Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney will be glad to hear from me. I’ve created a revolutionary birth certificate that may help him out.
Gov. Romney is taking some heat from gay rights advocates for refusing to change the “Father” and “Mother” blanks on birth certificates to “Parent A” and “Parent B” blanks. (HT: Kathleen Parker’s article on townhall.com.)
Birth certificates used to be simple, providing basic information about a baby’s birth: the place of birth, the date and time of birth, medical information, the father’s name, the mother’s name, etc. Easy stuff. That was then, this is now.
These days same sex couples are adopting, male couples are hiring surrogate mothers, and female couples are implanting embryos created with donor sperm. Some couples want to change the birth certificate to reflect these non-traditional situations. Gov. Romney’s current solution is for “hospitals to cross out the words "Mother" or "Father" and write in the phrase "Second Parent."
Gov. Romney wants to preserve the biological parent’s identity on the birth certificate. While thinking about what he could do, I came upon a solution for these and other situations. It’s not as good as being able to leave “Father” and “Mother” as the only blanks to fill, but it would give the child the truth about his or her birth.
Again, let’s think about the birth certificates in the past. It used to be that the father and mother blanks on a birth certificate only indicated the “who” of conception. Sometimes who the father was remained unknown, and it was duly noted. The “how” of conception was always known, until 1978 when the first test tube baby was born. Now the “how” of conception varies. Thus, the idea of preserving the biological parent’s identity on the birth certificate would apply to heterosexual parents as well.
Why not just put the truth? Who did the sperm come from and who did the egg come from? There would also be a blank for who provided the womb, in case it’s a different woman than the egg provider.
That sounds callous, but it is a birth certificate, not a “who will raise the child” certificate. “Intended Care Giving Parent” blanks could be added to identify the people who will be responsible for rearing the child. (That’s the part that will help out Gov. Romney.)
It’s true that biological parents aren’t always the people who raise the child, but does that need to be addressed on the birth certificate? My biological dad is listed on my birth certificate, but he opted out of my life when I was two years old. My step dad raised me. Does that mean I should change my birth certificate? It doesn’t seem right to erase traces of my lineage. Even if I did change my birth certificate, I would still be genetically linked to my biological father. Adding the “Intended Care Giving Parent” blanks would allow that truth to remain and accommodate different situations when people know that the biological parent will not be “Intended Care Giving Parent”.
Here’s rough idea of what this new birth certificate would look like:
___________________________
Biological Father (sperm provider)
__________________________
Biological Mother (egg provider)
___________________________________________
Gestational Mother (if different than biological mother)
_______________________________
Intended Care Giving Parent
_______________________________
Intended Care Giving Parent
There you have it, the new standard for birth certificate clarity; a reflection of our cultural upheaval and technological advances.
