Melanie, might I suggest you read up on Ms Leather ? You might find she replaced an academic of quality such as Ruth Deech, and that in contrast Ms Leather is a 'consumer champion'; a paid up member of New Labour, and part of the stuffing quangoes policy of Jack Straw etc.....note Trevor Phillips at CRE, David Puttnam on Teacher Training Council; and even the way the National Trust was subverted by someone from the Downing Street Women's Unit.......

Leather was at the Food Standards Agency....another quango......so by moving to the HFEA she can give an honest opinion on Jonathan Swift's "Irish Diet"

http://www.hfea.gov.uk/AboutHFEA/HFEAMembers/MsSuziLeather

Member of the Labour Party
Member of the Christian Socialist Movement
Member of the Child Poverty Action Group

Never mind she has Simon Jenkins, Bishop of Oxford, on the Board too.

Sir John Krebs, Chairman of the FSA, said:

'Suzi has played a very significant role in championing the interests of the consumer, helping to establish the Agency and shaping its policies

be Ms Suzi Leather, who has twenty years of experience in consumer representation. The Chief Executive will be Mr Geoffrey Podger, the Head of the Joint Food Safety and Standards Group (JFSSG) of the Department of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.

"Suzi Leather will bring to the Agency an outstanding reputation for representing consumer interests, particularly those on low income. As the independent assessor on nutritional inequalities for the Acheson Inquiry into Health Inequalities and chair of the National Heart Forum's Local Health Action project she has demonstrated her commitment to improving nutritional standards.

Ms. Suzi Leather is currently Chair of the Exeter and District Community NHS Trust, for which she receives a salary of #17,625 a year. She has been active in the NHS Confederation. She is a non-paid member of a number of other organisations: Vice Chair of the Food Ethics Council, Executive Member of the National Heart Forum and a Trustee of the Food Foundation. She is a member of the Foresight Food Chain & Crops for Industry panel of the Office of Science and Technology, and Chair of its Food and Health task group. She was also, until her appointment to the FSA, the consumer member of the board of Assured British Meat. Her salary as Deputy Chair of the Food Standards Agency will be #30,000 for two days a week. She was formerly on the general committee of the Exeter Labour Party and has canvassed on their behalf or helped at elections within the last five years.

http://www.foodlaw.rdg.ac.uk/news/uk-00-1.htm

Melanie,

Quite right. This appalling proposal gives further weight to the increasing trend of regarding children as commodities (interestingly ironic touch that Ms Leather was previously a champion of consumers' rights - hat-tip, Romulus).

The right for adults to live their lives together as they please (within the law) is one issue. The right to treat children as commodities or to bring children into the world knowing that they will not have a father is quite another. The logic that 'because many children currently don't have fathers means that we should allow new grops of people to create fatherless children so that they are not discriminated against' is quite pernicious - and unfairest to those who need the most protection and care - the children themselves.

Fatherless families have a particularly disastrous effect in the 'underclass' (for want of a better word) of which your excellent source, 'Dr Dalrymple', is a powerful observer indeed:

"In my medical work, I meet practically no child, youth or young adult who has any kind of relationship with his or her father. Not only do fathers believe they have no responsibility towards their offspring, but the mothers do not believe it either. The mass misery of this way of life cannot be offset by the undoubted fact that a relatively small number of very capable women bring up children successfully without the support of fathers".

I hope that there will be a great deal of oppposition to Ms Leather's proposals.

Excellent post. I have a suggestion for future discussions on this topic: you might consider using the term "parents" or "father and mother" rather than "natural parents".

Additionally, you write: "Secure human identity resides in being nurtured by the people who create us in the first place." Here in the States, adoption is an increasingly mainstream way of forming families, as opposed to the secrecy and shame attached to that institution 40 or 50 years ago. International adoption has really skyrocketed, to over 18,000 per year. There seems to be no evidence that infant adoptive children raised in a two-parent home, to use a rather narrow example but one that best matches the progression of child-rearing events in a "natural parents" home, have any higher rates of social, educative, or psychological dysfunction than children raised with both biological parents.

