"We cannot suppress the father in the name of equality"

Elizabeth Montfort is president of the Family division of the Thomas More Institute.

“Not having a husband, it rather exposes me not to be raped, not to be killed, not to be beaten. And that prevents my children from being too ” : the words of the elected Parisian EELV Alice Coffin, which resurfaced on social networks, say a lot about the father hunt now engaged and the media hype, via the networks social, to come to the aid of the very controversial bill of which Article 1, providing for the opening to assisted reproduction for all, has just been adopted at second reading by the National Assembly.

This is to forget that the majority of fathers are neither violent nor rapists and that it is deeply unfair that fathers concerned about the education of their children and present in the family are nailed to the pillory of the media court in the name of the fathers. tortious or criminals. It is also forgetting that any tortious or criminal act must be condemned by a court of the Republic and not by a hashtag # BalanceLePère which would condemn all children to be deprived of a father on the grounds that some of them are violent, to the tune of "to suppress the violence of fathers, let us suppress the figure of the father".

This is reminiscent of certain words from the Beijing World Summit of 1995 on women, which had nevertheless opened up so many perspectives with the following reasoning: "to prevent women from being the object of violence, let us eliminate the concept of woman". We have subsequently seen the ideology of gender unfold and impose itself in public debate.

These words do not happen by chance. The government is struggling with this second reading of the revisions of bioethics laws in the National Assembly. We were told this vote was urgent. But Monday evening, the first day of the debate, few members of the majority were present, to the point that a suspension of the session was necessary for these members to want to go to the hemicycle. If the question of the assisted reproduction is not the only one concerned by the bill, it is the most symbolic of it, because it concerns the filiation in what is most foundational for a company. She asks a number of serious questions about the father.

We cannot reduce the father to a "figure"

The former Minister of Health had said that the father figure could be exercised by an uncle or aunt, or by a grandmother! As if the father were reduced to a function. It is forgetting the biological role of the father. This is what legitimizes his authority and responsibility over the child of whom he is the father. Childbirth or the capacity for childbirth precedes paternal function. It requires the otherness of the sexes because procreation is the only human activity that requires the commitment of two people of different sex. This is not to offend the freedom of adults. It is an observation that certain defenders of nature, big partisans of the “PMA for all”, want to forget at all costs.

In September 2019, the Academy of Medicine had issued an opinion where it declared that "the deliberate conception of a child deprived of a father constitutes a major anthropological break" and was "not without risks" for his "psychological development" and its " development". She added that she recognized "the legitimacy of the desire for motherhood in every woman whatever her situation" but concluded that it was necessary "also under the same equality of rights to take into account the right of every child to have a father and a mother whenever possible ”.

Is it serious that the child is so much forgotten in the bill? And what does the stubborn refusal of the majority to offer a clear and precise definition of “the best interests of the child” in the text reveal politically, philosophically, anthropologically ?

We cannot suppress the father in the name of equality

The principle of equality does not work either. We were told: “ In the name of equality, all couples must have the right to assisted reproduction. Since different-sex couples have access, same-sex couples should be entitled to it ” . This is to forget that a minority of opposite-sex couples have access to it: those who have a medical problem that prevents them from procreating or those who risk transmitting an infectious or genetic disease. Recourse to assisted reproduction is indeed a palliative for a medical problem.

Or, let's be clear! If, in the name of equality, same-sex couples may be entitled to assisted reproduction, this technique only concerns female couples. What happens to male couples? Because of the eviction of fathers, would they not be entitled to surrogacy? Let’s not kid ourselves. This red line that the government does not want to cross will sooner or later be in the name of equality. It is already largely in the minds of some.

But let's push the reasoning further: in the name of equality, is it right that some children live with their father, and not all children, because the law would have deprived them of it? Admittedly, the vagaries of life can deprive a child of his father, but he was not excluded from the family a priori. Which would be the case with this bill.

We cannot accept a wobbly parentage by removing the father

The “assisted reproduction for all” calls into question the foundations of filiation, several aspects of which can be distinguished: biological, psychological, legal and social. No aspect taken in isolation expresses the intelligibility of the filiation necessary for the child for his growth and his balance. Reducing filiation to the sole will of the adult is too fragile a subjective criterion to be retained by law, unless it calls into question the founding role of law. To be recognized as a “parent”, it would suffice to declare to the notary, in an advance declaration, his desire to be a parent. If the adult's desire to be a parent disappears, will the child end up being an orphan?

Taken at fault by the unstoppable demonstrations of the opposition, the government brought down its last card in the parliamentary debate: the argument of love. The love of adults or the desire for children would suffice to legitimize “assisted reproduction for all”.

Of course, every child needs love to grow. We see too much psychological disasters in children who are deprived of them. But to assert, as the rapporteur of the text Jean-Louis Touraine does that the techniques of assisted reproduction "can strengthen the family based on love" is an irresponsible fallacy. And the other families? Are those who do not resort to procreation techniques devoid of love?

The Manichean point of view that the supporters of “PMA for all” have succeeded in imposing - on one side love, on the other biology; on the one hand the families chosen by recourse to assisted reproduction and founded on love, on the other the families reduced to biology, and therefore backward-looking - is a figment of the imagination. Procreating is not reducible to a biological act. If begetting is first, it commits both parents, father and mother, to take care of their child, to ensure his education and his safety, which requires love, affection and a lot of patience.

Retaining love as the only criterion legitimizing recourse to assisted reproduction is an irresponsible argument. Thus during the celebrations of civil marriages, love is never retained as a constitutive element validating the marriage. Because love like the will is not an objective criterion that the law can retain. If love disappears, does the child become an orphan?

Everything happens as if the individual took himself for his own measure and the measure of the world. Its will in the large liberal biotechnical market must make it invincible. Everything must be submitted to him. What he denies to nature must be given to him by law. This bill is playing out a real legal and anthropological revolution. Is this really what French citizens want?

Read also: "Alice Coffin's feminism is a separatist feminism!"

We must raise a barrier against the sad passions of the hashtag # BalanceLePère and hate feminism. There are initiatives. The Women's Foundation, for example, offers a more positive and sustainable path. This is the meaning of the campaign "You will be a man my son" , which aims to sensitize men by portraying them in their daily life with their son, during sports events, at school, in relationships with women, etc. This way of recognizing the father's place in the education of his son to respect women shows how his absence could be detrimental to the child.

With this upheaval, and while confinement has been an opportunity for a large number of fathers to become more involved in family life, will there still be a place for them to take care of their children? , educate them and lead them to adulthood where they will in turn be responsible and free?