Friday, July 11, 2008

Forget the father, forget the mother

Forget the terms "mother" and "father". It does not seem to make any sense to me anymore. After the recent event that has taken place in the US, I am very confused about the definition of father and mother. I have a few questions that I would like you to answer before I go ahead with this topic:
1. Does giving birth to a baby make a person a mother?
2. Does providing the egg for making the baby constitute making the mother?
3. Has the mother always have to be a female?

In the most conservative answers, yes will hold good for all these questions. But think a little more liberally. Answer1: No. Haven't you heard of surrogate mothers? The egg donor is called the mother. Ans2: yes, a biological mother. But no, in case of adoptions.
Ans3: Now I am really confused about the meaning of the mother in the first place. So I will say cant say. I will explain this part. In the most reccent event, a father has given birth to a child. The story is as follows: There was this girl born 35 years ago and around ten years ago got her sex changed by surgically removing her mammary glands and taking testosterone, but retained her original reproductive organs. Then the state of Oregon in US pronounced that the person was man enough to be called a man(now this is legal). So she is now a he. He marries a woman. But the woman has had hysterectomy( a surgery where the uterus is removed) and cannot bear a child. So he stops his testosterone doses, orders a donor sperm, gets artificial insemination done, and he reproduces naturally(remember he still has the female reproductive organs). So he(legally a man) bears a child. 

So now I am really confused about the role of a person as a mother? What is the one critical condition that makes a person a mother? Looking by the way things are going, gays and lesbians wanting to adopt and raise children and also use donor eggs/sperms to have kids of their own, the definition of father and mother is going to be very blur and fuzzy. Interestingly, I have a solution to this :) Forget the terms father and mother. Call them parents. Primary parent and secondary parent. (Just like in a joint bank account). If the parents have two kids, one could be the primary parent for one and the secondary for another and alternatively for the second kid. This generalisation will bring all kinds of parents to the same level(Gay parents, Normal heterosexual parents, Lesbian parents, Single dad parent, Single mom parent and guardians for kids without parents). All will anyway be taking on the role of a human being who wishes well for the kid and wants the kids to succeed. So we can put an end to stopping the discrimination based on gender and then even the sexual minorities(cross dressers, transvestites, gays, lesbians and people with genetic defects where they may have the sex chromosomes of XXY and very rarely XXXY) will benefit and everyone should be treated as equal human beings. Oh! And by the way haven't you heard "Research is on to make a sperm in the lab just from a woman"? Science keeps getting interesting. :-) If you know or think you know the answer to this question, please comment :"What is the one critical condition that makes a person a mother?"

Update 26 Sep 2012:
After 4 years of proposing my above idea, France is set to ban words 'mother' and 'father' on official documents under plans to legalize gay marriage.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/09/25/france-set-to-ban-words-mother-and-father-under-plans-to-legalize-gay-marriage/

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