Selfish love

Reactions to Katy Faust on Maiden Mother Matriarch

AI image (not a real baby)

Katy Faust appeared on Maiden Mother Matriarch last week, and I found it so troubling that I decided to respond at length.

Faust runs Them Before Us, an organization claiming to “put children first” by opposing any deviation from traditional family structure. Children are harmed by surrogacy, sperm donation, IVF, divorce, gay parents, step parents, single parents, and childcare. Needless to say, she wouldn’t approve of me, a lesbian with a wife and donor-conceived son (conceived with a known donor who is part of our lives).

Her supporters might say, “Aha, you’re upset because Faust made you face uncomfortable truths about your choices.” But a few weeks ago, Jennifer Lahl made the exact same argument on MMM—she’s against lesbians using donor sperm because it deprives children of a father—and while I disagreed, I had no problem with the episode. I even wrote a post reflecting on the ethics of lesbians having babies.

The difference is Jennifer Lahl came across as someone who opposes third party reproduction simply because it breaks biological bonds, and not because she condemns the people who might be tempted to use it. In contrast, Faust talks about lesbians in a way that made my skin crawl.

She cites her lesbian mother as evidence that she isn’t homophobic, but her anger over her parents’ divorce clearly shapes her view of homosexuality. She says gay parents are more likely to be abusive¹ and cherry-picks statistics and examples to say their children suffer (omitting every study showing good outcomes, of which there are many). Near the end of the episode, Faust mentions in passing that she councils members of her church who experience “same-sex attraction.” 😒 I looked it up, and sure enough, her church opposes sex outside of heterosexual marriage. This is not someone who simply believes children deserve a father. Faust’s objections to lesbian parents run deeper, to the point where she believes women who use donor sperm are so terrible, kids are better off when they’re adopted by two unrelated adults.

Donor conception vs. adoption

Faust presents adoption (good, heroic) as the opposite of donor conception (evil, selfish) in every way. An excerpt from her website:

When it comes to the rights of children, adoption protects, donor conception violates.

Adoptive parents didn’t create a child’s wound, but are seeking to mend it. Thus they are better positioned to support their adoptive child through grief and loss. Donor-conceived children are being raised by adults who inflicted their wound and are thus more likely to feel alone in their grief.

Adoption exists to provide parents to an existing orphan, donor conception intentionally creates a biological orphan.

In adoption, adults fill a void for the children. In third-party reproduction, the children fill a void for the adults.

Adoption serves the needs of children, donor conception caters to the wants of adults.

These claims would be baffling to the large community of adult adoptees who oppose the adoption industry. If you lurk in adoptee forums, you will read about adoptive parents hiding the truth; closing “open” adoptions because they feel threatened by birth parents’ involvement; refusing to discuss adoption as anything but positive; and raising transracial adoptees with little connection to their culture. Many birth mothers say they felt coerced to surrender their infants—they could have kept their children if they’d had more money. Meanwhile, a rich couple paid $50k to adopt the baby.²

Of course, there are many wonderful adoptive parents, but adoption is inherently traumatic, and it’s common for adult adoptees to say their interests were not prioritized, to put it mildly. To say kids do better in adoptive homes indicates a very low opinion of the single women and lesbians who raise their own biological children.

As evidence, Faust cites a study called “My Daddy’s Name is Donor” which surveyed donor-conceived adults and compared them with adopted adults. The authors did not ask how adoptees feel about adoption, so the two groups can only be compared on a few outcomes. Unfortunately, these groups are very different, and few controls are used.

All of the adoptees in the study were adopted as infants. This usually means the adoptive parents had money (adopting an infant is notoriously expensive!). More importantly, in domestic adoption, birth mothers select the adoptive parents from a pool of hopeful couples. Imagine the characteristics that appeal to a birth mother: financial security, a stable marriage, good character, a support system, etc. The adult adoptees in the study were raised by people who passed a very high bar.

Meanwhile, the donor-conceived sample includes many children of single mothers (27% of the sample). Donor-conceived individuals were significantly more likely to experience family transitions, such as a new step-parent or divorce.

