"According to Australian ethicist Professor Margot Somerville, no procedure should be embarked upon unless we can be absolutely certain that children conceived by various medical interventions will approve of what was done to them as infants when they reach adulthood."

So that rules out circumcision. And maybe we shouldn't save babies' lives, because who knows -- when they grow up they might think they would be better off dead. And there are people who deliberately get their healthy limbs amputated: what if you saved your baby's arm and she grew up to be one of those?

But why stop at medical procedures? Obviously naming a baby is potentially one of the cruellest and most inappropriate things you can do: so let's just call them all "Hey You!" and at eighteen they can choose names of their own. And poor parents -- take that child immediately and leave it in a basket outside the nearest millionaire's house!

Or we could just apply some common sense and assume that in general parents love their children -- actual and potential -- and are sincerely trying to do their best for them, at least until we have some evidence to the contrary.

@Ian, then why even mention the Gay?

Ian,

You are jumping to conclusions too. My concern is also with the children. The assertion that "No-one has a right to a child; and no-one, whether gay, straight, single, married, young or old is entitled to someone else's child, especially when that child's own human rights are thoroughly trampled on." is so irrational in this context that I am lead to believe that there must be an alternative motive, such as religion for this trumped up drivel.

Considering that there are 1000s of children conceived by donation every year the majority through the informal system, and of these only handful have shown psychological problems, this would indicate that this is blown out of proportion. Given that children of gay couples show a psychological balance at least equal to those of heterosexual couples, the entire argument is without rational base.

This is comparable to saying that because older women are more likely to have birth defects that they should be banned from having children.

I get so sick and tired of these types of articles which are premised on the supposition that nuclear families with mum, dad and the kids are somehow inherently healthy. Of course, most of them are reasonably functional but not all of them. I am the parent of two daughers and we live as a nuclear family but my own upbringing was very different. Indeed, there was a period of 6 years after my parents divorced where the whole branch of my paternal family was cut-off: father, grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins due to a religious prejudice against my father's sexuality. This situation has had ramifications for the rest of my life.
People that peddle this sort of half-truth about gay couples do more damage than those that are outright bigots because they somehow manage to package up their biases in something which approximates reasonableness. I felt ill reading this article and hope people realise what a load of rubbish it is.
I would also add that our retrospective views of how good or bad our parenting was need to be tested objectively and not simply accepted tout court as if they represent something concrete and real rather than our own subjective views (of course, I'm not referring to cases of abuse, violence, etc. here).

Maggi when you gave praise to Angela Shanahan, a devout Roman Catholic of the political right,and definately not a supporter of gay people; it diminished any credibility for your essay.

I found this article offensive and senseless. The continual assertion that people who cannot have children are selfish in their desire to do so makes no sense at all. What about those are are fertile and wish to have children? Are their children also "mere commodities"?
No child gets to choose their parents or the circumstances of their birth. This applies equally to those conceived naturally or with medical assistance.
Many people grow up being unhappy about their parents or their treatment as infants. I am sure that some people born via IVF don't have a monopoly on this. I agree that all people should have a right to know who their biological parents are. However, this has nothing to do with Gays, Lesbians or IVF. I suspect that the majority of people who don't know who their father is are born to heterosexual women. Many to married heterosexual women who have had an affair. The author does not appear to include them in her article, singling out people born "unnaturally". I suspect that is her real issue.