(10)Gay Reproduction: The Gay Battle for Social Reorganization of America

Reshaping the Superstructure

Marxism became politically correct in American universities in the 1960's. The universities became radicalized. Religious faith and traditions were questioned and dismissed as authority for modern society. Marx contended that the framework of society was not determined by spiritual absolutes, but was rather determined by material conditions. The material conditions available through technology, identified by Marx as the infrastructure, were the determining factors responsible for shaping social relationships, identified by Marx as the superstructure. The superstructure of politics, family, religion, and education, were to be reshaped progressively to change in support of the prevailing conditions of technology and material means of production.

Marx summarized his theory of historical materialism. "The mode of production in material life determines the general character of the social, political and spiritual processes of life...At a certain stage of their development, the material forces of production in society come into conflict with the existing relations of production...Then comes the period of social revolution. With the change of the economic foundation, the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed." 1.

Reproductive Technologies Challenge the Traditional Family

The developing science of reproductive technology presented many questions about the future of social, ethical, and family practices that drastically and dramatically changed the moral and relationship variables of human life. At the beginning of the 20th Century a small band of doctors began to experiment with artificial insemination. In the 1920's Margaret Sanger, concerned about eugenics and planned reproduction, organized what was to become the Planned Parenthood Federation. The Great Depression and the World Wars slowed down movements for social change.

When the pill was introduced in 1960, times had changed. Universities increased their advancement into the science of reproduction. Medical students were able to make cash by donating sperm for $50 a pop. The commercialization of reproduction developed when the first for-profit sperm bank opened its doors in Minnesota in 1970.

In 1979 fewer than 10% of infertility doctors would provide sperm to single women. In 1982 the Sperm Bank of California was created to provide sperm to unmarried and heterosexual singles and lesbian women. The sperm, delivered to their door in a liquid nitrogen tank, could be taken to their doctor for insertion, or they could do it themselves with a turkey baster. 2.

Egg donation became commercialized in 1984. Egg donation and surrogacy offered the possibility for a man to create a family. In the 1990's homosexual couples began to use surrogacy in what was labeled a "gayby" boom when a West Los Angeles company, Growing Generations began helping gay men become fathers. 3

The bottom line of business is "Expand the market." In the summer of 2004, R Family Vacations became the first travel company dedicated to the gay family market. They organized a family-friendly cruise which included seminars on surrogacy, adoption and artificial insemination for would be parents.4.

Buying egg and sperm became a spectator sport. Catalogs and Web sites became baby brokerage firms with donors' self descriptions of their interests and abilities, their IQ's, and pictures. Buyers could design a baby by selecting an egg and sperm and have it created by in vitro fertilization. The process was not inexpensive. A surrogacy may run from $10,000 to $30,000.5. Fertility doctors charge between $6,000 to $14,000 a cycle for in vitro fertilization and it takes an average of three cycles before conceiving. 6.

Gay couples stepped up to the opportunity to create a child. In 1988 a newspaper article reported 1,000 surrogacy births in the ten years prior, although 2,000 was considered more accurate a number by some experts. 7.

Rights in Conflict 8.

Gay activists want society to adopt a flexible definition of the right to marry and form a family. They embrace the idea that "Adults have the right to marry the person they choose and form the families they choose." Michael Ignatieff, a human rights scholar, endorses the "rights revolution in private life" as simply an outgrowth of the idea of equality and freedom.

David Blankenhorn, a family scholar and founder of the Institute of American Values contends that changing marriage radically changes parenthood. He argues that in community the rights of one group often exist in tension with the rights of others. and the 'right to form the family I choose' bumps up against the rights of children. In 1989 the U.N. Convention on The Rights of the Child , stated, "The child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the rights to acquire a nationality, and, as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents."

The U.N. declaration supports the rights of a child to know the mother and father who created him or her. Divorce and unwed childbearing revolutions have created a situation where more and more children are not cared for by their own two natural parents. Because same-sex bonding cannot produce children naturally, reliance on reproductive technologies will increasingly create a situation where children do not even know who their natural parents are. The child's right to a natural biological heritage is denied to him or her.

Blankenhorn argues, "For those who ask 'Where's the harm?' regarding same-sex marriage, here is the inescapable fact:Changing marriage changes parenthood, and changing parenthood in ways that permit and even encourage adults to wipe out the double origin of some children is a threat to all children...When Canada, by way of implementing same-sex marriage, erased the concept of natural parent from basic Canadian law, there was no asterisk saying 'for gay and lesbian couples only'. The idea of the natural parent got wiped out in law for every child and every couple in Canada." The tern 'natural parent' was removed from Canadian law and replaced with the term 'legal parent'.




REFERENCES
1. Aron, Raymond. Main Currents in Sociological Thought. Garden City, NY:Anchor Books.1968:155.
2. Andrews, Lori. The Clone Age: Adventures in the New World of Reproductive Technology. NY:An Owl Bookl/Henry Holt & Co. 1999:87.
3. Ibid:95,120-121.
4. Bly,Laura. "A gay new time:Family cruises, vacations." USA Today. Friday, July 9, 2004:D1.
5. Andrews: 1996:103.
6. Spar, Debora L. The Baby Business: How Money, Science, and Politics DRive the Commerce of Conception. Boston,MA:Harvard Business School Press. 2006:53.
7. The Gay Almanac. Compiled by the National Museum & Archive of Lesbian and Gay History. New York: Berkley Books. 1996:233.
8. Blankenhorn, David. The Future of Marriage. New York: Encounter Books. 2007:183-199.