By every measure of parenting, the children who were the product of either an artificial fertilization or insemination by a donor did better than children who were naturally conceived. The better parenting should not be surprising. Some observers are opposed to all of these arrangements, no matter what their effect on children. Paul Ramsey argued in 1970 that for any third party say, an egg or sperm donor to be involved violates the marriage covenant. That is also the view of the Roman Catholic Church.
Matters become more complex when a surrogate mother is involved.
There, a woman is inseminated by a man so that she may bear a child to be given to another couple. That process uses a woman s body from the start for purposes against which her own instincts, as well as our own moral judgments, rebel. The case of Baby M in New Jersey began with a child born to Mary Beth Whitehead. She had entered into a contractual agreement with William and Elizabeth Stern to deliver the child to them. Mrs. Whitehead had become pregnant through artificial fertilization by Mr. Stern s sperm.