Elton John, surrogacy, child abuse and language distortion

Distortions of Descriptions in Social Relationships have gathered pace in the western world. Firstly the meaning and usage of the word “gay” morphed into homosexual male. The use of the term homosexual became tainted with the whiff of disapproving intolerance. “Queer” and other colourful expressions became definite no-nos.

Then the word marriage became the target. Marriage is the “legal union of a man and a woman in order to live together and often to have children” and “an act or ceremony establishing this union”. Here I quote the Oxford Dictionary 1995 edition. I support the concept and practicality of “civil partnership” but MARRIAGE ? No! Marriage should be reserved for males/females and traditional non-technical biological reproduction.

Now the absurdity of the change in British law has become manifest where two men can hire a woman to have a child and BOTH man can put their names on the birth certificate.

Musician and singer Elton John (Reginald Dwight) and his homosexual partner David Furnish have announced that THEY have become parents to a child Zachary born to a woman in California for a consideration of $150,000.

It is reported that Mr Elton John‘s genes were the fertilising medium.

The issue here for me is child protection. I believe that the state should register the biological parents of any child as the parents. I do not think that any impediment should be placed in the way of anyone finding out who their genetic parents are. If a woman agrees to this type of surrogacy where her genes are used to give HER child to two unrelated civil partnership males, I consider this is a form of child abuse because when the child gets older, he/she may recoil at the thought of his/her background. Conception by in-vitro means depends on the origins of the genes. Surrogacy for carrying an unrelated zygote to full term is different and I have little difficulty with that as an answer to the problem of infertility for some couples because the child is not the child of the woman. The woman is merely used in this case as a vehicle. Conceiving a child for the express purpose of giving that child to others is unacceptable. The woman will always be that child’s mother and the child will invariably seek to establish who she is biologically and usually why the mother opted out.

Adopting children by same sex couples may be acceptable in certain circumstances where the alternative opposite sex conventional unit is unavailable.

So let there be no introduction of “co-fatherhood” into the English language. Not for my lexicon anyway!