21st-Century Family Dilemmas

Five years ago a lesbian couple in a civil partnership persuaded a friend to donate sperm so that they could achieve their ambition of possessing children of their own, without having to pay for the costs of using a licensed clinic. At the time, the friend was not planning to have children and was in a relationship with a woman who had been sterilised, so he agreed. Five years on and he has married someone else but the lesbians have since separated. As a result, despite having no legal rights over the boy and girl conceived (now aged two and four), the man is reportedly being forced by the Child Support Agency to pay thousands of pounds in child maintenance.

Confused? Not half as much as the children are likely to be! Such is the tale of Sharon and Terri Arnold and their friend Andy Bathie, a fireman from Enfield.

The moral of the story, according to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, is that if men donate sperm, they should do so through an HFEA-licensed clinic even though this will prove more costly for the couple hoping to conceive, or else they may find themselves taking on all the responsibilities that comes with parenthood... And to think, until just two years ago, donors were guaranteed the right to remain anonymous throughout the lifetime of any conceived children.

Another moral could be that we ought to give more thought to the long-term and social consequences of our short-term decisions and desires. Before we exercise our "rights", it would behove us to consider from what corresponding duty those rights are derived. For, as Gandhi once noted, "I learned from my illiterate but wise mother that all rights have to be deserved and preserved from duty well done. Thus the very right to live accrues to us only when we do the duty of citizenship to the world. From this one fundamental statement, perhaps it is easy enough to define the duties of Man and Women and correlate every right to some corresponding duty to be first performed. Every other right can be shown to be a usurpation hardly worth fighting for."

Who's To Blame?

"Studies have shown that as many as one in two young men believe there are some circumstances when it's okay to force a woman to have sex. To my mind, this is an example of moral collapse. We need widespread cultural change, and addressing this moral failure represents a real challenge to British society: to families, schools, local communities and businesses."

When I heard Cameron's speech on rape yesterday, I thought it was all fairly straightforward and unobjectionable. Clearly I was wrong. The Guardian accuses him of invoking "the disaster of rape for a moralistic, collapse-of-civilisation-as-we know-it populist agenda that has nothing to do with contemporary culture or policing." On his pledge of tougher laws, it claims, "Explosive evidence from Scotland Yard - hitherto unpublished - shows the problem is not the law":

An independent team looked into all 677 rapes reported to the Met in two months of 2005. What they discovered challenged conventional wisdoms about victims and perpetrators. It found that men who like raping women target their victims and that these women cluster into the very groups least likely to attract police attention: those under 18; in present or past relationships with the perpetrators; living in domestically violent environments; under the influence of alcohol; suffering mental ill health. These groups constitute nearly 90% of reported rapes. Between half and a third of these reported rapes were not "crimed" - they don't appear in the books. It gets worse. In half of the not-crimed cases involving alcohol, for example, the suspects had not been investigated, despite having a history of sex offences.

At which point I find myself even more in agreement with Cameron. If police do not believe they are able to construct a sufficiently strong case to convince a jury that a someone who is drunk, under-aged, mentally-ill, and living in an abusive relationship is a victim of sexual violence, then the answer is not to lower the bar on the required burden of proof (which would set a terrible precedent, no doubt to be followed in other emotive areas, with inevitable miscarriages of justice) but to seek Cameron's "widespread cultural change".

For he did not merely talk about convictions and sentencing, but also about the need for improved victim support and a cultural change in attitudes towards women and sexual violence. Surely he is right that sex education should not be values-free and should include teaching young people about consent: that 'no' means 'no' — just as it should include teaching about the personal and social benefits of abstinence and marriage.

More than that, if 54% of rapes are committed by a partner or ex-partner of the victim (and just 17% by a stranger), then the principle issue is the nature of the relationship between the two individuals — and the nature of relationships that we, as society, have come to expect and encourage. A society in which a single mother cannot get the support she's after from the police or social services when her rebellious 14-year-old moves out, but wags its finger disapprovingly when three years later that teenager is pregnant, yet again. Can we truly lay all the blame on either the child or the mother, who has struggled for so long to do her best by her children, or are we willing to accept that we did not offer her the support she and her family needed? And what of the Church — are we not supposed to function as an alternative extended family to such widows and orphans?

