Elton John hits back at gay adoption criticism
How dare you refer to my beautiful children as “synthetic”. And shame on you for wagging your judgemental little fingers at IVF – a miracle that has allowed legions of loving people, both straight and gay, to fulfil their dream of having children. Your archaic thinking is out of step with the times, just like your fashions.
I shall never wear Dolce and Gabbana ever again.
~ Singer Elton John throwing an Instagram temper tantrum over the recent controversial remarks against gay adoptions by designers Dolce and Gabbana, via Today, March 19
I still think it’s insane and inhumane to kill one set of children through abortion while creating another more expensive set of children, many of whom will also be destroyed and women’s health compromised, via ivf. I also think that reducing a woman`s role to the use of her reproductive organs is exactly like using a woman as a brood mare. Finally, buying and selling children was supposed to have ended when slavery did. So boycott whomever you like, hypocrite John. You and your partner bought and paid for your children, so own it and quit your whining.
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“IVF – a miracle that has allowed legions of loving people, both straight and gay, to fulfill their dream of having children.”
…because children are commodities to be purchased when wanted and discarded when unwanted.
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I thought it was “anti-choicers” who looked at women as breeders? Looks like IVF for gay couples does that instead.
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And a few days after his hissy fit he was seen carrying a huge Dolce and Gabbana shopping bag. Hypocrite.
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Your archaic thinking is out of step with the times”
This is certainly true…. but it is the modern times which are insane, and the natural thinking of humankind through the ages which needs to be restored.
Sir Elton John: An overwhelming majority of humankind will always see what you have done is an abomination. Scenes of Brave New World come to mind, with its unnatural reproduction and forced indoctrination.
We hurt for your poor children, just as we hurt for all child who will never know their mothers or their natural families.
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What a wonder it would be to assemble 10 people from different historical time frames and watch them lecture and belittle each other about whose injustice is worse. “Yeah, we sacrifice children too, but at least we don’t leave them on the hillside to die, how barbaric!” “You’re both nuts, at least we feed them and get a day’s labor out of them!”
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“Your thinking is out of step with the times, just like your fashions”? What are you, Elton, a kid in a playground? What a way to undermine an argument: resorting to childish insults.
Besides, the argument of being “out of step with the times” is almost completely useless. If you lived in Sparta, the belief that disabled children ought not to be killed was “out of step with the times”. Equal rights for all human beings regardless of skin colour was “out of step with the times” just a few centuries ago.
Good for D&G standing up for those conceived via IVF. I appreciate it a lot.
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the natural thinking of humankind through the ages which needs to be restored. – my, that sounds interesting. Tell us more. Which ‘natural thinking’? From which era? From which culture? Please elucidate for us.
An overwhelming majority of humankind will always see what you have done is an abomination – you’ve got the polling data for this?
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“IVF – a miracle that has allowed legions of loving people, both straight and gay, to fulfill their dream of having children.”
Exactly – THEIR dream. The parents. The children are nothing but commodities to be used and discarded.
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I’ve not heard of people who make the effort of going through IVF later discarding their children. How often does it happen? Why do they do it? For reasons like that given by Rep. Justin Harris for ‘rehoming’ his adopted daughters?
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Calling IVF-conceived children “synthetic” is just disgusting to me, however the children come to be, they are just like any other children. Precious souls who don’t deserve to be judged for the actions of their parents or how they came to be. It reminds me of the extreme pro-choicers calling children conceived by rape “rape babies” or “rapist spawn”. Be awesome if people could think about how their words reflect on the children. Criticize the process of IVF or the parents choosing it as you wish, but realize that the children are just as precious as any babies conceived naturally to some middle class married couple.
I don’t really have a moral problem with IVF if they conceive and implant one embryo at a time (or two or three, as long as they are ALL implanted). Making “extra” embryos that get thrown out when Mom and Dad get a sibling to “take” is gross and unethical.
And let’s not lose sight of the fact that it’s straight couples, not gays, who make up the vast majority of IVF users. It’s simply number. The amount of gay people in the world is a small percentage (probably around 4 – 8% of the population depending on the study), and the amount seeking IVF and/or surrogacy is even smaller. If you made it illegal or impossible for gay people to seek IVF procedures, we would still have millions of people using it, because straight people who are having trouble conceiving (especially now that women have babies much later and infertility is more common because of this) dwarf the amount of gay couples seeking IVF.
