| When Canadian proponents of same-sex “marriage,” and their complacent allies in media and politics, said after the defeat of the December vote to revisit the same-sex “marriage” issue that it was time to “move on,” who knew what Canada was moving on to. On Jan. 2, the Ontario Court of Appeal created a new public policy issue when it recognized the legal status of three parents for a 5-year-old London, Ont. boy living with a lesbian couple.
The unnamed boy had both his biological, sperm-donor father and biological mother listed on his birth certificate, but the mother’s “partner” was not. The lesbian couple are the full-time guardians of the boy, but the father visits his son twice a week. All three “parents” were united in the court action to have the non-biological mother listed on the birth certificate. This precedent-setting decision will make it easier for non-biological custodians to travel abroad, make medical decisions and assume other responsibilities when biological parents pass away. But all these make the life of the adults simpler. And the precedent may be used – and almost will certainly be invoked – in future cases to permit multiple parents of four or more and, quite likely, polygamy. For if children can have multiple parents, why can’t a man or a woman have mutliple spouses? Parenting by committee is no way to raise a child. Studies have conclusively proven that children do best when raised in a stable, two-parent (mother and father) married household. Children need to form secure attachments to both a male and female role model. While tragedies occur – unintended single parenthood, death and divorce are realities families must deal with – public policy and the law should never actively encourage deviation from this ideal norm. Children need to form secure attachments to parents and that is less likely to happen when children have numerous identifiable parents involved in their lives.
The decision opens a Pandora’s Box of new custody lawsuits. With multiple parents come multiple interests and competing claims by adults over the child or children. Once again, the whims and wishes of adults have trumped the rights of children. Whether it is same-sex “marriage,” where homosexual couples seek the validation of the state with total disregard of the effect of their relationships on children or this latest case of mutliple parents legally recognized and responsible for their biological and custodial child, the courts have consistently sided with the rights claims of adults over the legitimate rights of children. This turns the history of North American jurispedence – which has traditionally sought to protect society’s most vulnerable (especially privileging children over adults when the rights claims of each clashed) – on its head. But this is hardly surprising. Since divorce was legalized in 1968, then contraception and abortion in 1969, and through a myriad of other judicial decisions, such as Winnipeg Child and Family Services (Northwest Area) v. D.F.G. (the Winnipeg glue-sniffing case) and Dobson v. Dobson (a New Brunswick case in which a disabled child sued the mother for injuries incurred during pregnancy), the rights of children have been systemically neglected, if not abused, by this country’s political leaders and judicial system. For nearly 40 years, Canada has placed the interests of adults ahead of the rights of children – both inside and outside the womb. While it has become popular in recent years to advocate this or that policy “for the children,” such posturing is pure hypocrisy. For when social policies that would truly protect and nurture children are advocated, our judicial and political elites take the side of adults each and every time. |
Children normally have the right to their clear biological history and decisions such as the three-parent case muddy the waters. It will only get worse. With out-of-wedlock births, divorce, serial marriage and reproductive technologies, for many children, knowing one’s lineage is becoming increasingly difficult.
