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Is 'Artificial Insemination by Donor' Morally Acceptable?
"Sperm donation is the provision by a man of his sperm for the purpose of inseminating or impregnating a woman who is not necessarily his sexual partner"
Of course it's morally acceptable; if it's artifical insemination then does it really matter who performs the procedure, so long as they are qualified?
Now, if we're talking natural insemination by donor, that would likely be morally unacceptable in most circles, though certainly not all. Is that what you were going for?
Natural insemination by donor, natural as opposed to artificial, donor as opposed to partner; eg. the donor has sex with the woman in order to impregnate her.
Most people would consider that adultery, no? Even if her husband/partner was totally okay with it, most people would even now take an issue with it and be judgemental. In the case of an unmarried woman, not so much, so I probably should have specified that.
I am perfectly aware of what natural insemination by donor means; I do not believe I expressed anything to indicate otherwise. What baffles me is that a majority of people would actually cling to such an obsolete, impractical, and meaningless moral code for the regulation of human sexuality and reproduction. This, among other reasons, is why I place so very little value in morality...
Ok, was just making sure. I can understand and appreciate not seeing the problem with that yourself, and I agree with you that much, but surely you can see that the majority are still a bit more conservative in their views on sexuality, no? Not as large a majority as it once was, and decreasing gradually, but still a majority. I don't claim to understand why, though I have a few theories that all, one way or another, will piss someone off...
I agree that morality can be pretty wonky, and often clings to rules about things that really shouldn't even be considered MORAL issues. But I believe the benefits of morality outweigh the drawbacks, nonetheless.
I can believe it, but in all honesty I bother less and less with accurately putting the majority perspective on my radar without a compelling reason to do so. I share very little in common with the way most people think, and majority views on issues like morality tend to make little cognitive or emotional sense to me. There is probably a word for that, but there you have it.
The reason I place little value in morality is that I do not think its benefits are especially unique, whereas its drawbacks tend to be. Morality is innately subjective in my view, and highly emotionally based and resistant to reason. I suppose that that is an entirely different matter altogether, however, and I did not mean to so wholly derail the debate. I can respectfully disagree at this juncture if you so desire as well.
Maybe that's how Mary became pregnant with Jesus. He thought his father was God... but really it was Bob... the dirty hobo that walked around jizzing on everything.
I don't see why not. If a woman's husband is infertile but she wants to bear a child it seems like a perfectly acceptable decision. I don't think it would be moral for a woman to do it if she's single and cannot support the child though. A child shouldn't be born into those situations if it can be helped
I agree. Fortunately, artificial insemination isn't cheap, so it seems likely that someone who could afford it, would also be able to afford the child.
Interesting that you feel the need to qualify the situation for a poor single mother but not a poor couple.
And by extension do you consider it generally immoral for all poor people to have children? Is their decision to procreate actually immoral, given that it is a highly primal biological drive, or is the condition of poverty itself a reflection of social and collective immorality?
I believe that intentionally bringing a child into poverty is immoral.
It's true that it is a highly primal biological drive, but that doesn't mean it is moral to act on it without discretion. It's also entirely normal for men of all ages to be attracted to girls in their late teens, but that doesn't make it morally or socially acceptable for a 40 year old to sleep with a 16 year old. Some may not object morally, but it's still something that wouldn't be socially acceptable.
I also don't believe that it's a dichotomy; I maintain that it is immoral to intentionally bring a child into poverty, but poverty itself can certainly be a reflection of social/collective morality as you suggest; the two aren't mutually exclusive.
My main point to OP was demonstrating the inherent prejudice in singling out single mothers on the poverty issue, but not parents generally. To address the poverty point directly however:
In 2012, the official poverty rate for the U.S. was 15.0 percent. There were 46.5 million people in poverty (source). Globally, an estimated 1.2 billion people lived in poverty in 2010 (source). By your reasoning it is immoral for roughly one sixth of both the U.S. and global populations to reproduce. Apply your rationale to countries where the vast majority of the population is living in poverty (e.g. the DRC with 95% living in poverty), and it becomes immoral for essentially the entire population to reproduce at all.
Individual and collective moral culpability can co-exist, but in the case of reproduction within the context of poverty that is an exception rather than the rule. Poverty is a form of systemic oppression, and is exceptionally difficult to break out of (if not impossible in countries where poverty is the norm, as with the DRC). One could argue that some individuals have agency in removing themselves from poverty but fail to do so, but by and large poverty is a social phenomenon conditioned by failed social accountability. To hold all impoverished individuals to inherent moral account for the moral failings of their society is both illogical and unfair. The act of having a child is not itself generally considered an immoral act (whereas pedophilia is, which is why it is a terrible counter-example); what you argue is that an otherwise moral act becomes immoral in the context of of the social phenomenon of poverty.
