Legitimacy of Adoptive/Infertile Parents

In a now-closed thread, Rosie Cotton writes about infertile parents: Clearly, Rosie doesn't believe that adoptive parents, or parents that overcome infertility via egg/sperm donation or surrogate wombs, are "real" parents.It's a big board, so we've almost certainly got members who are themselves adopted, or are adoptive parents, or have employed these strategies to overcome the infertility of one or both partners.How do you feel, then, that Rosie has so sweepingly delegitimized you as a parent? How do you feel about the fact that, no matter how much you love your children, no matter how much work and sacrifice went into their rearing, in the eyes of people like Rosie, none of it matters?Who are the parents, Rosie? I'd say they're the ones that raise the child, love the child, nurture the child, work in the child's best interest. Trivialities about sperm/egg are simply irrelevant to the status of people as parents. Your post displays an amazingly callous attitude to families every bit as legitimate and loving as yours.Not "their children", indeed.

Not necessarily. She is being somewhat consistant, which amazing if you consider what others have said before her.During the Vietnam war, my aunt fell in love with an American soldier. During the end of the so-called Nixon's Vietnamization, it was chaos as American soldiers tried to evacuate out of the country while the North Vietnamese soldiers were marching into the capital (my dad was one of the last to surrender). On their way out from the American embassy to the plane, they saw a parentless little girl so they just took her with them and called her their own.That was 1975. My aunt was infertile, so she never had biological children with her husband. After 29 years, they are still together and the little girl, who is all grown up now, is still their daughter.What's the lesson of the story? Having your own biological children ain't the point of life. Just because you're infertile doesn't mean you have to be childless. And certainly, just because your parents died because of bombs and speeding bullets doesn't mean you have to stay parentless for life!

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Hate world.Revenge soon!

I think her knee-jerk intent was to strictly discredit homosexuals in some mis-guided way, and she did not think seriously beyond homosexuals. I could be giving her alot of rope, but until she hangs herself we won't know.Nothing is ever 100%, but I would hazard most adoptive parents have given serious thought and made serious preparation for that child. No "oops", no "hmm, what my failing marriage really needs is a child", or worse.....so, let's hope this wasn't a blanket trivialization of adoptive parents.

One of my sons and his wife just returned from China with a 13 month old baby girl. What gauls me is that it took 18 grand to get this child from the doorstep from where it was left by someone to my son's house in America as their legal child now. Legally it's their child and though never quite like having their own, it makes them happy and gives the unwanted child a far better life than most Chinese have. Imo, it's a silly argument as to whether they're to be considered the parents of the child. Everyone knows at a glance they're not the biological parents, but the child considers them as such and I guess that's really what matters.

My daughter was adopted. So I guess I qualify as both infertile parents and adoptive parent.But is there really a point to this thread?RC has her opinions. They're heavily biased by her upbringing, but she's still very, very young. Maybe as she grows up, if she's allowed to examine other viewpoints she'll change.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Well, that was kind of my point - to highlight how techniques that would never stigmatize hetero couples who have problems bearing children are used by Rosie to delegitamize homosexual parents.It's a double standard.

Yep, I agree.....**Anecdotal side note: Discussing this subject always reminds me of when I was a kid trying to see how deep into the water I could wade and still walk upstream against the current.

For the record, I do not get irritated at people's opinion, as have been thought by many. I do get irritated by the reasonings behind the opinion.As I stated before, I don't give a flying squirrel if you believe in invisible pink unicorns. What I do get irritated at is when people say things like "there are pictures of invisible pink unicorns" and "invisible pink unicorns are genetically superior to horses..."This is why I got so irritated at RC. She suddenly became a geneticist and made a completely ignorant remark about it. Then, she suddenly became a historian. Then, she suddenly became a physicist (not in the marriage thread). Then, she suddenly became a theologian. Then, she suddenly became a biologist. In all those cases, she tried to discredit *real* scientists by making nothing but straw man remarks. She didn't even want to go in depth with what she said. Those remarks were little better than "creation rules, evolution sux..."I would have been fine with her if she hadn't come up with her own fantasized facts and just stuck with her own opinion.Added by edit.By the way, I don't recall making up my own facts as I go along when I was younger. I kept my mouth shut when we talked about things which, although I had opinions on, I knew little facts about. RC could really use some of that humility.This message has been edited by Lam, 12-07-2004 02:05 AM

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Hate world.Revenge soon!