Gay couple David Tutera and Ryan Jurica have gone their separate way just months after taking delivery of half-twins via a surrogate mother. Tutera is biologically the father of one child and Jurica is father of the other child.

Advocates of sperm and egg donation and surrogate motherhood constantly tell us that the biological tie doesn’t matter. Nonetheless, the court granted each one custody of their own biological child.

Defenders of egg and sperm donation and surrogacy have to say the biological tie doesn’t matter. That is the only way to defend the practice.

A surrogate mother will at a minimum be the birth mother of a child and possibly the genetic mother also. Egg donation means the child will not be raised by its biological mother and sperm donation means the child will not be raised by its biological father.

So that they are forced to say the natural ties don’t matter.

But if this is really so, then why did the court decide who gets custody based on which partner has the biological tie to which child? Shouldn’t it have tossed a coin?

By the way, in the newspaper reports the children are called ‘twins’. They are really half-twins. They have the same mother but different fathers.

Prior to assisted human reproduction half-twins were, of course, a virtual impossibility.

You can read more about the case here.