I was lax in my semantics, apologies. I should have said ephebophilia. All of my points still stand, however, and I would appreciate a response to them.
It's still not ephebophilia either; ephebophilia describes a specific attraction, a fetishization if you will, of post-pubescent teenagers. It's entirely normal for an adult of any age to be attracted to a post-pubescent teenager.
My main dispute was your terminology; whether we're calling it pedophilia or ephebophilia it's not accurate, which to my mind addresses the relative moral issue between the two.
Going beyond that- I freely acknowledge your points regarding poverty. Not in all cases, but surely in most, poverty is certainly an indirect form of oppression. But that fact does not remove the responsibilities of a prospective parent; specifically the responsibility to provide for his or her children. That is where the immorality lies; it's not immoral to have children when one is impoverished, but rather when one is unable to provide for said children for whatever reason; it all depends on where we draw the line for poverty. If a parent is in poverty, but is still able to provide for his or her children by making the right sacrifices, then I see no problem. But, if a parent is unable to properly provide for a child, regardless of the reason for that shortcoming, intentionally having a child would still be immoral. Your note of oppression is actually quite fitting here; consider the holocaust, for a moment, and for the sake of argument disregard the extreme logistical difficulties for a moment. I assert that a Jewish family in a concentration camp would be immoral in choosing to have a child under those conditions.
You're right that it is unfair to hold impoverished families accountable for their circumstances, but I contest the assertion that it is illogical to do so. Whether it's their fault or not, it is immoral to intentionally bring a child into the world when one is unable to provide for said child, and I stand by that.
My use of the term pedophilia was admittedly inaccurate. However, by both standard definition and that which you provided, ephebophilia refers to sexual attraction to post-pubescent teenagers. A 50 year old adult being attracted to a 16 year old post-pubescent teenager is an accurate use of the term. Your argument is not that my use of the term is innacurate, but that the term should not exist as it describes something as a sexual paraphilia which should not be included as such.
In the context of this debate, that point is entirely irrelevant as is the general example you initially presented. The relative normalcy of such attraction (whether paraphilic or not) has no bearing upon the matter as the moral objections against it are distinct and the matter separate from considerations of reproduction. You are fallaciously comparing the biological drive of reproduction to that of attraction.
Relevant Arguments
Your use of the Holocaust as an example is likewise a fallacious juxtaposition, and that you had to make any qualification to it speaks to that. You are comparing a context of active genocide and total oppression to that of poverty. They are not comparable, and to attempt the comparison is frankly disrespectful of the historical identities involved in the Holocaust. I refer you to Godwin's law, and move on to the point you were trying to make that could have been made without this inappropriate hyperbolic comparison.
Your contention is effectively that in severe poverty parents cannot provide for their children. The problem with this argument is that such "provision" is a highly intangible and arbitrary concept; there is no fine line for knowing what such provision is or what must exist to satisfy it. Further, in making this distinction you are attempting to modify my position on the general condition of poverty to the defense of extreme poverty which was neither my point nor that initiated by the OP; you are creating an entirely new debate.
Firstly, I'm not arguing that the term should not exist, but rather I'm stating that not all cases of attraction to that group is an accurate usage of the term. A 50 year old being attracted to a 16 year old, a 30 year old, and a 20 something would be normal. A 50 year old being attracted to teenagers exclusively, simply because they are teenagers, would be an accurate case for the term. I believe we can move on from this, though; it remains a largely irrelevant nit-pick as I stated the first time around.
My use of the holocaust is hardly fallacious. I admit that it is an extreme example, but it is relevant insofar as I'm concerned. If you don't like the holocaust, how about slavery? The point is not to compare poverty, the holocaust, and slavery. The point is to illustrate conditions that I believe it is immoral to intentionally bring children into the world under. I assert that perhaps you're conflating the issue when qualifying poverty vs. extreme poverty. Poverty represents a state of privation and a lacking of necessities. As such, under no circumstances is a truly impoverished individual able to sufficiently provide for children. What the US government calls the poverty line is not in fact poverty for many of those so classified. Perhaps we disagree on that notion, and if that is the case maybe we should drop the line of discussion. However, I maintain that parents have a moral responsibility to provide for their children, and that it is immoral to intentionally bring a child into extremely adverse conditions, be they poverty, slavery, a tyrannical dictatorship, or anything to that effect. The parent may not be responsible for the negative conditions he or she is under, but that doesn't mean they are morally right in subjecting a child to those conditions.
