingers at same-sex couples for engaging in surrogacy and IVF. However, the real blame lies with our society’s shift in values and the advancement of technology without proper ethical examination.
In the past, marriage was understood to be the union between a man and a woman. The recognition of sexual difference was seen as a fundamental aspect of marriage. However, in recent years, our political order has denied the necessity of sexual difference to marriage. This denial of the difference between men and women has paved the way for same-sex couples to enter into legal marriages and engage in the process of surrogacy and IVF.
Additionally, technological advancements have allowed us to create and gestate human life outside the conjugal act. This means that for the first time in history, babies can be made without sexual intercourse. While this may seem like a great triumph of science, the truth is that technology has outpaced our ethical considerations.
In the words of Jeff Goldblum’s character in “Jurassic Park,” our scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could create babies through surrogacy and IVF, that they didn’t stop to consider if they should. This lack of humility before nature is staggering. We are engaging in a violent and penetrative act that scars the very essence of what it means to create and nurture life.
The most egregious aspect of this issue is the fact that same-sex couples are intentionally creating babies with the express intent of denying them their mothers. The bond between a mother and her child is the most intimate bond in existence. The mother is the environment in which a baby forms, and the mother’s voice is the first voice a baby ever hears. To intentionally deny a child this fundamental relationship is a grave injustice.
Motherlessness has always been seen as a rare and unfortunate event in a fallen world. It was something to be healed and dealt with as best as possible. However, today, motherlessness is an intentional political program. The law now holds the presumed right of men to children above the actual right of children to their mothers. This is a complete reversal of what has been understood throughout history.
We can now hear the stories of children who have grown up without their mothers as a result of surrogacy and IVF. Their accounts paint a picture of immense hardship and suffering. These children face more health problems, are prone to premature births and being underweight. Additionally, they experience psychological and spiritual hardships such as envy of their friends with mothers, hatred of Mother’s Day, and the pressure to suppress their pain for the sake of the men who raised them.
The social adjustment and bonding difficulties, identity issues, and constant wondering about half-siblings add to their emotional burden. They are legally barred from knowing their own siblings, and the increased risk of depression and reliance on antidepressant drugs further compounds their suffering. Yet, society seems more concerned with stamping out imaginary phobias than protecting the natural rights of these children.
This phenomenon is ghastly and horrific. It represents one of the most rotten things a society can do to a child. However, it is important to note that blame cannot solely be placed on same-sex couples. Our society’s shift in values and the failure to properly examine the ethical implications of these advancements are at the heart of the issue.
As we move forward, it is crucial that we engage in bioethical inquiries that keep pace with technological advancements. We must prioritize the protection of children and their natural rights, as well as the recognition of the fundamental differences between men and women. Only then can we hope to avoid the immense suffering and injustice caused by the commodification of children through surrogacy and IVF.
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