Children: The Harbingers of Immorality

gay, marriage, prop 8, same sex, children, divorce, premarital, adultery, ivf, immoral, immorality
or "Asking the Obvious Question"

The Playful Walrus is determined to ask the obvious question when it comes to other people's private lives:

WHERE IS THE MOTHER? We know these two guys did not conceive and carry these children. If they rescued these kids from a group home, that's a different matter than breaking up a marriage, making babies out of wedlock, or intentionally depriving these children of a mother. Since the media loves focusing on couples with kids in these stories, I will keep asking the obvious question every time they fail to answer it.

Now, you might say Walrus is combining bigotry with an unseemly interest in other people's private lives, but I say why stop at gay couples' children? Children potentially represent all kinds of immorality: divorce, premarital sex, adultery, IVF (but what about the zygotes!), the list goes on.

So I say don't just ask gay couples where the mother/father is, ask that question of any child you see on the street with only one adult accompanying them. Sure, daddy or mommy might be at work, or simply might have stayed at home, but surely we all have the right to make sure we're not witnessing the results of a divorce, or even worse, a couple who never did get married. Of course, it's entirely possible you may confront a recent widow/widower, but don't let that stop you.

But why stop there?

What about divorce, or what about all those women who just can't help but spreading their legs for every guy who comes along, and then pass off their children as their spouse's, another favorite topic of the Walrus? Those children represent immorality so any time you see a child that does not resemble the man (s)he is with, you should inquire as to the paternity. In fact, you may just want to go ahead and take a DNA sample, just to be sure. Don't let a little thing like an assault charge stop you.

What about the use of IVF? They don't just fertilize one egg, you know. And they don't store the rest of the frozen darlings forever, either. So, if you see a family composed of what looks suspiciously like multiples, you should ask how they were conceived. Don't let anyone tell you it's not your business, it totally is.

What about those childless couples you see? Well, they're just selfish and paving the way for the muslim takeover of the world. So the next time you see a man and a woman out in public without children, you should make sure they're taking their reproductive responsibilities seriously. Sure, their children could be at home, and you run the risk of asking that question of someone whose child just died, but don't let that stop you in your quest to save the world's children.

What about older couples with young children? You know that's some kind of immorality. Sure, it could just be grandma and grandpa taking their grandchildren out for some fun, but it could be the horror of older people having babies, or grandparents forced to raise their grandchildren due to their children's uncontrollable immorality, which is always the parents' fault, anyway.

Frankly, I think Playful Walrus hasn't gone far enough. Though, if you're going to root out all the immorality those little things some people call the future represent, Walrus is spot on: you shouldn't let a little thing like common decency get in your way.

Redefining Optimum

homophobia, homosexual, ivf, childless, children, babies, infertile, infertility, lesbian, gay, prop 8, stupid,
I won't bore you with the entire post, mostly because it just makes my stomach hurt, but the salient details in the back story are: Lesbian couple in Scotland wants the same access to government sponsored IVF that hetero couples in the UK enjoy. Government says "go have sex with men." Lesbian couple sues and wins.

Now for emissary's conclusion on all this:

The regrettable part of this story is that the board eventually changed its mind after being sued. It sets a bad precedence for two specific reasons. The first is that it forces the taxpayer money to pay for children who will be given to a home without a mother and a father. The second is that, since IVF is so expensive, the government may not be able to help as many heterosexual couples who could provide a more optimal life for their children.

First of all, it sets a bad precedent, taxpayers will pay, not taxpayer money, and the children will be born in the home, not given to the home.

Now that I've corrected the basic English, let's review emissary's argument. Basically, if the government pays for IVF for homosexuals, less heterosexuals will be able to have babies, and heterosexual couples are automatically better parents.

The first argument is patently false on its face. The UK health care system (socialism!) views infertility the same as any other medical condition and pays for a certain number of treatments over a certain time period. For everyone. If more people need IVF, more IVF will be paid for, they won't ration it any more than they would ration bypass surgery. They may well raise taxes to pay for the increase in IVF, but heteros will still get the same amount of IVF as they always were.

The second argument relies on debunked research into same sex parenting. Hetero couples are not automatically better parents than gay couples. (Research does show that children do better with two parents instead of one, but that has to do with economics and the time available with the child, not the sex of the parents.) According to emissary, a man and a woman are automatically better parents, even if the man is a pedophile and the woman is a junkie. When you find yourself making that argument, you need to admit that you're a homophobe, and that you don't really like children all that much.

The Two-Faced DNA Calls Out the Two-Faced Media

octuplets, prop 8, ivf, dna, stupid,
(or, Fun with Comments)

EuripidesDoesn'tKnowWhatAncientGreekDidWithTheirSpareTime is all up in arms about the two-faced media picking on the unemployed single mother with 6 children who deliberately chose to have 8 more embryos implanted at once.

I find this extra hysterical in light of the below comments from members of the DNA in reaction to the exact same story.

Pearl said: Okay, bad news is that the father and mother are not married. That's a travesty for these kids. But the good news is that she refused to kill her unexpected multiples.

the pomegranateapple said: this is a very weird story. i'm so happy to see someone caring about life before birth, but i'm concerned that she purposefully implanted without a father.

Pearl responding to another commenter: Apparently the mother and father of the children are unwed. The mother has declared bankruptcy, is not a US citizen and has no intention of becoming one, and they are living on public assistance. And then there comes the question of why she did IVF if she already had six children. Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying we should regulate number of children, but it's obvious that she didn't need IVF to get pregnant, so was it to purposefully birth multiples? And to what end? Anyway, these are my new questions. I stand by my applaud for her decision to preserve life, even while I wonder...

So tell me, what part about that was any less two-faced than the media's coverage of the same story?

The Very Definition of Irony

tradition, traditional, octuplets, ethics, ethical, medical, prop 8, religion, religious, conservative, christian, ivf, embryo

The bigotsphere has been running around like my dog with a bag over his head (see above) concerning the woman who underwent IVF resulting in octuplets, even though she already had 6 children and was single.

At first, it was "look at this brave warrior for life who refused selective abortions". Then, "oh wait, she's single . . . that's bad."(see the comments section in the very same post. these people will turn on you like rabid wolverines on meth.) Now that the media is questioning the ethics of implanting that many embryos into a single woman who already has 6 children, it's "how dare you deny some poor woman a medical procedure?"

First of all, this isn't really our business, now is it? I think it is unethical to implant that many embryos into anyone because of the very real medical dangers involved. Also, the only reason anyone ever implants that many embryos is because they think most of them won't take- this is reasonable in the case of an infertile woman, especially an older, infertile woman.* The woman in question here was not older, and, given that she had 6 children already, 2 of them twins, she was certainly not infertile.

In this case, IVF was not a "medical procedure" we had no business denying her. It was entirely unecessary. Clearly, all she had to do in order to get pregnant was have sex. IVF is a very necessary procedure for a lot of women: women who can't get pregnant the old fashioned way. To compare their very real need for IVF, and their tremendous suffering if they are denied it, to this other woman's . . . well, who knows, but she sure didn't need IVF . . . is offensive.

In conclusion, for people to celebrate this woman while simultaneously castigating and mocking her is, well, this time it is irony.

Enjoy.

*Doctors who practice IVF still don't implant that many embryos as a general rule, because even in the case of an infertile woman close to menopause, you're still risking high order multiples. Btw, if you are currently struggling with infertility, I wish you all the best, and I repeat: IVF is a necessary medical procedure for you.