Theodore Dalrymple's article in the Telegraph today was, as usual, spot on. He may be moving to France but I suspect he'll still be penning plenty more superb articles about the hideousness of New Britain.

At the comprehensive school where I teach the breakdown of families and the absence, or near-absence, of biological fathers is an all-too-predictable part of the background of most of our disturbed and difficult boys. Liberals may say this is a symptom of "social exclusion" (how I loathe that word), but I assure them it is a cause of it too - as 5 mins genuine conversation with these chaps would demonstrate, if only the likes of Ms Leather could be bothered to let reality intrude into their radically individualistic and relativist view of life.

Re. "the selfishness of modern women" - only a woman could get away with saying that, but you're right Melanie. It's cuts both ways of course, as too many such "fathers", often little more than adolescents, are wholly selfish themselves, not to mention feckless and often violent. But such is the vice-like grip of PC in our national discourse that any lesson that might be drawn from unflattering generalisations about "modern women" goes unlearned because women are deemed collectively blameless in every aspect.

The necessity of fatherhood a "bit of nonsense", indeed. Why is it our new establishment - middle and senior managers and civil servants in our public sector, and in innumerable quangos and academic institutions - all seem to sing from this same weird post-modern hymnsheet, while the rest of us can only wonder how the hell the situation has been allowed to happen?

Make a big fuss about this one Melanie. The HFEA have hammered another big nail into the coffin of the traditional family, and it needs people like you to express our objections.

Simon,

"if only the likes of Ms Leather could be bothered to let reality intrude into their radically individualistic and relativist view of life".

They do let reality intrude, Simon, but it is only the limited reality of their own establishment buddies who don't spend much time in down-at-heel neighbourhoods where the victims of progressive policies on law and order and education tend to be most concentrated. And, even if these people fell over the real world, they wouldn't know how to interact with it except to offer patronising reassurances about New Labour's targets to obliterate all known evils from the world within a 5-year plan...

Yuk! This country just gets worse. Here's an idea. What if a sizeable proportion of the population asked their employers if their gross salaries could be paid direct to their bank accounts (ostensibly to deal with income tax personally). After a significant number of us do this (1 million?) then we say 'screw you, we are not paying out taxes for your ridiculous social engineering policies'. Their gang is not big enough to arrest all of us. I say gang because that is all governments are these days. 'My gang is bigger than yours therefore you will do what you're told and you will pay what we demand'. Well I say F*** Off, I've had enough. I never voted to support single mothers, or mass economic migration, or higher MPs salaries or to be ruled by the French and the Germans or to pay inheritance tax (legalised theft) or to pay employers national insurance contributions or to pour money into the NHS without real reform or to support the present ludicrous Edookayshun system or to support political correctness (lies) or to 'celebrate my cultural diversity' (whatever the f*** that is) or to be patronised by a bunch retarded arrogant twats in parliament. Sod the lot of them - let's have a revolution.

The first reason for society is to protect children. Ms (yuk) Suzi (yuk) Leather is selfish beyond words. It is as though she promotes selfishness as an end in itself, a quasi-religion. She is utterly selfish and needs validation from the acceptance of that quality in her by the rest of society.

Please, someone, explain the mentality of these people. I just don't get it.

I suppose it is inevitable, the country is run by women (mostly fanatical feminists) don't let the make up the government fool you. Quangos and Universities are crawling with left wingers. These are the people who set our agenda. I came from a very stable home with a mother and a father. I am have been married for 24 years and have three children in University - I must be a relic from the past.

They're socialists, Mark. That's what's wrong with them.

Being an American I have to ask..what exactly is a 'quango?'

Dr Dalrymple is going to France? Things must be bad.

Quango is an acronym for, I think, "Quasi-Autonomous Non-Government Organisation" - which is a bit of a tongue-in-cheek catch-all for the bodies through which innumerable unelected officials tell us how we are to live our lives.