You were the one who fixated and insisted upon this semantic nonsense from the offset. I pointed out from the beginning that the semantics were just as irrelevant as the example itself was to the actual subject of the debate.
Neither the holocaust nor slavery are remotely comparable to poverty, and your attempts to draw that comparison are not only inaccurate but offensive. Attempting to create parallels between these distinct issues is indicative of your inability to construct an adequate argument regarding poverty as an actual, independent issue.
You have wholly neglected the major counterpoints I have risen in this debate. I challenged you to provide an actual rationale substantiating that it is reasonable to hold an individual morally accountable for circumstances beyond their control. You merely responded that we should. This is inadequate. I also challenged you to address the reality of your argument taken to its natural extension, which is that in some countries it is immoral for almost the entire population to reproduce; I observed that this conclusion is useless and impractical and you did not refute it. I also countered that the distinction between poverty and extreme poverty is innately arbitrary, and that consequentially there is no objective basis upon which individuals can know absolutely whether they can provide for their children; thus it is impractical to morally condemn parents by that standard.
Given your proclivity to irrelevancy, inaccuracy, and non-responsiveness I am disinclined to further continue this debate with you.
Oh, I'll freely admit that I fixated and insisted upon the semantics here, but they are certainly not nonsense. Your usage of the term 'pedophilia' and later revising it to ephebophilia were very morally loaded and served to conflate the issue in my eyes. If you truly didn't want to get into a semantical debate, you should have left such loaded terms out and not gone there in the first place.
As stated, I was not comparing the holocaust or slavery to poverty, or even attempting to draw said comparison. The only parallel between these is that they are extremely adverse conditions to intentionally bring a child into. That is the portion that is directly relevant to the discussion. Instead of addressing this, you build a strawman version of my argument where I'm comparing the issue directly, and then refuse to address the point because of that. That's shameful, dishonest, and offensive itself.
And you created another strawman position to direct your challenge at. Never once did I assert that it was remotely resaonable to hold an individual morally accountable for circumstances beyond their control. That position does not exist insofar as I understand it. And you use this strawman position to avoid addressing the bigger point. Of course I wouldn't respond to that challenge.
I am arguing that regardless of the reason for the circumstances of an individual, the individual is still making a choice to bring a child into the world, and still has a responsibility to provide for and protect said child. In the case of poverty, they are not being held morally accountable for their poverty- they are being held morally accountable for intentionally bringing a child into the world when they are unable to provide for it. In the case of the holocaust, they are not being held morally accountable for the actions of the nazis- they are being held morally accountable for intentionally providing them with another victim. Same thing with slavery.
The fact that our circumstances are not our fault does not change our responsibilities. If my position at a job is downsized and I am unable to pay my rent, I may not be morally responsible for the loss of my job but I remain morally and legally responsible to fulfill the terms of my lease. The answer to your question regarding the immorallity of the entire population of some countries to reproduce? I would say- yes. It is immoral to intentionally bring a child into the world when one is not able to properly care for it. The citizens of a country in such a state have a responsibility to change those conditions, by force if need be. Your countering with poverty vs extreme poverty is misleading; you are using the government defined 'poverty line' here as an example for poverty, and as I said, it isn't. It's kind of funny, actually, that you complain about my fixation on semantics when you're doing it yourself in the same post! By the dictionary definition of poverty, it involves lacking necessities; if one cannot provide for ones own needs, one certainly cannot provide for all of the needs of a child as well. Maybe an individual cannot know absolutely that they CAN provide for their children, but when they cannot properly provide for themselves it is a given. THAT is the standard where I condemn it.
"Given your proclivity to irrelevancy, inaccuracy, and non-responsiveness I am disinclined to further continue this debate with you."
With all due respect, the decision regarding what is or is not relevant is not yours to make, and I maintain that everything I've said has been relevant. I maintain that my statements are accurate as well. And Non-responsive? It's the Holidays, you ass! Excuse me for not sitting at my computer the entire time responding to your statements while neglecting my family.
You use arbitrary definitions and a strawman version of my arguments to attempt to discredit me, but I stand by what I've said. Reproduction is NOT an inalienable right as far as I'm concerned, and we in fact have many laws that parents are required to abide by in regards to their children. And you still haven't even attempted to address my main question. In what way does the cause of adverse conditions negate the conditions themselves? None, I say. In what way does the cause of adverse conditions remove the parents responsibility to provide for their children? None, I say again. The fact that a prospective parent is not responsible for adverse conditions does NOT negate their responsibilities whatsoever, and they are still immoral in choosing to bring a child into said conditions. If you disagree, please explain exactly how the parents are absolved from their responsibilities.
