What we mean to say when we think that
Motherhood
within marriage is
a worthy choice
This article is in part 1 of a symposium on
improving the status of women by 2020,
started by Mercatornet.com. The series is
called “Women’s dignity: the forgotten
agenda.” This article was published
February 25, 2010.
What are we to make of the case of Nadya
Suleman, the California woman who gave
birth to octuplets through IVF? The case has
inspired lots of internet chatter and water
cooler talk. I maintain that insurance and
government funding are the least of the
worries of this case. The case illustrates two
deep problems with our current attitudes
toward artificial reproductive technology
(ART). First, no one has a right to have a
baby. Second, the state should not be in the
business of deliberately separating father
from their children.
No one has a right to a baby. That is because
becoming a parent is something no one can
do alone. It is the ultimate team effort. To
say that a woman is entitled to a baby comes
awfully close to saying that someone is
required to help her have one. But this is
obviously nonsense. No one is required to
help her.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse • 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078
www.jennifer-roback-morse.com • email: drj@jennifer-roback-morse.com • 760/295-9278
©2007 No part of this document may be reproduced or disseminated in any way without the expressed written consent of the
Ruth Institute.
someone has a right to a baby is something
like this: I have the right to try to persuade
someone to cooperate with me in the
physical act necessary to create a baby. I am
not entitled to the cooperation of any one
particular person, or to some generalized
cooperation from society at large. I am only
entitled to try.
If I am successful at getting someone’s
cooperation, the child’s father has as much
entitlement to that child as I do. Both
parents have rights and responsibilities
toward their child. This protects the
legitimate interests of the child in having the
care of both parents, as well as the
legitimate interests of both parents in the
well-being of their child. Those rights,
which flow naturally from the organic
reality of human sexuality, inhere in both
parents.
Even if one agrees with me that no woman
is entitled to the cooperation of any
particular man in impregnating her, one
might still object that my position is
hopelessly old-fashioned and out-of-date.
Technology relieves us of the necessity of
having any kind of personal relationship
with your child’s other parent. We allow
unmarried women access to artificial
reproductive technology, complete with
anonymous sperm donors, on a regular, and
completely unregulated basis. So why are
we now all of a sudden hysterical over a
woman exercising her “free choice” to
implant all the frozen embryos she has on
hand? Any woman is entitled to unlimited
access to the use of artificial reproductive
technology, provided that she can pay for it.
But look at what this position actually
entails. We are permitting women to have
babies without any relationship with their
child’s father. Under normal circumstances,
we think there is something wrong with
parents who don’t cooperate with each other
for the good of their children. In the case of
artificial reproductive technology, we not
only permit it, we enlist the aid of the state
to make it possible. The legal intervention of
the state permits a woman to do something
that could not be possible in the ordinary
course of human life: she can have a baby
without ever having even a single encounter
with her child’s father. The state enables all
the arrangements that make this possible.
The state makes the sperm donor, that is to
say, the child’s father, a “legal stranger” to
the child. The state preserves the anonymity
of the donor, which obviously could not
happen in a normal encounter.
Now children get separated from their
parents all the time. But we usually
recognize this as an unavoidable tragedy,
from which any humane soul would spare
the child if we could. But in the case of
artificial reproductive technology with
anonymous sperm donors, the state is
actively separating a child from his or her
father. The state itself is enabling something
that we ordinarily strive to prevent.
And why is the state acting as the agent of
separating children from parents? Because
the woman wants the state to do so. But her
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse • 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078
www.jennifer-roback-morse.com • email: drj@jennifer-roback-morse.com • 760/295-9278
©2007 No part of this document may be reproduced or disseminated in any way without the expressed written consent of the
Ruth Institute.
desires are not a sufficient reason to violate
so basic a right as the child’s right to
affiliation with both parents.
This is the real tragedy which the Nadya
Suleman case brings to light. It is not that
she made an unconventional decision, in
part using other people’s money, and
counting on financial support from her
parents and the state. The problem is that no
one has a right to have a child, in the way
that anyone with the ability to pay has a
right to buy a house. This use of the
language of the market assumes the very
point that is necessary to prove, and which I
believe can not be proved: namely that a
child is a kind of commodity, to which other
people have rights and entitlements. The
child is not an object of rights, but a person
who has rights of his or her own. The child
is an end in himself or herself.
The violation of rights in this case took
place well before she and her doctor decided
to implant “a lot” of embryos, rather than a
“reasonable” number. The real violation
took place when she decided, with the help
of the state, that she was entitled to the use
of someone else’s genetic material to
achieve her personal reproductive goals.
I am second to none in my admiration for
the market. But not everything should be
treated as if it were a commodity. Children
are not commodities, and neither is someone
else’s genetic material. It is time to rethink
our whole approach to artificial reproductive
technology.
Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D. is an
economist and the Founder and President of
the Ruth Institute, a nonprofit educational
organization devoted to bringing hope and
encouragement for lifelong married love.
She is also the author of Love and
Economics: It Takes a Family to Raise a
Village and Smart Sex: Finding Life-Long
Love in a Hook-Up World.

This article is published by

Jennifer Roback Morse,
and MercatorNet.com
under a Creative Commons license. You
may republish it or translate it free of charge
with attribution for non-commercial
purposes following these guidelines. If you
teach at a university we ask that your
department make a donation. Commercial
media must contact us for permission and
fees. Some articles on this site are published
under different terms.

Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse • 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078
www.jennifer-roback-morse.com • email: drj@jennifer-roback-morse.com • 760/295-9278
©2007 No part of this document may be reproduced or disseminated in any way without the expressed written consent of the
Ruth Institute.