" People are so selfish and so screwed up these days."

How has anything changed historically?

Really, who cares? Perhpas we should all invest in Turkey Baster stock?

Bonzai Betty - How exactly are you defining REAL father here? Are you saying that a man who chooses to adopt a child is more of a father than a man who chooses to care for a child that has his wife's dna, but not his own? In both cases the father is the person who is the primary male caregiver for the child, and is legally responsible for that child's wellbeing.

And how exactly is this vastly different from a grandmother carrying her grandchild with her daughter's eggs? If the primary concern is the confusion of the child, which is more confusing, the idea that he came out of his grandmother, or the idea that half of his dna is his grandfathers?

A father fathers a child. A grandfather fathers the father who fathers the child. I can't be the only one who's read Oedipus Tyrannus.

I agree with motleycow. You've got gramps donating sperm to his son's wife. She has the child and, unlike an anonymous donor, old gramps is still hanging around, still in the picture, intimately connected on a daily basis to both the child and, say what you will, to his son's wife.

Would this not result in weird feelings all around? Some families could handle this, I suppose, but I could envision others falling apart over it. Unless gramps kicks off shortly after the birth, I'm not feeling much comfortableness with this overall scenario, folks...

A person's real father is the man who raises him or her. Merely donating biological material doesn't turn a person into a real parent.

Reasons both frivolous and serious:

1) You're on the first step to becoming a living Ray Stevens song.

2) "The kid will freak when he finds out".

3) From the point-of-view of the Seventh Commandment (and most of Leviticus), you might as well let Grandpa fuck the daughter-in-law---it'll be an improvement over bangin' Grandma for the same moral/spiritual cost and bother (for Grandma and son alike).

4) Issues over paternity can get pretty damn sticky once (if) the couple files for divorce, especially if Grandpa is still alive.

5) Issues over Grandpa's estate can get even stickier.

6) Yuck. (Sorry.)

to have some genetic material from the same family? For these people having a genetic child was important.

This issue triggers the incest taboo response, which is where you get the "yuck." The incest taboo is an universal prohibition against certain familial pairings (which is different in every society). In this society, having sex with your father-in-law is considered morally wrong. I understand this woman is not suggesting having sex with her father-in-law, but she is suggesting implanting his sperm in her. And for many people, that is the basic end-result of sex. Sperm comes out. Woman gets pregnant. The fact that this is all quite anti-septic, even sterilized, and surrounded by technological innovations and lingo does not alter the fact that we are programmed, biosocially, to be yucked out whenever the incest taboo is violated. And this FEELS like a violation. Its similiar to those of us who believe Woody Allen having sex with his quasi-adopted daughter is incest. Sure, they aren't biologically related, but there is a deep taboo against such couplings. The better question here is: why do we have an incest taboo?

I can think of many reasons:

Legal: could the kid contest the will for a piece of the pie when Grandpa's gone?

Moral: sooner or later, someone's gonna say, "hey, why don't we save the cost of the doctor's visit, and do it directly?"

Parental: it could stir up confusing authority issues - would the Grandpa feel justified in critiquing his son's parenting skills?

I don't find anything "morally" wrong with this ... so I would disagree with the objections from the incest camp ... A. the conception would happen through artificial insemination, I am presuming and B. there is no blood relation between the grandfather and the mother-to be. The issue is about the parenting of the child. Even the most understanding, live and let live kind of grandparents find something objectionable about the way a grandchild is being raised. Emotionally, I think it would be too difficult for the grandparent (whether it be a sperm-donating grandfather or a womb -lending grandmother) to maintain the parenting distance that is expected of grandparents when they have been such an integral part of the biological parenting. Legal issues would have to be sorted out from the get go so that there would be no custody claim or inheritance claim should those issues arise, but the emotion would be too much for most people to overcome.

Hmm. John Huston fathered Faye Dunaway's child in Chinatown.

Of course there's nothing really "wrong" with fathering your own grandchild, as this is put. Besides, he's not fathering anything but his son. It's really the strangeness of raising your half-brother who's mom is your wife.

Isn't it emasculating enough to have your dad cover your paycheck, your career path, and your college admission? Do you really need to get him to cover your marital duties as well?

This is the epitome of self-indulgence. Here is a couple who can't produce a child so instead of adopting, they are going to spend thousands of dollars and risk genetic defects, birth of multiples and other complications to produce a child that is as similar to them as possible.

This is not about them caring for a child; this is about them passing on their DNA--regardless of the risks. Seems to me like ego is motivating them.

All breeding is selfish. In Darwinian terms, fitness doesn't mean the most physically fit guy who can beat everyone up gets the chick. No, fitness - in Darwinian terms - just means babies that live long enough to have babies, that live long enough to have babies, that live long enough to have babies, ad infinitum. Breeding is your shot at immortality, if only at the genetic level (and only some of your genes will make it.)

So, is it selfish to make sure that your genes are represented in offspring that you will devote your resources to raising? Yes, but it's not anything new. It's not new across species, and it's not new for humankind.

10 - we need more genetic diversity to improve the health of our species, not less

9 - if the son is "sterile", do we want to reach further back into that same gene pool to include the progenitors of that sterility problem?

8 - technically, the grandfather is the father, and might sue for paternity rights? especially if he has a falling out with his son and daughter in law over their "wild lifestyle" . . .

7 - how many kids in the world need adoption? there's more than 7 zeros behind the first digit, isn't there?

6 - this is a poor way to spend an extra $20,000-$100,000

5 - michael moore would disapprove, because england and cuba don't provide this sort of service

4 - doesn't grandma need to give approval before her lifelong spouse starts making new babies, even if he IS only putting his sperm in a beaker for their son to make use of?

3 - does this deal become invalid if the sterile son was adopted (i.e., not natural)? think about it - if we wouldn't permit grandpa to become the surrogate parent for an adopted son, what does that tell you about the ethos/morality of the process to begin with?

2 - world overpopulation. leave well enough alone.

1 - how do you ever tell the kid that his grandpa is his real daddy, and his real daddy is a parent but not the biological father, without making him feel like freak