Female sperm and gay guinea pigs
Marcy Darnovsky has this post on the San Francisco Chronicle. He writes:
These technological enthusiasts are portraying a recent biological experiment with artificial gametes as a breakthrough that will one day enable gay and lesbian couples to have children who are genetically related to both of them. . . . “Good news for lesbians,” the lead of one story gushed.
. . . mobilizing support for same-sex procreation using female sperm and male eggs would undermine the keystone argument against same-sex marriage.
What’s going on here? Why are speculative and risky technologies being held out to lesbians and gay men as tantalizing prospects? Are reproductive methods that amount to dangerous experimentation on their children really a road to freedom for gay families? Or is the language of equality and empowerment being used to justify human experimentation that puts these children at great risk?
Anti-gay sentiment is not caused by the inability of same-sex couples to have biologically related children, but by fear and intolerance. The solutions to homophobia will not be found in test tubes and Petri dishes, but in challenging and changing our laws, policies and culture . .
Artificial same-sex procreation would not “undermine the keystone argument against same-sex marriage.” A baby is the natural fruit of heterosexuals coming together. That is not true in homosexual relationships. The development of artificial technology to evade the natural course of things does not displace the state’s interest in maintaining the historic definition of marriage to regulate norms.