Recently, a photograph of American Brad Fister kissing his 23-day old baby daughter, born in Hyderabad to a surrogate mother, caught my attention. It was a picture meant to warm the cockles of every heart worth its beat!
But there was a blot on this perfect picture. The baby’s mom was missing! Delving into details revealed the dynamics of a modern day ( but –very- gay) couple, in a stable relationship.
Brad Fister and his gay partner Michael wanted a baby. Fister would donate the sperm but they also needed a female’s egg . They decided to go for egg donation and surrogacy – and the baby was finally born.
The story of gamete donation and surrogacy is all too familiar to many. But in Fister’s case, the concept of motherhood is shrunk into a single cell immersed in a canister of liquid nitrogen!
Being gay is fine….if u have to be! I am not for, or against, same- sex couples. However, it is bewildering to know that there now exist sizeable numbers of what was once considered a “fringe group”. They seem to be peeping out of every cupboard and crevice, with their burgeoning demands and requirements.
Yes, they were marginalized (for reasons little understood) but I don’t understand the hiss, fuss and rant associated with them. For example, there are writers and gay writers, singers and gay singers and every other day someone is going public with his ‘true sexual identity’!!
Recently I read an article by a ‘gay writer and poet’ who froths at the mouth at anything he sees as a slight on gays. This writer was waxing galore on the 12 dalliances that he was concurrently engaged in and about the possible 12 more in the waiting! Even as I salivate at the columnist’s enviable existence, I hate the pomposity with which he throws his audacious coquetry at the general public.
Give us a break, dudes, get on with your lives and don’t try to bulldoze us with your ‘sex-life and sensibilities’.
Sorry for meandering away……
Coming back to Brad and Michael …their daughter has a dad, alright, but what about a mother? This child, who would probably be breast- fed till her surrogate’s contract expires, has been deliberately denied a mother for all her life.
The same parental denial would apply to kids of lesbian couples who would have to live their life without a father .
Now you can drown me with your arguments….yes I know there is a lot of imperfection in many heterosexual families but do we really need to add to the existing mayhem within the diaspora of family prototypes?
Everyone talks of rights –the gay lobby has been one of the most perseverant the world over ! But what about the rights of the unborn and the just- born?
Don’t they deserve a mother ( I mean a regular mother) or is it just a life with the “father’s other???”
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I totally agree with what you say. I am dead against gay couples going for adoption or surrogacy since its nothing to do with their rights but its something to do with the violation of another little human's rights who is not in a position to chose his / her parents. I am not against the union of gay people but against the use of word marriage. May be they should find another word representing same meaning or coin another word. Regardless, a child needs both the counterpart of humans to have it properly raised. Whether its going to be only men or only women, the child's human rights are violated.
ReplyDeleteAnother thought came in my mind , what happens when the kid grows, forced to grow in a environ which is unusual and abnormal to me, he is going to miss home and identity of a family. The fate of the kid grown by the gays - could be a threat fro the society or end up in a deprecated depressed kid, how is the kid going to face his school mates, sure he will be mocked by his fellow mates - one soul is going to end up in a soup. Stop Gay adoption - better to start a movement before it could become another crisis. Allow the gays to have their life style but spare the kids.
ReplyDeletefabian
Man cannot replace a woman, neither woman cannot replace a man when it comes to family and raising kids as parents. Unfortunately people who rant about their equality, dont care about the human rights of another individual. People can have their own life style as long as it does not affect another individual's psychological growth. It is inevitable for the presence of both man and woman counterpart for a normal mental development of a child in any environment be it school or home regardless of anyone making fun of the kid.
ReplyDeletehey faby and shyam,
ReplyDeletethanks for ur comments and glad to know that we see eye to eye on this issue.
Very true.It will be very difficult for a child to grow in such a situation and I am not sure how he will be looked upon when he becomes an adult. It is like bringing out a childbirth for someone's pleasure and not bothering about the future of the child.
ReplyDelete