From The Daily Standard
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Most public discussion of donor insemination for single women has been carried on in a neutral, positive, or breathlessly celebratory tone.
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European countries are skeptical enough to actually ban the process. Sweden and Italy bar single mothers from engaging in either in vitro fertilization or use of anonymous sperm (or, in Italy, eggs), and Britain and the Netherlands have banned the anonymous donation of sperm.
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A story in the New York Times last month reported that donor-conceived children check out strange men to see if they match the physical traits of their donor dads. "It'll always run through my mind whether he meets the criteria to be my dad or not," said JoEllen, a girl from Russell, Pennsylvania.
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Young adults voice similar sentiments. Olivia Pratten, a 23-year-old Canadian conceived through donor insemination, told the Toronto Globe and Mail about her fatherless life: "I had to grieve. It wasn't till I was 17 or 18 that I got it. I felt very angry. How dare someone take my choice away from me? How dare the medical profession tell me it doesn't matter?" And a 15-year-old boy profiled recently in the New Scientist was so determined to find his father that he submitted a sample of his own DNA to an online DNA-testing service. He was able to match it to a family surname and from there to track down his dad. Young people with less ingenuity are probably out of luck. U.S. law does not regulate donor insemination, and most donors choose anonymity, making it very difficult to find them.
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Our report, Why Marriage Matters (available at the website of the Institute for American Values), found that children reared in single-parent homes are two to three times more likely to face serious negative emotional, social, or health outcomes than children reared in intact, married families. These findings apply up and down the social ladder. They also apply in societies with generous welfare systems like Sweden, where poverty for single mothers is largely a nonissue.
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It appears that children are even affected physically by father absence. Pioneering work by Bruce Ellis suggests that the timing of puberty in girls is linked to the presence of a biological father: Girls who grow up without their biological fathers experience puberty (and therefore are likely to have sex) at significantly younger ages than girls who grow up with their fathers.
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Why do fathers matter to children? Fathers typically bring an extra pair of hands, an extra set of kin, and extra income to the child-rearing enterprise, not to mention extra concern for the child's well-being. They also perform better than mothers when it comes to disciplining their children--especially their sons. Finally, fathers who are in good marriages with the mothers of their children implicitly teach girls to expect respect from members of the opposite sex, and boys to treat girls and women with respect.
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For all these reasons, it is time to bring children's welfare into the discussion of donor-assisted single motherhood. A serious consideration of children's best interests would probably lead us down a regulatory road comparable to that being pursued in Europe, with bans on the donor-insemination of single women and on the anonymous donation of sperm and eggs.
Can a hedonistic society be reined in when it comes to fatherless pregnancies and fatherless children? Or will "single women" suddenly become the "victim-du-jour" and demand their "rights" to become pregnant by anonymous sperm donors?
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