WOMAN'S VIEWPOINT

Has woman right to

bear child by A.D?

AS if there: aren’t enough

troubles in the’ world,
Britons are in a dither over
the “sin” of artificial insem-
ination.

This process of receiving the
semen of a male in the, lab-
oratory and injecting it into
the female, has been in use
for some years now. It has
enabled many couples to have
children who otherwise could
not, because of the busband’s
sterility,

Many single, self-supporting
women who want a full life
have made use of artificial in-
semination so that they may
have a child of their own.

The male donor is almost
always anonymous and is not
even seen by the woman.
There is nothing in the least
improper or indecorous about
it.

But now there is a great
furore in Britain over this
simple act. A lot of highly
emotional speeches are being
made and the question may
€ven come up in parliament in
the form, of revising the

_ divorce laws so that artificial
insemination without the con-
sent of the husband would
legally become adultery.

5s x 5

In considering this prob-
lem, one surprising fact im-
mediately comes to mind: the
woman who has a baby out of
wedlock (but by a man in
the. normal way) is not
blamed nearly so much as the
woman who obtains a child by
artificial insemination.

What is the root of this
attituude? Is it the subcon-
scious fear of men that the
time may come when the male
may no longer be indispen-
sable to the propagation of
the race?

This is not so fantastic as it
seems. Some primitive forms
of life consist of females only.
‘Some, like the silkworm moth,
can be caused to breed with-
out males. It has even been
claimed that virgin rabbits
have been made to produce
young.

Such a thing is un-Christian,
pagan, say church leaders. On
the contrary: the producing
of life under laboratory con-
ditions is one of the greatest
miracles of all, and ought
only to increase the faith of
the truly religious.

“Human beings are not
cattle, to be bred by test

tube,” one “Catholic social
worker is quoted as Says. “A
child who never
father and never
father’s care faces
tragedy.”

knows its
has its
hideous

This completely misses the
point. The fact is that only a
woman who wants a child
very much will seek out this
unconventional way of obtain-
ing one. :

These babies are not “bred’’
for scientific experiments;
they are deliberately sought
for by women who probably
make fine mothers because
they went to some trouble to
achieve motherhood.

xt os og

The issue is this: every
woman has a right to bear
children and a right not to
bear them, and one right is
as important as the other.

Since the Second World
War, the proportion of
females to males is far -out of
balance in many countries.
Many girls now in their twen-
ties and thirties will never
marry, simply because there
are not enough men to go
around.

Many of these would make
much better mothers than the
wives who flounder into
motherhood through careless
ness or ignorance.

. Is a woman to be doomed to
childlessness because no man
has given her his name? oH

I can readily understand
how a_ self-respecting un-
married woman would prefer
the impersonal impregnation
at the doctor’s to the more
traditional casual affair with
a man.

Artifical insemination is not
going to replace human love.
It will probably never account
for more than a very small

‘proportion of births.

But it has a definite place
among the discoveries that
have brought happiness into
the world. It should not be
legislated into illegality.

These “test tube” babies are
not frauds, as the Archbishop
of Canterbury implied. They
are as real human beings as
any others.

In the name of compassion
and rationality, let’s give them
and their mothers the privacy
we all want for ourselves.

may ruin ancient

H’S a married woman the

right to conceive and bear
a child by artificial insemin-
ation or is she guilty of adul-
tery?

This is the question which
has been under debate in the
House of Lords, many of
whose members are agitated
by the thought of what such
scientific grafting might do
to their family tress,

“Are we to understand you
to say that a peerage ought to
descend by A.I.D. (artificial
insemination), if the question
arose?” Viscount Samuel ask-
ed Lord Chorley after that
Labor peer had suggested

Short short
story

_ AMY CLARKE. —

“c
Labor mustn’t be greedy!”

Lords fear scientific grafting

that the interest
munity could
by treating te
“as legitimate
mothers and

re
it descendeg in t

S of the com-
best be served
st-tube children
offspring of the
husbands,”

Ways it has
descended in the’ past,” re-
torted Lord Chorley,

Significantly, a
ruling handed down b
Wheatley in Scottish
Session has perturbed some of
Britain’s beers far more than
Scientists’ warnings about the
higher incidence of defective
births causeq by increased

radiation from continued H-
tests,

divorce
y Lord
Court of

Lord Wheatley ruled that a
woman who gave birth to a
child conceiveg by artificial
insemination Without her hus-
band’s consent had not com-
mitted adultery.

Lord Blackford argued that
the Scottish court was con-
cerned only with the “age-old

conception of sexual inter-
course.”
If artificial insemination

was not fecundation from out-
side, what was it? In h

his opin-
ion it was tantamount to
adultery.

The Archbishop of York
said he did not think artificial

3

family tree

“morally, it did

. of a third is as contrat

be
insemination shoud

fined as adultery 4?

criminal offense a
not h ?

ex’
the features of adult ft

was concerned prince gy
resisting. the ide@ ith
should be brought vit
terms of decent ful i i
the marriage contra

j

+

“The intrusion of } |
§

proper meaning of ‘at
riage bond as is the ™ 4)
of the illicit affair OF
a third,” he asserted: :

“The march of & ¢
against the weight ?
expressed today and of
opinion is against the Pip
to try to put down *, 3
one way or anothel
Lord Chorley.

“In the view of veld y
enlightened, forward" 7
sincere people, A.I.D. @ gy
tremendous amount 1”
suffering, misery 42°,
tration among a Sie oy
not unimportant nu”
people.” : : 7

Concluding the deba®, Q
lord chancellor ann? U)
that the government a
appoint a small comm
conduct an inquiry 2%
down recommendation

It is estimated th@!
are some 5,000 test

dren in Britain.