The issue of violence against women (sexual or otherwise) is so much bigger than simply what goes on between two individuals when nobody else can see ... and we must all accept a portion of blame.

Conceiving Fatherless Children

While much public comment on the Government's Human Tissue and Embryos Bill (HTEB), published yesterday by Health Minister Dawn Primarolo, has focused on the likely attempts to use the legislation to amend abortion laws, the role of fathers is also undervalued by the proposed law according to David Burrowes MP, a member of the joint committee responsible for scrutinising the bill. In this month's issue of The Difference, David writes:

Of equal concern is the clause within the bill that makes provision for deliberately bringing children into the world who will be prevented, by law, from having any legal father. The bill’s fathers’ provisions prioritise the interests of adults over children whose parenting needs are best met by the presence of a mother and a father.

The HTEB proposes to omit the requirement for a father in the granting of an IVF licence. While it is already lawful for single women or women in a same-sex relationship to receive IVF, they currently have to show that there will be some male father figure involved in the child’s life. The HTEB removes this requirement. The symbolic impact of removing the need for a father at a time of growing evidence of the detrimental impact of fatherlessness is extremely significant. It would in effect be state-sanctioned fatherlessness.

The draft bill then goes further in respect of removing the legal need for a father. Where a woman gives birth as a result of IVF and is in a relationship with another woman, that woman is to be legally treated as the “parent” of the child – unless they did not give their permission for insemination – without the need for adoption. Where there are two female “parents”, according to the draft bill, no man is to be treated as the father of the child. At the present time, the non-childbearing parent can adopt the child and become its legal parent, but there is still scope for the child’s father to be present on the birth certificate. The HTEB allows for changes to be made to the Births and Deaths Act 1953 which would see the second female parent, while not referred to as “father”, to be registered as a parent at the registration of the child’s birth and to be included on the birth certificate. This will always be to the exclusion of having a legal father.

The evidence increasingly shows that children born to married parents tend to be physically and mentally healthier than other children, less accident-prone, and less likely to self-harm. They perform better in school, become sexually active at a later age, are less likely to have behavioural problems, suffer depression, or turn to drugs, smoking or heavy drinking, or to become involved in criminal activities. Furthermore, children from cohabiting households are 33 times more likely to suffer serious abuse than where the child lives with married parents and children under two have a 100 times greater risk of being killed by step-parents than by genetic parents.

If politicians are serious about mending our broken society, they are therefore going to have to start with the basic building block of the family and the emotional need of every child to be loved and disciplined by a mother and a father.

Fight Against Government Suppression

Much as I personally hate smoking, I wish Britain's newest political party, FAGS, every success. The smokers' equivalent of UKIP was launched by Hamish Howitt, who last night was served no less than seven separate court summonses at his Happy Scots Bar in Blackpool for flouting the recently introduced law banning smoking in enclosed public spaces.

Fight Against Government Suppression is of course right to remind people that the government broke its manifesto pledge to restrict the ban on private clubs and pubs to those serving food. When the issue reaches them, as it surely inevitably will, I suspect that the more liberal European Court of Human Rights will also delight in taking the opportunity once again to assert its supremacy over our federal national Parliament. However, the real issue is actually nothing to do with smoking — it is about enforced uniformity. Which is why I hope FAGS becomes so much more than just a single issue party.

For there are so many ways in which we have all been suppressed by NuLabour's nanny state-cum-police state mentality and the fight against government suppression needs to be waged on all fronts. Take the recent issue of the Sexual Orientation Regulations. Mr Howitt claims that his non-smoking customers may go next door to his smoke-free karaoke bar. Quite so. Just as the Catholic adoption agencies suggested that they could continue their previous practice of directing homosexual couples to the non-Catholic adoption agencies next door. Just as doctors who do not wish to carry out an abortion may, at present, point some of their patients towards other doctors who are prepared to assist them. But in modern socialist Britain, we must all conform to the one model. One size must fit all. As the Shadow Attorney General Dominic Grieve put it in the current issue of The Difference, the Government appears to believe that "greater diversity needs greater restrictions of freedoms, so that all will conform to a Government dictated framework."

