A case has come to light in Britain that
is eerily reminiscent of an Irish case a few years back called McD v L in which
a sperm donor 
father took a legal case against the two women raising his child
for more access rights.
As with the Irish case, the British case
involves a lesbian couple and a gay man who acted as a sperm donor and is now insisting on the right to a fuller relationship with his child.
The lesbian couple are trying to deny him (and the child) that right.
When we look at these two cases, our first
instinct will be to think this is a gay rights issue. In fact, the people at the centre of both
cases could as easily be heterosexual and the same core issue would arise,
namely has a sperm donor father a right to a fuller relationship with his
child, and vice versa?
What the two cases actually highlight is
why the whole area of sperm and egg donation is so highly problematic. It
unavoidably brings up questions of conflicting rights that simply don’t arise
when a child is raised by its two biological parents and when the tie between a child and its natural parent or parents is not deliberately
broken or weakened.
In fact, the UK and Irish cases illustrate the reason why gamete donation should be
prohibited altogether.
Another Interesting aspect
of the case is worth noting, namely that in arguing against the father’s rights
the two women used the very traditional argument that it’s best for a child to
be raised in an intact, two parent family.
The QC for the couple
said: “Notwithstanding their sexuality and
that they acknowledge to that extent that they are an ‘alternative family’, the
mother and her partner hold very traditional views of family life and would not
have chosen to bring a child into anything other than an intact, two-parent,
family.”
But their traditionalism
is selective in that they appear to see no value in the natural ties or in a
child having a father.
In addition, in other
contexts family diversity proponents argue in favour of a child having more
than two parents and in favour of more than two people being named on a child’s
birth cert.
The couple also argue
that it is against the child’s interests to have to be ferried back and forth
between two homes. There is something to this, but no doubt if the couple
themselves ever split up they will feel differently.
Incidentally, if the
couple were to break up, and the father wins increased access rights, then the
child faces the prospect of being ferried back and forth between three homes.
This is another reason why it’s best to
recognise two people and no more as the parents of a child and it is why
deliberately intending that a child have, in addition to its two natural
parents, at least one ‘social’ parent and maybe a surrogate mother as well, is against a child’s best interests.