Irrelevance. You initiated the comparison of an older individual being attracted to a markedly younger person precisely to elicit the response you received. There was no other point in your making it, as it was an irrelevant example. The semantics of poverty is relevant because we are actually discussing poverty.
Inaccuracy. You claim you are not comparing the Holocaust and slavery to poverty, but in the next breath use the term "parallel between" which is an express comparison. The degrees of adversity are not comparable.
Non-responsiveness. I referred not to any time delay, but to your tendency to avoid directly responding to the crux of my arguments. That should have been apparent from the context in which I wrote that statement, but of course you removed that from its larger point as you are wont to do. The name calling was not only unnecessary but suggests that you are prone to anger and assumption, rather than levity and consideration.
Strawmen. I have already explained that while you did not say these things, they are the necessary conclusions of your premise taken to its natural conclusion. You have retreated to a false accusation rather than demonstrate why your rationale does not lead to these problematic conclusions. These are among the arguments I have made in response to yours which you have declined to directly refute.
This entire debate is one constructed out of your fallible comparisons and tangential sidesteps, and you are asking me to debate upon an issue utterly removed from my initial argument altogether. You may feel free to reply but do not anticipate any response. In point of fact, I should not expect any further engagement from myself at all going forward. I do this for intellectual stimulation, and experience is rapidly revealing that you are a very poor source for such.
Irrelevance- My comparison was specifically in response to your statement, made 11 days ago: "And by extension do you consider it generally immoral for all poor people to have children? Is their decision to procreate actually immoral, given that it is a highly primal biological drive, or is the condition of poverty itself a reflection of social and collective immorality?" You refer to a highly primal biological drive, the sex drive, and to the act of procreation here. I countered with that example as another case where simply acting on the exact same drive would be consider immoral and socially unacceptable. That is entirely relevant to the discussion at hand, and you immediately knee jerked with pedophilia and refused to address that point, and continue to do so. It is absolutely relevant.
Inaccuracy- Showing a single specific parallel between a number of things is by no means the same as an overall value comparison between the two. Stating, as I have, that none of these are situations where it is moral to intentionally create a child does not make any kind of comparison between the suffering of the individuals in those circumstances. I never made any assertion that the degrees of adversity were comparable. In fact, the intent was to show several widely varying examples of cases where circumstances were not the fault of the parents, and yet were not appropriate circumstances to bring a child into. That is an entirely accurate parallel. You've made a case for 'distasteful,' sure, but none for inaccuracy.
Non-responsiveness- I. have. addressed. every. single. statement. you. have. made. With the sole exception of your strawmen. I will not respond to those except to point them out- if you want to call that non-responsive, be my guest, but it's not true- you know this, I know this, and any poor fool who's followed this discussion this far knows it too. That's why I made the assumption regarding the time delay- I come back from the holidays to see new activity bitching about my non-responsiveness. Sure, I was a bit irritated, but aren't you overreacting to that just a little bit? I'm far less prone to anger and assumption than most, but I'll concede that I made an assumption and got a bit irritated in this case. That still does not negate anything I've said, nor does it actually respond to my arguments. In fact, you've been the truly non-responsive one in this exchange, as you refuse to address any of my points and only attack strawmen.
On strawmen- No, they are not the necessary concludions of my premises taken to their natural conclusions. They are exaggerated assumptions with the actual points I have made downplayed at best and completely warped at worst. This is a tactic you have undertaken to avoid addressing my points in favor of attacking said exaggerated position, which is pretty much the dictionary definition of a strawman tactic. Each time you've done it, I've called you out on it, but you've made zero attempt to actually respond to my points. When you actually respond to something I've stated, I'll have something to refute, I'm sure.
What I have been asking you to debate on, since the beginning, is admittedly a tangient to the main debate. Specifically, the issue of whether or not it is moral to intentionally bring children into poverty. You've avoided directly discussing that specific subject time and time again, with tactics such as "it's not their fault they're poor so they have no moral responsiblity to provide for their children" (look, I can make a strawman too!) and dissembling over the specific definition of poverty. Your stance on this specific debate is constructed entirely out of fallacies and dishonest debate tactics. I also tend to do this for intellectual stimulation, and I'll even concede that at times you've been a decent source of that; you've made me think on more than one occasion at least. But you're obviously too closed-minded and inflexible in your views and thinking for there to be any further use for this discussion. If you truly debate for intellectual stimulation, I recommend relaxing your grip on your views somewhat- it's far more stimulating, generally speaking, to debate on a topic one isn't 'married' to the way you seem to be in this case (not that there is anything wrong with being opinionated, per se). Playing the Devil's Advocate can be useful too, in that regard. But you're not going to get any intellectual stimulation by digging your heels in, refusing to address points, creating strawmen out of your opponents, and then dismissing them altogether- all you're likely to get is public office.
