(LifeSiteNews) — A new study claims to find that children born to “gay fathers” who acquired them through surrogacy are not harmed – and further incredulously claims that those kids are better off than children born to heterosexual parents.
The authors claim their study “refute[s] concerns about possible detrimental effects on child development of surrogacy conception or of being raised by gay fathers.”
The researchers, from the United States, Belgium, and Italy, had a goal with their study – they “hoped to produce evidence that might dispel prejudice and discrimination against gay fathers via surrogacy among social policymakers, as well as to provide useful, empirically-based insights for clinicians interacting with gay father families.”
They also wrote that “research on gay fathers via surrogacy is urgently needed to enlighten stakeholders creating legislation and regulation that negatively affect these families.”
But no study that purports to find benefits to children being raised without a mom could overcome the issue of morality – a child has a natural right to be raised in a home with his mother and father.
A study also cannot overcome the moral problems with surrogacy, which include onanism, adultery, and the destruction of human life that necessarily comes from the lab creation of extra embryos.
Additionally, the study is too small and flawed in its design to provide any meaningful insights into the supposed benefits of so-called homosexual “fathers.”
Researchers recruited homosexual men through LGBT groups and at fertility clinics. But the researchers made an important exclusion that likely affected their results – the homosexual man filling out the survey had to be in “relationship with the partner or spouse with whom he had originally planned to coparent.” In other words, they excluded homosexual relationships with greater volatility of partners, which would add further instability for the child.
Homosexual respondents to the study were also wealthier and had higher education levels, meaning they could have hired outside help, likely a female nanny, to assist with caring for the children. This could mitigate, but not eliminate, the long-term effects of their decision to raise children without a mother.
Despite the small sample size, the researchers declared that “prohibitions against surrogacy for gay males seem entirely based on prejudice, with no basis in social science research.”
Established social science research further shows kids need a mom and dad
Yet there is plenty of evidence, in addition to common sense, logic, and morality, that would show the problems of homosexual men purchasing kids through surrogacy. For example, sociologist Mark Regnerus conducted a comprehensive study that involved the experiences of adults who were looking back on their childhood, including some who were raised in lesbian or homosexual male households.
“One statistic found children of lesbian mothers are nearly 12 times as likely to say they were sexually touched by a parent or adult as those raised in intact biological families,” LifeSiteNews reported. “Asked if they had ever been raped, 31 percent of those raised by lesbian mothers and 25 percent of children raised by gay fathers answered yes, compared to eight percent of those from intact biological homes.”
Another study from a Catholic University of America researcher and priest found that children raised in heterosexual families do better. His study included 512 children from same-sex households, whereas most studies purporting to find benefits to homosexual “parenting” used sample sizes smaller than 50.
Fr. Paul Sullins stated:
Since same-sex partners cannot, at least at present, conceive a child that is the biological offspring of both partners, in the way that every child conceived by opposite-sex partners is such, it is hard to conceive how same-sex parents could ever replicate the level of benefit for child well-being that is the case in opposite-sex relationships involving two biological parents.
Fr. Sullins also found that “7.4 percent of children raised by opposite-sex parents have emotional issues, while 17.4 percent of kids raised by same-sex parents have similar issues,” as previously reported by LifeSiteNews. “Similarly, 10.2 percent of kids raised by opposite-sex parents have ADHD and other emotional issues, while 19.3 percent of kids raised by same-sex parents have the same issues.”
Common sense can also show that children raised by homosexuals are at a disadvantage. While it may be considered taboo among academia to acknowledge the problems of same-sex partners raising children, it is still acceptable to discuss the different benefits that children receive from their mom and dad – this is an implicit rejection of homosexual “parenting.”
A 2018 study “found that adolescents living with two biological parents reported higher levels of both family belonging and well-being than their counterparts who resided in married stepfamilies or with single parents.”
While the study used data from the 1990s, and as a result could not reasonably compare results to children raised in homosexual households, it still affirms that children do best when raised by their two biological parents.
These differences can become particularly noticeable when children enter their teenage years. Notably, the homosexuals “fathers” study did not involve any parents of teenagers – the age range was one year to 10 years old. Yet, teenage years bring about a specific change in how children relate to their parents, with teenagers gravitating more to their fathers. For example, a 2012 Pennsylvania State University study, spanning seven years, found that “youths who spent more [one-on-one] time with their fathers, on average, had higher general self-worth, and changes in social time with fathers were positively linked to changes in social competence.”
Penn State sociologist Susan McHale, commenting on the study she assisted with, stated, “teens continue to spend time with their parents and that this shared time, especially shared time with fathers, has important implications for adolescents’ psychological and social adjustment.” Even dads telling corny jokes to their kids has a benefit in their development.
For years, liberal feminists claimed that children did not need men in their lives, and that women need men, “like fish need a bicycle.” Now leftists are claiming that actually two men can raise kids just fine. Neither position is true, and no academic research could ever disprove the value of a child being raised by his mother and father.