Designer Fatherlessness Deserves the Same Condemnation as Paternal Abandonment
Source: Josh Wood. "Absent Dads Are Bad, So Why Does Designer Fatherlessness Get A Pass?." September 1, 2026. thefederalist.com
The Gist
The author argues that just as everyone agrees it's bad when a father abandons his kids, it should be equally condemned when two women intentionally have a baby through a sperm donor, deliberately excluding a father from the child's life. He says society unfairly gives lesbian couples a pass while criticizing gay men who use surrogacy, even though both situations mean a child grows up without one biological parent.
Conclusion
Society should consistently condemn the intentional deprivation of a father from a child, regardless of whether that deprivation is caused by a man abandoning his family or by two women deliberately conceiving a child via sperm donation to exclude a father from the start.
Premises
- Fatherlessness caused by abandonment is universally recognized as harmful to children, as evidenced by cultural consensus and figures like Obama emphasizing fatherhood's importance.
- The harm of fatherlessness stems from what a father intrinsically means to a child, not merely from lost financial support, so this harm persists regardless of the cause.
- When two women intentionally conceive via sperm donation to exclude a father, they cause the same absence of a father as an abandoning father would, just through premeditation rather than desertion.
- Data on donor-conceived adults (e.g., 65% saying their donor is 'half of who I am,' higher rates of sadness and identity struggles compared to adopted adults) demonstrates that intentionally engineered fatherlessness causes comparable or greater psychological harm than abandonment.
- Society currently applies a double standard: condemning gay men who use surrogacy to have children while excusing lesbian couples who use sperm donors, despite both scenarios depriving a child of one biological parent.
- Common defenses of designer fatherlessness (it's a loving home, the child is wanted, never having a father differs from losing one, other fatherless children turned out fine, objecting is bigoted) fail to address the core harm to the child and instead prioritize adult desires.
- Every child is biologically created by one man and one woman, establishing a natural claim to both parents that adults should not intentionally override for their own purposes.
Assumptions
- A father provides something irreplaceable that cannot be substituted by additional maternal love or a loving two-mother household.
- The psychological/emotional data on donor-conceived adults generalizes reliably to children of lesbian couples specifically (as opposed to donor conception in heterosexual couples or single mothers).
- Intentionality and premeditation in causing fatherlessness make it morally equivalent to (or worse than) unplanned abandonment, rather than a meaningfully different situation.
- Children's rights to know/have both biological parents should override adults' reproductive autonomy and family-formation choices.
- The 'double standard' framing accurately reflects actual public/cultural attitudes rather than differential media coverage or sampling of Wood's own social circles.
- There is no morally relevant difference between a father who is unknown/anonymous (as in most sperm donation) and a father who is known but voluntarily absent (as in abandonment).