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“Sir Elton John: An overwhelming majority of humankind will always see what you have done is an abomination. Scenes of Brave New World come to mind, with its unnatural reproduction and forced indoctrination.”
I really don’t think so. IVF is pretty non-controversial except for one end of the pro-life spectrum. I think everyone has the right to decry reproductive technology and there are certainly valid pro-life criticisms (particularly in regards to discarded embryos). There’s even valid feminist critiques about surrogacy, which can be damaging for low income women. But still, the public opinion on surrogacy doesn’t seem to be anywhere near what you hope. Can’t find many hard numbers but the couple studies I found support that most people aren’t against it (at least in the UK, which is what I could find numbers for).
http://humrep.oxfordjournals.org/content/15/2/330.full
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“For reasons like that given by Rep. Justin Harris for ‘rehoming’ his adopted daughters?”
Justin Harris is a gem. He’s a good example of irresponsible adoptive families who want a child but aren’t really parents. If you’re really a parent, your children aren’t contingent on whether or not they behave. And if you’re too irresponsible and selfish to look into what possible problems children coming out of abusive and neglectful homes, you honestly shouldn’t be allowed to adopt. If you have other children in the home, it’s YOUR responsibility to ensure that you are prepared to deal with what could happen if you adopt a child, there are sometimes violence and sexual acting out issues with children who have been beaten, neglected, traumatized by being taken from their biological parents, or sexually abused. IF you can’t do some bare minimum research and understand this, then you shouldn’t be allowed to retraumatize children by promising them a home and then getting rid of them when they can’t adjust and have mental issues.
And considering this dude passed the children out like candy to someone who raped at least one of them, and is accused of keeping at least the oldest girl in solitary confinement, I think him and his wife deserve abuse and neglect charges.
This rehoming thing isn’t even particularly rare in adoptive “parents”:
http://www.reuters.com/investigates/adoption/#article/part1
I know this seems off-topic, but it’s really the same issue with some IVF using parents. Children deserve parents, but people don’t “deserve” children. Children don’t exist to fulfill the whims of lonely adults who want a “perfect” family, they are human beings with needs and they deserve protection and respect, and adults who choose to have them and care for them should be held to the highest standard of conduct. I’m not opposed to adoption or (responsible, non-embryo discarding IVF, though I don’t agree on principle with surrogacy even if I’m iffy on the legal issues with it), but the way people treat both issues with cavalier attitudes of giving adults some kids, with little thought to the children’s safety and rights, is part of our cultural malaise.
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“I thought it was “anti-choicers” who looked at women as breeders? Looks like IVF for gay couples does that instead.”
Funny story about that, a commenter on another website said she refers to surrogate mothers as handmaids because doing so annoys leftists.
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I remember when the whole sperm bank, IVF, surrogate mother thing really started to take off in the 1980s. In fact, I and other adoptees even marched against it because few if any of these parents looked at it from the child’s point of view. They entered into these arrangements for their own selfish reasons. They had no idea the impact their actions would have on the child when he/she grew up.
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I think I.V.F. should be illegal, not out of reach for any particular couples or families. It may seem like a positive thing because some of the embryos grow, but it’s a form of slavery and human trafficking. How many British women lost their once-living children at a Marie Stopes while Elton John was conducting his transaction? How many children in developed nations are willfully destroyed because open adoption is messy? Prospective parents don’t want to wait, or have to deal with a relationship with a birth mother when they can just purchase who they want when they want. Pregnant women don’t have to face the stigma or the nosy questions when they can secretly snuff out the very complicating little person who has no power, is not even seen yet.
Well that’s inhumane and wrong. People ARE messy and complicated. We cannot traffick and abort our way through our world.
I can imagine how many lives would be saved if adoption were more common. Elton John and other wealthy people have the power to encourage pregnant women. Instead, they say, we don’t want you or your messy life or your common ordinary baby. They say, you should have the right to kill and we should have the right to buy a better baby than yours.
THAT’S the abomination.
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Elton John, I am personally boycotting your songs. I will not download or purchase any of them. When they come on the radio, I change the station. You pretty much fell out of favor with me when you started the surrogacy process.
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