No, enough is enough. We should not be forced to conform. We should all be treated with respect and have the freedom to choose.

"Conformity means death for any community.
A loyal opposition is a necessity in any community."
Karol Wojtyla, Archbishop of Krakow (Pope John Paul II)

Sex, Drugs But No Power

Sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll — The 1960s is the decade most people would most like to live in. Now, it seems, today's "youf" are trying to re-create that bygone utopia of sexual and social liberalisation, but I have to wonder whether they have not forgotten one crucial ingredient: flower power.

The Independent Advisory Group on Sexual Health and HIV (IAG) says there is an indisputable link between alcohol, drugs and risky sexual behaviour, describing the threat as fuel for a sexual health crisis. Given the failure of the Government's Teenage Pregnancy Strategy, drug policy, and approach to teenage binge drinkers, this should come no surprise.

Noting that sexual health in the UK has been deteriorating over the last twelve years, the group warns that young people are starting to have sexual intercourse at a younger age, are becoming more promiscuous in their behaviour, and have the highest rate of sexually transmitted infections and teenage pregnancies in Europe. Their report asks, "As adults, are we reneging on our responsibilities?"

Rather than answer what seems a blindingly simple question with a blatantly obvious answer, I want to turn the query around: Are today's youth reneging on their responsibilities? If they've rediscovered the sex (earlier and riskier) and the drugs (stronger and more dangerous), why haven't they stumbled onto rock'n'roll? They've got their Vietnam (Iraq), so where are the non-violent anti-war protests? They've got their nuclear causes (renewal of Trident and next generation of power stations), so where are the sit-down demonstrations? They've got their gun crime and armed police, so why is nobody giving flowers to policemen?

The IAG claims "young people do not engage in risky behaviour: they experiment and explore" but I'm not convinced ... It seems to me that Generation Blair has missed the point.

Virtual Victims & Cyber-Crime

I don't know if any of you have ever visited Second Life, the parallel universe in virtual reality—I certainly haven't. However, Nigel Cameron has a fascinating post on his blog, ChoosingTomorrow, highlighting how the distinction between what is real and what is unreal is not as clear as some of us who are not "plugged in" to any other cyber-dimensions might believe. For, police in this universe of ours are seriously investigating alleged crimes of virtual rape and virtual child abuse in cyberspace.

Perhaps the world of avatars needs to establish its own laws and criminal justice systems?

Justice: Retributive or Restorative?

What is so wrong that the former Deputy Director of the National Crime Squad and head of Northern Ireland's anti-terrorist intelligence unit in Belfast believes that answers to the problem of paedophilia need to be found outside the criminal justice system? Quite clearly, having passed the best part of 400 acts of Parliament and in excess of 32,000 statutory instruments over the last ten years, part of the answer is this Government's unhealthy obsession with new legislation.

Yet, today's call by the chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), Jim Gamble, for child sex offenders to receive a police caution and be managed within the community, rather than sent to jail, also raises a number of fundamental questions about how we understand justice and the role of prisons.

At present, crime is treated as a violation of the state and its laws and justice seeks to establish blame and administer punishment. However, there are alternative models. Indeed, the long term use of incarceration as a method of legal punishment is a relatively modern idea, introduced in the late 18th century with the aim of improving prisoners through a mixture of work, discipline and personal reflection. As a friend pointed out to me over the bank holiday, the Old Testament legal system made no provision for prisons. Instead, crime was treated as a violation of people and their relationships and justice sought to identify who had been hurt and what could be done to make things right.

