- Should singles and homosexuals have the right to children?
- The Australian Family Association
- 04/05/2009 Make a Comment
- Contributed by: The Rooster ( 258 articles in 2009 )
Shouldn’t singles and homosexuals have the right to have children using IVF, surrogacy and adoption?
Isn’t it a form of discrimination to deny homosexuals and singles access to IVF, artificial insemination, surrogacy and adoption so that they can have children?
Can’t they be just as loving and effective parents as married heterosexuals?
But nobody has the “right to a child”. Children are not property to be “owned”. Even heterosexual married parents do not have the “right to a child”. Rather, parents are the custodians of children.
Nobody can claim the right to a child any more than a man can claim the right to a woman, or a person can claim the right to a slave. Nobody has the right to another person.
Discrimination is based on the idea that somebody’s rights are being violated. If children are not property, if nobody has the right to a child, then it can’t be claimed by singles or homosexuals that they are “discriminated against” by not having access to children.
At the heart of this debate is the meaning of “marriage” and “the rights of children”.
Marriage is defined by history, biology and in the law as a life-long commitment between a man and a woman only. Marriage not only nurtures the mutual love of a man and a woman, but its physical, emotional, legal and spiritual relationship protects the rights of the children.
Those rights fundamentally include the right of the child:
• to be conceived by two living adults;
• to know their biological parents; and
• to be raised by their biological parents.
In recent decades, the experience of children of adoption and artificial insemination has shown that there is a deep need in most people to know their biological origins. The children of IVF, a new technology that is only three decades old, have expressed the same deep need.
There is a deep need in most people to know their biological origins.
The recent Channel 7 television series, Find My Family, has also demonstrated the instinctive drive in people - children, adults and even the elderly who have found themselves separated from one or both biological parents - to find their parent(s) and to develop a relationship with them, their brothers and sisters, their half-brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles and grandparents.
The push for “gay marriage” implies more than just the right for homosexuals to have a legal marriage contract. It also implies the right for homosexuals to have children by any means, using donor sperm, donor ova, cloning, surrogacy and adoption. This parallels the campaigns for singles to have the same access arrangements, on the assumption that any adult has “the right” to a child.
However, this denies children their fundamental rights. Here the key issue is not whether gay couples or a single person can be good guardians of those children. Rather, the fundamental issue is that children have the right to know and to be raised by their biological parents. To legalise gay marriage will be to create another stolen generation, another generation like post-WWII children of adoption and artificial insemination, who have cried out for their right to know their lost biological parents.
Even though in the real world not all children can grow up with their biological parents, that is no reason for governments to pass laws that create such injustices intentionally.
One of the first responsibilities of the state is to protect children, and laws must protect the rights of children. In this case, laws must protect the rights of children to know and be raised by their biological parents.
This means rejecting both gay marriage and singles being granted access to artificial reproduction, surrogacy, and adoption in order to have children.
It is incongruous that many people who defend human rights, strenuously opposing slavery and women being treated as property, are now treating children as property by campaigning for singles and homosexuals to have a right to a child.
We hope that in its recommendations, the Committee will acknowledge its duty to protect the best interests of children by providing them with both a mother and a father.
Isn’t it a form of discrimination to deny homosexuals and singles access to IVF, artificial insemination, surrogacy and adoption so that they can have children?
Can’t they be just as loving and effective parents as married heterosexuals?
But nobody has the “right to a child”. Children are not property to be “owned”. Even heterosexual married parents do not have the “right to a child”. Rather, parents are the custodians of children.
Nobody can claim the right to a child any more than a man can claim the right to a woman, or a person can claim the right to a slave. Nobody has the right to another person.
Discrimination is based on the idea that somebody’s rights are being violated. If children are not property, if nobody has the right to a child, then it can’t be claimed by singles or homosexuals that they are “discriminated against” by not having access to children.
At the heart of this debate is the meaning of “marriage” and “the rights of children”.
Marriage is defined by history, biology and in the law as a life-long commitment between a man and a woman only. Marriage not only nurtures the mutual love of a man and a woman, but its physical, emotional, legal and spiritual relationship protects the rights of the children.
Those rights fundamentally include the right of the child:
• to be conceived by two living adults;
• to know their biological parents; and
• to be raised by their biological parents.
In recent decades, the experience of children of adoption and artificial insemination has shown that there is a deep need in most people to know their biological origins. The children of IVF, a new technology that is only three decades old, have expressed the same deep need.
There is a deep need in most people to know their biological origins.
The recent Channel 7 television series, Find My Family, has also demonstrated the instinctive drive in people - children, adults and even the elderly who have found themselves separated from one or both biological parents - to find their parent(s) and to develop a relationship with them, their brothers and sisters, their half-brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles and grandparents.
The push for “gay marriage” implies more than just the right for homosexuals to have a legal marriage contract. It also implies the right for homosexuals to have children by any means, using donor sperm, donor ova, cloning, surrogacy and adoption. This parallels the campaigns for singles to have the same access arrangements, on the assumption that any adult has “the right” to a child.
However, this denies children their fundamental rights. Here the key issue is not whether gay couples or a single person can be good guardians of those children. Rather, the fundamental issue is that children have the right to know and to be raised by their biological parents. To legalise gay marriage will be to create another stolen generation, another generation like post-WWII children of adoption and artificial insemination, who have cried out for their right to know their lost biological parents.
Even though in the real world not all children can grow up with their biological parents, that is no reason for governments to pass laws that create such injustices intentionally.
One of the first responsibilities of the state is to protect children, and laws must protect the rights of children. In this case, laws must protect the rights of children to know and be raised by their biological parents.
This means rejecting both gay marriage and singles being granted access to artificial reproduction, surrogacy, and adoption in order to have children.
It is incongruous that many people who defend human rights, strenuously opposing slavery and women being treated as property, are now treating children as property by campaigning for singles and homosexuals to have a right to a child.
We hope that in its recommendations, the Committee will acknowledge its duty to protect the best interests of children by providing them with both a mother and a father.
Source: https://www.family.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&Itemid=94&id=206
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