To their credit, the authors acknowledge these differences, but only a few demographics (age, race, family income, and mother’s education) show up as controls, and in only a couple of charts. Most statistics are reported without any controls at all (including the statistics Faust posted on her website).

Even with omitted variable bias, donor-conceived adults report better outcomes on some of the questions (Faust doesn’t include these). But leaving aside the flawed comparison with adoptees, the opinions of donor-conceived adults are interesting and valuable—and often counter to the narrative Faust presents.

For example, 76% agree or strongly agree “Artificial reproductive technologies are good for children because the children are wanted” (p. 83). Seventy-three percent agree or strongly agree “Our society should encourage people to donate their sperm or eggs to other people who want them” (p. 83).

When asked whether they favor or oppose donor conception, only 7% oppose (p. 99), which I found shocking considering the framing of the study—and the fact that 41% weren’t initially told they were donor-conceived.

Of course, there are negative feelings too. For example, 44% agree “It is wrong to deliberately conceive a fatherless child” (p. 85), and 45% agree “The circumstances of my conception bother me.” (p. 88) A significant percentage of donor-conceived adults report feeling sad and confused about their origins, and these findings are an important piece of the overall picture.

I don’t want to throw out the entire study. But it’s irresponsible to say it proves donor-conception causes more harm than adoption.

Faust’s exultation of adoptive parents reminded me of the long Christian tradition of adopting children to save them from their morally inferior parents. The self-sacrificing adults who take on this burden are, apparently, better for children than the biological mother who desperately wanted the child.

So biology matters, and biological parents are essential—except when you’re a mother who used donor conception, in which case your child is worse off than children who lost both parents.

What if we do everything right?

Near the end of the episode, Perry asks Faust about her lesbian friends who plan to conceive with a known donor, a gay man who will be part of the child’s life.

Faust acknowledges it’s better than anonymous donation, but she still disapproves. “Kids don’t need a weekend dad. We have a lot of experience with kids who only see their dad on the weekends, or once a month, or twice a month, and that is not what kids need.”

Incidentally, my own biological father traveled for work Monday through Friday for my entire childhood. But the “experience” Faust means is divorce—obviously not a comparable situation.

Still, I can agree with Faust that the scenario isn’t perfect, just as my own family isn’t perfect. My son seems to be thriving, but his conception will most likely cause him to struggle at some point, to some degree. He has access to his donor, but it’s not the same.

This brings me back to the question of whether the wound is so profound and enduring, it’s unethical to give birth outside of a traditional family. This is a philosophical question with no “right” answer³, but for me the answer will come from my son. Will he wish he had never been born? It’s hard to imagine, but he is only six, so I can’t draw conclusions.

Selfish gays

When contemplating lesbian parenting, it’s hard not to resent the judgment, considering straight people conceive in sub-optimal circumstances all the time. Critics point to intentions—sure, countless people accidentally have babies outside of heterosexual marriage, or with unreliable men who leave, but you meant to do it. The result is the same, but lesbians attract another level of vitriol.

Sometimes it seems like the real difference is we’re happy with the outcome. Nobody abandoned us. We aren’t struggling to make it work. We have stable, financially secure homes with two parents who are delighted to raise the baby. An unplanned pregnancy comes with its own punishments (stress! financial hardship!)—but our choices don’t cause us pain, so we need others to remind us that we’re selfish and bad.

Faust would say it’s the child who suffers, and his deprivation outweighs the good. But I have to believe there are worse things than growing up with two people who wanted you, badly, and love being parents. Even on the hardest days, there is nothing we’d rather be doing. If self-sacrifice makes a model parent, we fail in more ways than one.

1. To be fair, Faust says any non-related parent is more likely to be abusive. However, the majority of step-parents arrive under different circumstances than lesbians conceiving a child together (which is increasingly more common, unlike Faust’s situation where parents divorced, and then her mother partnered with a woman—another factor that needs to be considered especially when looking at older studies of same-sex parenting).

2. Some adoptive parents provide homes to older children through foster care. However, all of Faust’s statistics refer to infant adoption, for obvious reasons (much better outcomes).

3. Anti-natalists argue it’s unethical to ever have a baby, because all life involves suffering, and babies can’t consent to being born.