So, instead of simply asking, "Who is to blame?" and seeking retribution, perhaps we should also be asking, "Who has been hurt?" and seek restoration. A greater focus on responsibility and reconciliation, restitution and rehabilitation would certainly be cheaper for the victims of crime and innocent taxpayers, who presently pay £32,888 a year to accommodate each of the country's 80,000+ prisoners (almost one in six of whom come from abroad, costing us almost £400 million a year).

Rights & Wrongs

A pub in Melbourne has won the right to refuse entry to heterosexuals. It claims that raucous stag nights and hen parties were making life difficult for its homosexual regulars.

Now, I don't know about you, but this seems like yet another case of double standards and special treatment for minority groups. And don't think it couldn't and won't happen here - You only need to look at how homosexual interests trumped all others in the Sexual Orientation Regulations earlier this year.

Personally, I would have no desire to visit a gay pub, though have no problem in going to a pub with gay friends. However, my fear is that decisions such as this latest in Australia will ultimately undermine the West's commitment to and defence of equality for all. Am I wrong to be concerned about the current direction of the rights movement?

Blog of the Day: Bible Ban

"Legal Disclaimer Warning: This Web site contains Bible material which may offend and may not be distributed, circulated, sold, hired, given, lent, shown, played or projected to a person under the age of 18 years."

Having written to Cranmer about this article in yesterday's Telegraph, on calls in Hong Kong to reclassify the Bible as an indecent publication, I am happy to direct you to His Grace's post, Demands to ban the Bible, in which he speculates:

One might expect to hear very soon of such cases being brought in the courts of the United Kingdom. Cranmer suspects that they may come first from the militant gay lobby, demanding that any passages that may be adduced to make homosexuals ‘feel uncomfortable’ ought to be excised from (at least) Bibles used in schools. The Qur’an will, of course, be exempt (probably because it is not ‘widely used’).

If Prime Minister Brown were to revive attempts to outlaw the incitement to religious hatred, there are vast tranches of Scripture which may be deemed to fall foul of such a law.

Chimera Ban Lifted

As widely expected, the Government has caved in to pressure over its proposed chimera research ban and will now permit the creation of "inter-species entities"—that is, human-animal hybrid embryos—for research.

Regulars of this blog will be familiar with fears that Britain's apparent dismissal of a number of international ethical agreements means we increasingly risk becoming known as an ethical rogue state. It will be interesting to see what feedback we receive from international sources over this latest draft Human Tissue and Embryos Bill.

The changes also remove a baby's right to a father, affording single women and lesbian couples in a civil partnership with the same "human rights" as married women, meaning that it will be easier for them to receive IVF treatment.

Afternoon UPDATE: Here's the first of the American commentary on today's Government U-turn: The Island Of Dr. Moreau, which asks "What happened to all of the European concern over genetic purity?"—a good question, in view of the European Parliament's decision at the end of last month to adopt new rules authorising so-called "advanced therapies" (adult stem-cell therapy, gene therapy, and tissue engineering) despite "considerable misgivings from some MEPs over ethical questions," principally from members in Eastern Europe, Italy and Germany, who warned "If Europe rightly wants to set human rights standards in the world, it can not afford to adopt a 'passive position' when it comes to advanced therapies."

Britain's Thought Police

"I grew up knowing that half Europe was free and half was not and was taught to rejoice that I lived in the free bit. In those days Britain was genuinely free: at the height of the cold war you could stand for parliament as a communist. Despite having shed blood and sacrificed so many lives to fight Nazism we still allowed people to belong to Nazi movements and I remember the antics of Oswald Mosely and Colin Jordan.

"You could believe anything, belong to anything, preach anything unlike those poor guys on the other side of the iron curtain who faced a knock on the door at dawn from the KGB if they presumed to dissent from prevailing orthodoxy. We pitied them from afar.

"Now Britons face a knock on the door. It will not be the KGB, it will not be at dawn and we will not be dragged off to the Lubyanka but it will be an ordinary British bobby, once a source of reassurance and now more than ever expected to fill the role of the thought police."

