A child psychologist has engineered her own IVF single-parent family after coming to the controversial conclusion that her children “did not need to know, or have, a real father”.
Dr Luan Ferguson gave birth to three boys, Ethan, Finlay and Charlie, after conceiving after a £30,000 combination of IVF and artificial donation via vials of sperm from a sperm donor in America.
‘Shocking decision’
“Some might say intentionally depriving children of the love and influence of a real life ‘daddy’ makes me callous. Am I a selfish mother? I suppose in some ways I have made a shocking decision,” said the single mother of three.
She went on to say: “So what made me decide to bring three children into the world this way? Would they suffer from having no male role model? No man to kick a football about with, read them stories, or tuck them into bed at night?
“No I had decided. They would not.”
Children need a father
But Josephine Quintavalle of Comment on Reproductive Ethics highlighted that when the first IVF babies were created, a license for the procedure could only be granted on the condition that the child would have a mother and a father, and that the couple were in a stable relationship.
“The child’s need for a father was very much a pre-requisite for granting such a licence.”
She added: “How quickly such obvious natural wisdom has been re-written in the name of political correctness. In the revised Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008, it was established that the child’s need for a father could be substituted by the phrase ‘supportive parenting’. The traditional role of ‘father’ could be fulfilled by family or friends.
“Not that the concept of motherhood has not suffered as well under the new interpretation of the family, with many male couples using egg donors and surrogate wombs in order to bypass the role of the natural mother.”
Discrimination
She concluded: “This sad situation is happening all too frequently and within the law, but we should nevertheless protest very loudly at what is an act of positive discrimination against men and the precious role of fatherhood."
Source: