– paradoxically – disarm key elements of these objections. In doing so, I hope to make the case that it is past time to move past the burdens of proof that are reflexively invoked in regard to parenthood by gay men and lesbians whenever a novel method of assisted conception surfaces.
Controversial Parenthood
When it comes to same‐sex couples turning to synthetic gametes, A. J. Newson and Anna Smajdor say ‘new ethical questions’ arise, ‘such as whether same‐sex couples should be able to access this technology to have children who are genetically related to them both’.6 I fully concede that the prospect of same‐sex couples as the genetic parents of children is a novel question, but the question of cross‐sex gamete production is not any more novel for them than for anyone else. If synthetic gametes become possible, any man or woman can be the source of sperm or ova no matter what kind of relationship they are in. Yet Newson and Smajdor do not treat the use of synthetic gametes for infertile opposite‐sex couples as a specifically ethical concern; they certainly do not frame the question of synthetic gametes for opposite‐sex couples as a question of access, presumably because they assume these couples to be fit as parents in all the ways that matter. In regard to same‐sex couples, Newson and Smajdor go on to ask ‘Will a man whose DNA is contained in the egg (used to produce a child) be recognised as a “biological” mother?’ (see page 186 from Newson et al.6). By contrast, they ask no parallel question of ethics and access for their own example of single men or women who might rely on their own sperm and synthetic ova to produce a child. In any case, why assume that a man whose synthesised ovum is used to produce a child cannot be recognised as the child’s mother in a biological sense even as he retains a male identity? After all, one transgender man who gestated his own children expresses no doubts about being the children’s father.7 Techniques of fertility preservation for transgender men and women – preserving gametes prior to body modifications that would otherwise leave people infertile – are likely to increase the ranks of transgender men who are the genetic mothers of their children, and the ranks of transgender women who are the genetic fathers of their children.8 Rather than trying to retrofit all parents into mutually exclusive categories of mother and father, why not ask a more searching question, namely whether these categories offer an adequate vocabulary for expressing the relationships progenitors can have with their progeny?
Other discussions also represent the parenthood of gay men and lesbians as ethically controversial. In 2009, a study group of scientists, ethicists, journal editors and lawyers reviewed the science of synthetic gametes and suggested likely uses, some of which they said might require legal and policy oversight. This group indicated that the possibility of using synthetic gametes for reproduction in same‐sex couples is unlikely in the future, for genetic reasons related to conception and embryogenesis.9 Even so, their analysis does not rule out same‐sex reproduction as impossible. Perhaps for that reason, the group went on to say ‘same‐sex reproduction is inarguably a controversial, if highly unlikely, potential end result of this research’ (see page 13 from Mathews et al.9). The study group, therefore, identifies this kind of reproduction as ‘requiring deliberation and possible policy options’ (see table 1 from Mathews et al.).
This interpretation of same‐sex reproduction as ‘inarguably controversial’ comes without any supporting rationale. By contrast, the study group did feel obliged to offer a rationale after describing other novel uses of synthetic gametes, such as the in vitro creation of human embryos for research that involves their destruction. The group noted that those practices offend people ‘who imbue such embryos with full moral status’ (see page 12 from Mathews et al.). By contrast, the idea that two men or two women conceive and raise a child together is represented as self‐evidently controversial, requiring no supporting explanation at all.
Interpretations like these treat same‐sex couples as a novelty act in bioethics, primarily by suggesting that their moral standing as parents requires levels of moral scrutiny not required of other parents. At the very least, discussions like these still suppose that someone – moral and social authorities – have to function as gatekeepers for homosexual men and women wanting to be parents, as against assuming in advance that any safe and effective treatment for infertility should be presumptively available to any adult, which is the entitlement these commentators confer without qualification on opposite‐sex couples, subject only to the constraints of safety and efficacy of the intervention in question.
Protecting Children from Some Possible Parents
As against commentators whose background assumptions throw gay and lesbian parenthood into question, some commentators explicitly reject the idea that same‐sex couples should be parents, at least not in any planned or socially approved way. Sometimes these objections focus on the nature of same‐sex couples as parents; other times the objections focus on the way in which same‐sex couples are able to have children.
As part of her objections to legalising same‐sex marriage, Margaret Somerville has argued that giving the right to marry and to found a family ‘to same‐sex couples necessarily negates the rights of all (sic) children with respect to their biological origins and families, not just those born into same‐sex marriage’.10 She argues that same‐sex marriage violates a sexual ecology important to the welfare of children, and undermines a social symbolism essential in the transmission of life. In general, then, society should not endorse gay and lesbian couples having children through, for example, legal recognition of same‐sex marriage. Somerville wants society to endorse law and policies that enable children to be children of a woman whom they know as their mother and of a man whom they know as their father, as far as this effect is practically possible. This is not the entirety of her position, though, since she also argues that ‘children have a right to be conceived from untampered‐with biological origins, a right to be conceived from a natural sperm from one identified, living, adult man and a natural ovum from one identified, living, adult woman. Society should not be complicit in, that is, should not approve or fund any procedure for the creation of a child, unless the procedure is consistent with the child’s right to a natural biological heritage’.11 This position does not rule out all assisted reproduction, but it would put limits on it, including the use of synthetic gametes by same‐sex couples among others.
In one important way, however, synthetic gametes undo Somerville’s objections to same‐sex couples as parents of children. Relying on synthetic gametes, two men could serve as the genetic parents of a child, one as the source of sperm and the other as the source of ova. A child conceived this way could thus have both genetic parents available to him or her while growing up. Nothing about this circumstance would prevent a child from understanding one parent as its genetic mother and the other as its genetic father, even though both parents are otherwise male. Synthetic gametes give same‐sex couples pretty much everything Somerville expects in terms of identifiable, genetic parents who presumptively have as much respect for the transmission of life as anyone else. If what Somerville wants is, however, that every child have available a genetic mother who identifies as a woman and a genetic father who identifies as a man, then synthetic gametes will not satisfy her, but even so, synthetic gametes raise the question of why fatherhood and motherhood must be understood in terms of genetics alone. As mentioned, Somerville defends a second front against parenting by same‐sex couples: it is objectionable insofar as it involves any kind of modification of gametes. Synthetic gametes are morally wrong on their face, on this account, as much as for homosexual men and women as for anyone else. Somerville asserts the right of children to be conceived only under certain conditions, but since the children cannot have rights before they do – namely before they exist – the merit of this argument turns on the effects of the modifications in question. Somerville offers no evidence that children of gay and lesbian parents are materially harmed by the conditions of their conception and parentage, over and above being violated in their alleged rights. So long as the welfare of children does not suffer meaningful harm as demonstrated by the social sciences, and I submit that they do not,12