When I read the above introduction to Anne Widdecombe's article in the next edition of The Difference, it thought it was going to be about the succession of Criminal Justice and Terrorism Acts that this Government has passed in recent years. It is in fact about the Sexual Orientation Regulations and their lack of provision for religious conscience. Concerned that insufficient time for debate was allowed in Parliament and that inadequate provision has been made for religious conscience, the media celebrity MP makes this apposite comparison:

"To insist that homosexual couples must be able to adopt through a particular agency takes law on to a new and oppressive level. A woman may have an abortion but she is not entitled to demand it of any particular doctor, nor can any member of the medical profession be forced to assist in the process."

Be sure to receive The Difference as soon as it is published – order your copy today!

Time For Change?

Ofsted's latest report, Time for change? Personal, social and health education, maintains:

There is no evidence that ‘abstinence-only’ education reduces teenage pregnancy or improves sexual health. There is also no evidence to support claims that teaching about contraception leads to increased sexual activity. Research suggests that education and strategies that promote abstinence but withhold information about contraception can place young people at a higher risk of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

What the report fails to mention is that the Government's £138 million Teenage Pregnancy Strategy, which includes making morning-after pills available to teenagers, has failed to stem the rise in teenage pregnancies, has had no effect on conception or abortion rates and, most damning of all, has been blamed for fuelling record levels of STIs. As reported earlier this year, latest figures for the rate of underage pregnancies showed the biggest single annual increase in ten years and areas that have promoted the government's strategy most heavily have experienced the biggest increases.

In today's "best of the blogosphere," Archbishop Cranmer notes that "the UK has the highest teenage birth rates in Western Europe - twice as high as in Germany, three times as high as in France and six times as high as in the Netherlands" and concludes:

"Cranmer simply wants to know why sex education has been divorced from talk of marriage and love. He wants to know what is wrong with promoting sexual abstinence and traditional family values. And he wants to know why the spiritual side of the sexual act, so eloquently communicated in Scripture, and pervasive throughout the New Testament, is not talked of at all."

We asked for a response from the government but no spokesman was available to comment...

Stonewall Vs Church of England

Less than two weeks after Parliament passed the new Sexual Orientation Regulations, the conflict between religious beliefs and human rights legislation is to be tested once again this week. The Bishop of Hereford faces claims that he has breached employment practice by unlawfully blocking the application of a homosexual to work in his diocese on grounds of sexual orientation.

The case reopens the controversy facing the Archbishop of Canterbury, who just last week challenged the Anglican Church to become "a safe place for gay and lesbian people to speak about their lives openly."

The charges are being brought by John Reaney, backed by the gay equality organisation Stonewall, who claims he was initially offered a job as a youth worker but was then turned down following a meeting with the bishop in which he was asked "humiliating" personal questions about his private life. A spokesman for the Diocese of Hereford maintains that Mr Reaney "did not get the job he applied for in the diocese. He was not offered the job and therefore an offer cannot have been withdrawn. We expect the same sexual standards of behaviour from support ministers, or lay ministers, as we do of clergy."

Adoption Clash

While the the Roman Catholic Church continues to maintain that the hotly-contested Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations would lead to the closure of its adoption agencies, Baroness O’Cathain will seek to defeat the anti-discrimination proposals in tonight's final vote on the basis of concerns that the regulations compromise religious liberty and "will result in litigation over the content of classroom teaching."

Today's Times has the following letter from Conservative MP Alistair Burt:

Sir, That House of Commons procedures have not allowed for a full debate on the Sexual Orientation Regulations (SOR) is not in the country’s best interest, whichever side of the argument one supports.

The regulations pit against each other two important ideals, each of which would normally command members’ support; equality before the law and freedom of religious conscience. It is precisely the resolution of such a dilemma for MPs which deserves to be public. At a time when the Commons wonders why it is losing authority, this is an example which provides a clue.

UPDATE (Thursday): Peers have voted against Baroness O'Cathain's amendment by 168 votes to 122.