A really revolting blog appeared today on DKos: Artificial Insemination is NOT Perverse – Exclamation Point
In part:
We get a call from Texas. A pregnant teen saw our ad and wants us to adopt her baby. HURRAY! We fly down to Texas. We see the baby. Adorable! Cute! A baby! We hold the baby. The mom signs the papers. But where is the bio-dad? Off in Oklahoma. He says he’ll sign. But then he can’t find a fax machine. Then the mom decides she wants the baby herself.
I almost committed suicide over that (thanks to my wife for stopping me).
I’m not doing that again.
We have two kids by artificial insemination. We chose the donor father from a book. They’re our kids.
And we’re NOT perverse. Period.
I found the entry so annoying that I hot-wired my seldom-used DKos account to post this quick reply.
Artificial insemination may not be perverse (0 / 0)
but to purposefully choose to bring two children into the world via anonymous sperm donors chosen through a book–is perverse and unethical. Do you plan to tell your children how they were conceived or will it be your “little secret.” What happens if you don’t tell them, and they learn later? I hope you’ll tell them when age appropriate; otherwise, you’ve got a potential disaster ahead of you.
Your insulting comments about the potential first mother who decided to keep her child kind of says it all. You cry about not having your own kids, and complain when she keeps hers. She had no duty to be your incubator. Why is she selfish, and you’re not? No one has a right to somebody else’s child.
But, every person has a right to identity, and it appears you have erased half of your kids, and are proud of it. Why? You are your kids’ father in every sense of the word but the biological. As an adopted person who fights for the right of identity every day, I find this selfishness disgusting and emblematic of so much that is wrong w th adoption and ART today.
by bastardette on Mon Jun 29, 2009 at 10:28:29 AM PDT
I was tempted to add a snark that if somebody is so unstable that they “almost committed suicide” when they were denied ownership of somebody else’s baby it’s a good thing, but let it go.
PS. Since I posted my response, the blogger came back with a 1-liner that his kids know about their conception.
Addenda 1: It looks like as of about 3:45 PM or earlier, all of my comments on DKos but one were removed. I guess I’m a troll.
Addenda 2: Maybe I’m wrong I found a couple of them. I have a hard time getting around DKos.
Addenda 3: Baby Love Child, who has also been battling this stupid thread on DKos has also posted a blog: On so-called secrecy.
“I almost committed suicide over that”
We need more unstable parents in the world?
Mahalo for the link, Marley. Again, I’m honoured.
Yeah, you were troll rated into hidden for a bit, but someone clearly liked what you said enough to pull it back out into visible.
One of the many problems with dKos is that the Troll rating abusers tend to travel in packs.
Well that, and when it comes to fertility and repro-tech issues over there (as well as a abortion, womyn, queers, etc etc etc) let’s just say the “hidden comments” can sometimes yeild a hidden trove of where a subset of the sane people can sometimes be found.
Though other times, the commenters earn their troll ratings good and hard.
Getting attacked at DKos means you hit a nerve. Congratulations.
If DKos says the sun is shining, I reach for my umbrella.
What a bunch of terrified, bullying little stinkers.
Btw, great “little” site you have here.
Hey Marley,
It’s good to see you fighting the good fight over on Daily Kos. I took a long break from adoption hoohah–not much seems to have changed.
but what I really need to say is–you’ve attributed one of my favorite quotes to the wrong Douglas. It’s from Frederick Douglass, referring to slavery, not my homestate hero William O.
Lane
So if the adoption had gone through, the kids would NOT have been theirs??? WTF?!?!?!?!?!!!!!!
It was incredibly restrained of you to resist the snark.
Lane–I know. I need to fix it and haen’t gotten around to it. I found it under Justice Douglas when I share your feeling on DKos, Actually I can’t stand it
Anonymous–I share you feeling about DKos. I have an account there, but have never posted anything but comments. When I started to plan to blog, I looked at it. Though it seemed to offer an advantage as far as exposure was concerned, I didn’t like the oh-so righteous PC tone of it, and I found it difficult to get around in. Nothing has changed. I don’t want my name associated with this generalized nitwittery.
Could not agree with you more
http://www.proudparenting.com/node/3254
I agree that it is not “perverse” BUT choosing a biological father from a book will most likely make it extremely difficult for those children to ever have an opportunity to know/meet/have a meaningful relationship with their biological father, half siblings and extended biological family/heritage/genealogy.
If this was done in a way that intentionally denies them these relationships then I don’t see this as anything less than just a transference of the pain and loss.
And that is not right. Exclamation point.
BD — thanks for the response.
My last comment looks kinda snarky, but I meant to say you really do have a great blog here. As I am neither adoptee or adopter, I don’t have a personal stake in the issue, and yet I feel very strongly that adoption is extremely damaging.
I wish there was an intelligent anti-adoption (or at least critical-of-adoption) public forum somewhere. Especially one that could handle both celebrity madness as well as the nitty gritty legal aspects. Anyways, keep on truckin’!
“I wish there was an intelligent anti-adoption (or at least critical of adoption) public forum somewhere”.
Many of us do. What I have found when such a forum gets set up is that it is taken over by crazies. There’s the anti-birthmother crowd that seems more interested in bashing birthmoms than in engaging in discussion. Than there’s the crowd that perceives any adoption, anywhere, anyplace as perversely evil.
I’m amazed at the black/white mentality that seems to pervade any discussion of adoption issues.
This kind of polarization doesn’t win over supporters. It simply alienates alot of well meaning people who could be allies. Allies are important when only a small segment of the population is affected directly by adoption issues.
“I’m amazed at the black/white mentality that seems to pervade any discussion of adoption issues.”
I agree. (First anon guy here.) I have seen this in other issues (although not quite as extreme) where there is so much buried emotion, false notions, and outright propaganda that it is very hard to have a reasonable conversation without opening up a Pandora’s Box of crazy.
I have a feeling though, that adoption issues are getting drawn into related issues around human rights, bioengineering, and who can “play God” more and more. And those things are obviously multiplying. So there’s no escape, even for the “uninvolved.”
Just look what is happening with the Michael Jackson case. It’s impossible to ignore.