I don't expect a further reply from you, but I would ask that you re-read this exchange just once, since I'm 'irrelevant, inaccurate, and non-responsive.' I don't need or want any kind of reply, but I defy you to locate one point you've made that I in fact have not addressed in some way- either by agreeing with it (as I did with much of what you claimed re: poverty being a condition caused by collective immorality and oppression), disagreeing with it and offering counterpoints, or simply dismissed as a strawman. I maintain that everything I've stated has been relevant (tangentially relevant at times, but always relevant), accurate, and that I have responded to every valid point that you've made.
And you still have not answered my main question (which has been worded several different ways now!) or made even the slightest attempt to address it:
Do the reasons for the circumstances of a prospective parent negate or remove their obligations to their children in any way?
Since this discussion is evidently over, I'll answer it- No, the reasons do not negate parental responsibility. As such, regardless of the reasons for the parents circumstances, it is immoral to intentionally bring a child into the world under said circumstances. As such, back to the original tangient, it would be immoral to provide artificial insemination services for a single woman OR a couple living in true poverty. (True poverty as in a state of privation and lacking necessities, not poverty insofar as a government-defined poverty line is concerned). Reproduction has not been an inalienable right for as long as we've had laws and accompanying penalties regarding the treatment of ones children.
Again though, artificial insemination isn't cheap, so it seems unlikely that someone who would be unable to afford raising the child would be able to afford it in the first place. That goes for single mothers, couples, anyone.
I have absolutely no idea what point you are trying to make. I never disputed that. I contended that the OP expressed a prejudice against single parents in the manner in which they phrased their argument. I then indicated that poverty is generally a poor standard for determining the acceptability of reproduction. We were both challenging fallacious assumptions made by the OP; neither my points nor yours negate that of the other.
There are many reasons why it could be perceived to be so. One of the leading opinions is the view of the Roman Catholic Church, who see that it as an unnatural practice
Understood. I guess I just don't understand that perspective. If something unnatural is somehow immoral, those people wouldn't be able to point it out online. They should also turn in their cars, toss out some of their wardrobe, never fly on a plane, never talk on a phone. They should also consider our current life expectancy immoral, and anyone much older than 50 to be an abomination.
How would this be considered immoral? Both parties are consenting to this exchange. He's giving up a small portion of his dna, that otherwise would have been useless and probably would have died if it had not been given for artificial insemination.
How would it be immoral? It is not wronging anybody, nor does it have a negative effect (assuming the process and legal procedures are done correctly and the motives are decent).
Artificial insemination by donor does not inherently preclude that knowledge. There are anonymous donors, but not all of them are and that anonymity would be a factor for the parent(s) to consider in their decision making process on which artificial insemination program to use.
Presumably, by natural extension of your argument, you find it immoral under any circumstances should a child not know the identities of both of their parents. Therefore, you would find closed adoptions and non-disclosed adoption immoral. You would also find it immoral for parents to raise children in single or multi-parent households where the child did not know their other parent, for whatever reason. If this is true then your argument at least does not suffer from logical inconsistency. That being true, however, your real objection has less to do with artificial insemination and more to do with lack of transparency with respect to personal biological lineage. That you conflate this with opposition against artificial insemination indicates either a lack of awareness of the process, or an underlying prejudice against the practice.
I do find any situation where the child does not know his or her anscestery to be wrong, including adoption. You made a very valid point. If the donor's name at least would be known to the child, I might think differently.
That is all very good and well. Out of curiosity, why do you find it wrong that a child not know their ancestry? I suspect I may know the answer but would prefer to hear it from you rather than make presumptions on your behalf.
The most important reason is that in my view a sense of identity is important. I knew my father and I still have had trouble finding me, now imagine if I did not. I like to try and put myself in other people's shoes. Another reason is practicality. It is practical to know for medical reasons. My final point: if a woman is so bad off that she needs safe haven laws: I support her. If I had been pregnant by m y rapist, I would have used safe haven laws, but as a last resort only.
I appreciate the clarification. I agree with respect to medical practicality, and while I thinking knowing ones biological parents can be important in identity formation I do not think it is integral enough to constitute an actual right to know. Your qualification I also agree with.
