Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ

Moral panic was rife in Britain’s press this week, following reports
that a woman who had never had sexual intercourse was seeking to become
pregnant through artificial insemination via donor sperm. The notion of
such ‘virgin births’, trumpeted the Daily Mail, ‘strike at the very heart
of family life’.

There are really two issues at stake. The first is a political question:
who should decide which women are deemed ‘suitable’ mothers? The second
is more complex: are the technologies of ‘assisted conception’ altering
our notions of human reproduction in unforeseen, and undesirable, ways?

Conservative thinkers offer instant replies to both. Mothers should
always be wives, preferably with wealthy husbands to safeguard both the
social and material welfare of the child. Technological interventions into
reproduction are tolerated in so far as they help to create more traditional
‘families’. Hence the outcry about single women, lesbians or, now, virgins
seeking to become mothers.

But many people of different political persuasions have misgivings about
what the new reproductive technologies may bring. Even scientists and doctors
may have qualms. And no one has a monopoly on how to ‘engineer’ happy children.

It is more helpful to look at the findings of social research designed
to discover what people think and how they behave. For instance, a host
of studies have shown that it is impossible to predict with any degree of
certainty who will be ‘good’ parents. Moreover, a recent study by the psychologist
Susan Golombok at London’s City University failed to find any difference
in the quality of parenting children brought up in heterosexual families
or in lesbian households.

Decisions about who is a suitable case for treatment in assisted conception
units should not be seen merely as a matter of ‘clinical judgment’. But
we lack an adequate public forum for the debate of these issues, although
the Nuffield Foundation’s proposed ‘bioethics council’ is a step in the
right direction. In the meantime, the growing weight given to local ethical
committees linked to hospitals and clinics, in tandem with the expert counselling
of women and couples seeking assisted conception, are also welcome signs.
Somehow, there must be life beyond the latest screeching headline: ‘Outlaw
Virgin Births Say MPs’.