Kids are a blessing for us, but we were in no doubt as to the huge financial burden and the permanent change in life style that happens when we made the choice to have children.

When it is not a choice, then children are a mixed blessing at best. To say that they can be adopted out as an alternative is glib and unrealistic.

While negligence on the part of a doctor that results in an unwanted birth should render him liable to some portions of the future costs, the courts should recognise the difference between negligence and the margins of uncertainty as 20/20 hindsight can always find something that could indicate a different finding.

In the case of the two lesbians with twins,I wonder whether the doctor fully appraised them of possible outcomes. If he did I think they are unscrupulous.

As a born again christian I used to worry about what happened to all of the aborted babies then one day I came across a testimony from a pastor in the USA (Odin Hetrick) who actually used to visit heaven (God took him there in his sleep) and there he was shown all of the little bright lights in one particular area of Heaven and when he asked the Angel that was with him he was told by the Angel that these were all of the aborted babies form earth and that God was preserving them for better life. I have read or listened to several journey to Heaven stories and I believe them. Killing the baby though is still killing. It needs to be confessed as the sin that it is. God comfort those who have done it. I know they suffer... and Im not being smug.

Seems to me Dr Leslie is perfectly consistent with her view that women should retain exclusive rights to all reproductive choices. Her dissent on wrongful births is merely spin designed to distract and divert.

We wouldn’t want legislative tightening of access to IVF, nor would we encourage paternity fraud fathers or unwilling fathers in general, from taking up such abhorrent ideas as wrongful births ... would we?

Sacrificing two lesbians in achieving a greater good? Priceless.

Billy C

How can you compare a sperm donor to a father? There is no comparison at all.

The argument that many children have grown up without a father is nonsense. There was no choice in those situations. Lesbian and single women who have IVF treatment do so in the knowledge that there will never be any chance of a father.

It is typical of the woolly headed policies of the today that the desires of the parent override the rights of the child. Unless lesbian women can find a father for their children they shouldn’t be able to have them. That is in the child’s best interest.

And to sue over the fact that you got two for the price of one is extremely cynical. They should be thankful they got children at all. In many countries they wouldn’t be allowed.

It is standard practise to use two embryos because of the only moderate chance that one of the fertilised eggs will take. As many posters have already mentioned, these women could have adopted out if the financial burden was just too great. They also could have terminated one of the pregnancies.

This sort of frivolous lawsuit is the result of our increasingly litigious culture.

Doctors are humans and make mistakes in good faith. This type of ridiculous lawsuit has pushed large numbers of doctors out of the OB/GYN specialty because of the massive insurance fees they need to fork out to cover themselves. Everyone’s heard of the old saying’ Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth’? These women should be ashamed of themselves.

Billy C
You write about love, but you seem to be very keen for someone to be sued.

Maybe you have love mixed up with litigation. It can occur.

But if a couple adopted a child, then it would be very unlikely that they would get 2 children if they only wanted 1, and they wouldn’t have to go all the trouble of suing someone either. Maybe it would be better than IVF.

Shadow minister,
What is “glib and unrealistic” about adopting out an unwanted child to a couple that actually wants a child.

I personally know of a couple that adopted a child. They did not regard adoption as being “glib and unrealistic”. In fact they were very dedicated and serious about it.

Paul L,
I would agree with you.

I have heard of sperm being used from sperm donors who lived in another country on the other side of the world, and that sperm was used for IVF of lesbian couples. The ability of the child to contact their natural father is basically 0, and there was no intention from the lesbian couple or from the IVF clinic for the child to have a father or to be able to contact their father.

It is very rare for any feminist to place any value upon a father, (eg the author of this article calls herself feminist and has written a lot about children and mothers but I can’t ever remember her writing anything about fathers).

Male sperm donors are not even considered to be a father, but at the same time I have heard of 2 cases where a male sperm donor was sued by a woman for child support. So in this current scenario, a male has got to be a complete idiot to donate sperm.

Paul L & HRS

Firstly:
I stand by my comments. Historically, there have always been children who have been created without a chance of knowing their father. And in most situations there was choice – for either of the parents not to have sex – but, for example, try telling that to the soldiers before they left for WW1 or WW2 – are you saying they should have been banned from pro-creating on the grounds that, (and some would have defiantly known this), they would leave the child fatherless? Many of Australia's anglo saxon population descended from centuries of families where no father was present and it was known that no farther would be present, (until the last two centuries this was most often the case that families arranged marriages and that the woman was for sex, child-bearing and raising and house work, (it was not until 1880 under the Women’s Property Act that women were no-longer owned in law by either their father and then husband as they were before). Many women bore the number of children they did because they had no-other choice. Fathering as we know it today most often did not exist then other than as sperm donation, finance and inheritance. It is only thanks to the feminists for changing gender roles that fathers now participate as much as they do their children and this is very life enhancing thing for both men and women. But at the same time I do not see the presence of a father, (or mother), as a necessary prerequisite for happy and well adjusted children as history tells us again and again, (and equallyif a parent is abusive life is so much worse for the child if they are present). What counts is love for the child not gender of person loving not necessarily the biological relationship as adoption shows us.

Secondly:
If a person has medical procedure performed on them they did not want or consent too they have every right sue.