Some quangos are wholly necessary and worthwhile of course - the Bank of England is I suppose one such. Others have been allowed to become the very institutional engines by which this Orwellian nightmare has crept up on us - at enormous expense to the taxpayer, usually.

It would be interesting to have DNA tests to determine who our "natural parents" are. There could be some nasty surprises.
While I disagree with Ms Leather,many of your arguments are equally abhorrent.

I have been reading Melanie's stuff for months now. I have watched as ideological anti-democratic insane policy after policy is accepted into mainstream political thinking (and law) in the UK. It is clear, from the comments, that many of the readers of this site feel exactly the same as I do. Despite this, when a possible method to try and change things is mooted (my comments above) you all blithely ignore it, and carry on complaining and trying to show each other how wised up and cynical you are and what great wits you are, while doing precisely nothing to change anything. My ideas maybe completely naive (I invariably think so after I've written them) but I at least might have expected somebody to suggest something else. If this is the best you can do then all I can say is you lot deserve the country you live in. It really is time to do something, not just continue to react to the things that melanie and others write. Nothing will change through parliament, either by lobbying or electing another bunch of liars and thieves. You all seem to be bright enough to know this, which makes your attitude even worse. Are we all now turkeys happily waiting for Christmas?

Derek, good luck getting your employer to ignore the law on P.A.Y.E.

That's why everyone ignored your suggestion.

Of course, if you are self-employed, your are already in the position of paying your taxes directly.

Again, good luck with not doing that.

Andrew, your comments simply prove my point. There is the no great difficulty in becoming self employed when you allow your boss to save on employers national insurance? You can still work for a boss, be self employed and pay your own tax (according to my accountant anyway). As Richard Branson once said, 'if you think of all the drawbacks of a business idea you'll never go into business'. It is so easy to criticise but very difficult to be constructive.

Derek

I don't think the Inland Revenue really likes people being self-employed when all the work they do is for one employer. They would call it a sham arrangement. But, even if it were possible, it cannot be up to the individual to decide what his taxes are going to support. Choas would ensue. Some people, maybe many people, would decide that nothing warranted their support.

Assuming that we were all compelled to pay the same amount of tax as now then it might be possible for each of us to decide where our tax subscriptions were going to be spent. But what if nobody thought defence was a good idea? What if nobody gave any money to road re-surfacing? The budgets would either disappear or vary dramatically year on year. I suppose we could decide once every five years or so. At a general election.

Andrew, I understand your points. It is the case that the Inland Revenue do not like this arrangement as it tends to indicate that one is not an 'independent consultant'. However, the IR do not really bother you for maybe a year after the arrangement is in place. I have employed people on this basis and know this to be a fact. That is plenty time to get a significant group of people on board. As regards not wanting to pay for various things: clearly things such as defence would not be on the choice list. The roads are another matter: as private companies maintain the major roads what is stopping them doing the same for the minor roads and charging for use. At least then you have the choice to pay or not to pay, and moreover can complain directly to the company. As regards the NHS, a standard tax cost would be due from everyone for emergency cover/pensioner care etc., but as for the rest I would rather go BUPA (whatever we are told it's cheaper). Companies like BUPA (or new ones) could take things a step further and provide limited clinics offering only hip replacements for instance. These are not emergencies and it would not be a problem to only have a handful (15) spread around the country. Once you accept this idea as reasonable then the next step is trained medical technicians (not Doctors) to undertake these and only these operations. Result, the stranglehold of the medical profession is broken (and costs fall). Look at the soviet union where this kind of limited clinic was tried and worked well. In terms of checking on entitlements (i.e. did this person choose to pay the NHS additional tax or not?) smart identity or tax cards would seem to be the way forward. These things are all possible - all it takes is the will to do it. Once you have a system like this which can be reviewed every 2-5 years then you have true democracy. I might be a mile off the mark here but the present system is a joke.

