During what debate there was about the Government’s Children and Family Relationships Act, which allowed for egg and sperm donation to anyone and everyone (donor-assisted human reproduction or DAHR), those who supported the bill had a sort of mantra that could have been taken from the Beatles. When it comes to raising children, “love is all you need.”
There’s no right to be raised by your natural parents, or even a presumption that it’s a good idea all else being equal: what a child really needs, by this account, is one adult who loves them. After that, nothing else matters. A second parent brings nothing a lone parent can’t bring. A mother doesn’t matter, a father brings nothing in particular. All you need is love.
Two recent stories throw some doubt on this picture.
The first [1] is about a couple, Richard Cushworth and Mercedes Casanellas, who ended up raising the wrong baby for three months after a two babies were swapped in an El Salvador hospital (whether or not it was an accident remains unclear).
It recalls a similar but much more tragic French case [2] from a few months ago where the mix-up wasn’t discovered for over a decade – too late for the families to swap back. The swapped children, the parents, and both sets of siblings were awarded substantial damages against the hospital by a French court.
Why, if love is all you need, was this a problem for anyone in either case? Why, indeed, should anyone make such a big deal about hospital mix-ups, as long as children are going to families who love them?
Under the rule of “love is all you need”, the only objection one might be able to make is that the parents in each case hadn’t agreed to the swap. But then, why pay the children compensation? Would it have been wrong to compensate them if the parents had agreed? Was the loss of their biological families not a loss in and of itself?
The second story [3] is that of Jennifer Cramblett, a woman in a same-sex relationship who commissioned a child through sperm donation. There was a mix-up with the sperm provided to her, and she ended up giving birth to a mixed-race baby. She sued the sperm bank, citing cultural pressures from her neighbourhood and family, and has just been turned down by a judge – but on a technicality, and she’s been invited to resubmit her claim under the grounds of “negligence” rather than wrongful birth.
She also said she wasn’t “culturally attuned” to the needs of a child who is half African-American,
This last point in particular directly challenges the ‘love is all you need’ line. Surely love alone would compensate for the fact that her child wasn’t fully of the same race as the mother? Some might argue that Cramblett is just acting out of prejudice, with no real case: but doesn’t that throw into question the whole practice of allowing commissioning adults to choose their donor, and the attributes that come with their sperm or egg?
If love really is all you need, and the natural ties really are irrelevant, then why not assign donors randomly, by lottery?
A piece of sponsored content written by a staff member of a DAHR clinic [4] for Gay Star News gives us some clues as to the answer:
If you are hoping to conceive in a couple we suggest picking a donor whose physical characteristics resemble the parent who is not contributing genetic material as part of conception; for single people we suggest picking a donor or donors that match your own characteristics, selecting a donor who would not be physically outstanding within your wider family network.
It looks a lot like genetics actually do matter – but only for the comissioning adults. In the new world of reproduction, the adults commissioning a child have the right to unlimited choice and absolute convenience. As the Gay Star News piece puts it “it’s a bit like online shopping, but easier than online dating”. The adults have the right to be selective about donors, to care about appearance, race, and other characteristics to be upset and aggrieved about mix-ups that leave them with the wrong child.
The acknowledgement that the natural ties are important is right there in the basic reason why DAHR exists in the first place. The only reason couples go down that route rather than adopting is that they want a child that’s related to at least one of them.
But if children care about the natural ties just as much? If children wonder why they were deliberately conceived so as to be separated from one of their natural parents? If they think of their “donor” as what they are, a genetic parent?
Well, under the Children and Family Relationships Act, Minister Frances Fitzgerald will let you find out who your donor is when you turn 18 (if you’re lucky enough that your commissioning parents don’t take any of the really obvious loopholes to avoid you finding out). And don’t worry, your donor will have legally renounced “all parental rights and duties” to you, and they’ll have no legal obligation to do so much as meet you.
What is sauce for the goose is very much not sauce for the gander. The watchwords for the age of DAHR are not, in the end, “love is all you need”. They are “adult autonomy, uber alles.”