July 23, 1993.

Two professional, Vancouver women who have decided they want to
raise a child together have been denied artificial inseminiation
because they are lesbian.

What do you think of that asked my husband.

It's ridiculous, I answered. If at one point, you're willing to
grant artificial insemination to heterosexual couples who have
little better chance of raising the child together until he
reaches adulthood, why would you deny it to any woman, lesbian or
not? In the heterosexual couple, who, most likely will end up
raising the child if there is an eventual separation?

The real question is, will the child be traumatized because she
or he does not have and has never had a father per say or have we
simply overestimated the role of the couple in our society? More
crudely put, has man been relegated to the position of stud?

Granted, there are some men who enjoy becoming fathers and who
embrace the responsibility of parenthood. But the majority do
not. There are thousands of single mothers who are raising there
children alone with absolutely no support from the children's
fathers. And when legal pressures are applied to get the father
to pay alimony or to share the responsibilities albeit financial
of raising children, there are all kinds of loopholes for the
father. More disgusting yet is that they don't even need
loopholes. Laws enacted by men just aren't put into practice
when it comes to benefiting women. So the guy doesn't pay up.
Big deal. So she raises two boys living from paycheque to
paycheque all her life while her ex has his own business (which
supposedly has never made any money), yet he always has money
enough when it comes to courting other women.

Is knowing your procreator something innate, or is it just a
cultural trait? Perhaps we've put too much importance on the
idea of the the family the way we've always perceived it: mother,
father and children and that is why children feel the important
need to know their procreators. I'm not sure. What I do know is
that a parent should provide for his children to the best of his
abilities. Children should not be made to carry the burden of
whether men and women procreate responsibly or not. Responsible
procreation would be ideal but men and women are passionate
beings and their passions often result in unwanted children who
will more or less be cared for.

We've decided to enter the era of artificial insemination, of
test tube babies and surrogate mothers. We can't turn back the
clock now. The technology exists, people want children and they
will find a way to have them whether they have to beg, borrow or
steal. We have to stop leurrer ourselves, lying to
ourselves and making decisions like "lesbians can't have babies"
because of our fear and inability to cold bloodedly look at the
evolution or desintegration of the family, call it what you want.
Men and women are finally admitting they have different needs.
Now, we need the courage to build a society which reflects those
needs and especially the needs of the children. We have to know
what we are going to answer to people born of artificial
insemination who twenty or thirty years down the road have
children and go through identity crises.

It's no longer time for judgement calls. We can no longer say
the family with a mother and a father under the same roof is the
ideal family. In any case, was it ever true? Truth is, families
are more diverse than they have ever been, at least out in the
open and instead of yearning for the "good old days" that never
were, we have to make provisions for the new days and children to
come.

If


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