Simon, one other point. Remember that income tax is not all the tax we pay. Income to the gang of thieves in Westminster from vat alone, through the greater spending due to lower income tax, would be enormous (putting aside the permanent business boom which would be created). It might not let the Gov. spend £130 billion on welfare but is that a reasonable amount anyway. I don't think so. Effectively what I'm trying to say is that if these idiots at Westminster would take a smaller piece of the pie then the pie would be allowed to grow. Then their smaller percentage would amount to more dosh. Where would this end? The end of income tax?

Sorry. Andrew. I don't know where Simon came from.

As long as a child is loved, fed, clothed and bought up in a healthy loving enviroment, a father is not required. And a child wouldnt suffer from not having a mother either as long as the above is carried out.

Plenty of children are bought up by 2 men, 2 women, grandparent/s even friends quite sucsessfully with out the mother or father or even both. Do you anyone that has suffered there whole life because their father was not in their life? Or do people use that excuse when they fall below the line as it were....'yes I have become a drain on soceity cos my dad was not in my life'....rubbish.

Flaky,

I am sure that certain people who have been brought up by two men, two women or grandparents have been OK if there has been love involved.

However, this is different from saying that these are the ideal situtions for a child's full development.

And purposely bringing a child into the world without giving him/her the best chance by purposely not bothering to involve a father is to treat the child purely as a commodity.

Alhough I am gay and in a stable relationship, I would never dream of fathering a child and bringing that child up in my relationship. This is because that child would be likely to have a very tough time at school and be disadvantaged as a result. This is because although my male partner and I have many talents, we would neither be able to or wish to try to substitute the role of 'mother'. To do so would be to treat a precious human as a 'feel-good' commodity.

It geniunely pains me that gay parenting has been co-opted onto the gay activists' agenda when the vast majority of gays do not wish to be parents and know, in their heart of hearts, that it would not be in the best interests of the children.

The women who are prepared to go through IVF (which I believe is not very pleasant) will generally be women who really want the child and will probably be very good mothers. What about the feckless women who have 5 children with 4 fathers by the age of 23, all naturally? I know a woman of 33 (not a lesbian) who is resigned to the fact that she will probably never find a mate and has had a baby on her own and is raising him with great love and care.

There is more to being a parent than simply being motivated to want a baby, Ilana. The best-intentioned and most loving of mothers can get sidelined by the exhaustion of trying to being all things to a child, all the time, without any kind of relief.

For example, the type of careers that pay well enough to support a middle-class family life-style are often not very family friendly in terms of their demands on the worker -- what's a mother to do? Put her all into a demanding career in order to make enough money to ensure her child a good start in life, but hardly ever see the child? Or take a low-paying, low-demanding job so she has enough time and energy to devote to being a parent, but not enough money to ensure that she and her child live in a low-crime neighborhood and a school district?

I was a single mother for 16 years. These are the types of no-win questions you face when you are a single parent.

You never see these dilemmas explored in Hollywood films.

I understand what you are saying, however children come across all kinds of prejudice at school, wether its having gay parents, being short , tall, ugly, or mixed race....if a black man and a white women wanted children..are you saying they shouldnt because they will face prejudice for being mixed race?

We all need to face prejudice and deal with it, other wise the world will never move on.

Susan, the fact that you found it so difficult to cope as a single mother doesn't mean you cann prescribe for everyone.
Some single parents cope much better than others, and so we should be wary of broad prescriptions.

And, Flaky, I wouldn't be surprised if some on this site argue against having mixed race children, judging by some of the posts on here

"And purposely bringing a child into the world without giving him/her the best chance is to treat the child purely as a commodity." David

We should therefore institute panels that scrutinize the credentials of would be parents before they are allowed to have children. Make sure they have the right income, a stable home, etc etc Only then can we be sure that all newborns have the best chance. I wonder how many would pass the test. Get real, folks !

Paul and Flaky, what utter nonsense. Because some pet "progressive" article of faith is being dissed here, you start bringing up all kinds of irrelevancies about mixed race couples and state tribunals to interrogate prospective parents? PS -- Any time you've got to bring up the race card to "win" the debate, especially regarding subjects where NO ONE has brought up the subject of race, you've already lost the argument.

Single-parent raised children on the whole do much worse socially, economically and educationally than two-parent raised children. Those who do not know their fathers often suffer tremendous psychological hurt as well -- and the hurt lasts well into adulthood. They also often experience extreme anxiety about the health or safety of their one parent -- after all, if their one parent dies or becomes seriously ill, they are orphans. These are facts.

No one is contesting that there are good single mothers or fathers out there, and no one is proposing that single-parent raised children be discriminated against in anyway. They are asking why is society deliberately seeking to create a social situation that has such a low chance of successful outcome?

"Single-parent raised children on the whole do much worse socially, economically and educationally than two-parent raised children"

Any conclusive, independantly varified, non biased, scrutinised research to back up this bold assertion parotted by so many on the right?

Falky read this http://www.calvertinstitute.org/issue/9708/cib9708d.htm

I believe Flaky asked for independent research?
And about race, Flaky asked if it would be ok if potential prejudice would be a good reason to avoid having children, she mentioned several parameters, beauty, height as well as race. You jumped on the race issue .
And still managed to avoid answering the question. Which speaks volumes.
And I know loads of people from two parent families who are screwed up as well... Ever read Larkin...... they screw you up your mum and dad, they don't mean to, but they do

And by the way, what is this thing called "society"? Refer to Baroness Thatcher

People are choosing to either marry or not get married. passing draconian laws to force them to won't change it, whether you accept it or not. Why on earth did society let women have the vote, or abolish slavery etc etc
Oh dear, let's go back to the good old days

More inane non-sequiturs from Paul. No one is suggesting that people pass draconian laws to FORCE people to get married. The issue at hand is whether or not the state should subsidize the deliberate creation of half-orphans. I know it's difficult, but do try to stay on point, Paul, there's a good fellow.

As for the comments about race, they are too despicable to be bothered with. The only reason why I "jumped" on the issue is that it's been my experience that "progressives" always play the race card in desperation after they've lost the argument in an effort to shut their opponent up. Paul you are living up to the stereotype quite swimmingly I must say.

What kind of incoherent rambling is that Paul ? What has slavery got to do with IVF or are you advocating eugenics to produce a race of helots ?

IVF is dangerous, it elevates the risks of cystic fibrosis; and I wonder how many of these people really want to handle that situation. It is not quite as simple as people think; and it is very expensive; really it should be debated if the NHS should fund such things which are not about saving life.....we abort 165.000 babies and then engineer them in the same hospital with cystic fibrosis being a real risk for male offspring.

It is frivolous that way Paul rambles on without really thinking about things, just bash out a few keystrokes of thoughtless tripe.......

Society Paul is paying the bills; it is allocating resources so medical facilities performing IVF or abortions cannot do hear surgery, or hip replacements, or provide ICU beds in London......it means some people die because "society" plays games and services whims without regard to effects.....that Marie Antoinette Moment.

In 1985 only 105 sets of triplets were born in the UK but in 2000 the figure had risen to 285, according to The Times.

A study in 1999 put the hospital cost of ten-week premature triplets at £450,000, it also reported.

The research is published in the New England Journal of Medicine, and was carried out by linking registers of IVF children with those listing children born with significant defects.

These included congenital heart problems, Down's syndrome, club foot and cleft lip and palate.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1927366.stm

a single IVF treatment costs between £2,000 and £4,000 plus £1,000 for drugs.

About 24,000 couples a year have IVF treatment and doctors suspect that a free service would encourage many more. Only a quarter of the treatments are provided by the NHS.

Some doctors believe that the annual cost could be as much as £100 million

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority which regulates the clinics says that more than 8,000 IVF babies were born in 2000-01 and that IVF now accounts for about one per cent of all live births in Britain.

Why should thousands of children in the UK alone every year be allowed to be abandonded, neglected and abused by straight people who are allowed to bring a life into this world willy nilly simply because they have the right equipment to create it? By that, a gay couple wishing to love, raise and nurture a child of their own doesn't really sound so horrific does it?