Be Careful Who You Let Fertilize Your Eggs
Imagine you had to undergo cancer treatment that would render you infertile.
And imagine that before you started treatment, you went through the beginning stages of in vitro fertilization so you could ultimately create fertilized embryos to be frozen and used after you completed your cancer treatment to get pregnant and have a family.
And then imagine that you ended up splitting with your partner and he decides, because he doesn’t want you to have his child anymore, to destroy those embryos — because the law says he can.
This is a real story that just transpired in the UK. A woman, Natallie Evans, and her boyfriend froze their embryos before she underwent cancer treatment but because they broke up, he will not allow her to have any of the embryos implanted and has won a five year court battle to have them destroyed.
This is the ONLY chance this woman will EVER have to bear a biological child and yes, even though the genetic material in those embryos is HALF hers, HE has been granted the right to have the embryos destroyed.
Never mind that the law says he can change his mind any time up until implantation takes place. That’s besides the point. He COULD let her use those embryos if he wanted to but he isn’t. Instead he’s taking away her only opportunity to have her own child.
He can sire as many children as he wishes, but his ex-girlfriend will never have any more eggs to create children with someone else. I imagine she now regrets not just harvesting her eggs and freezing them without his participation.
His reasons for being so heartless? He does not want the financial or emotional burden of having a child with Ms. Evans and wants to decide for himself if and when to start a family.
He said he would like to start a family “if I meet the right person and the situation is correct.”
HELLO? Why did the court only consider what HE wanted?
Hasn’t anyone over there ever heard of termination of parental rights? Legal documents can be drawn up that waive any and all responsibility for the children.
She was willing to bear the entire burden of parenting any children that resulted from the embryos but noooo… This guy could care less that he’s also destroying her last chance to become a mother to a genetically-related child.
And I don’t mean to put so much emphasis on the genetic part because I, myself, am adopted but the embryos were available and they were created from HER eggs. To not use them is ludicrous and given a choice, who wouldn’t want to carry on their bloodline if they could? Who wouldn’t want a child that is a part of them if they could have one? It’s her right and nobody seems to care.
I know there are plenty of guys out there that probably identify with the ex-boyfriend but seriously, he couldn’t muster up just a teeny bit of compassion? He couldn’t give this woman who had CANCER a second chance at motherhood? I just don’t get it.
To clarify, the law was properly interpreted, IMO. My thing is that he didn’t HAVE to be such a jerk. He had a chance to be a stellar human being and he didn’t take it, opting instead to think only of himself.
I guess if there’s anything to take away from this story, it’s be careful who you let fertilize your only remaining eggs.
With reproductive medical technology continuing to progress in ways never imagined even fifty years ago, I doubt this is the last time we will hear of a case like this. Frank discussions are not only interesting — but also necessary.
What do you think? (Dissenting opinions are welcome)
I read about this myself a few days ago. I went back and forth with my opinion on it. I get to be the first to comment, so that my voice as devil’s advocate can be right at the top for people to flame :)……
I feel so awful for this woman. She went through the process of freezing eggs…I think the tragic misfortune is the fact that they were frozen as fertilized embryos. Made from her genetics and his equally. I know he could terminate his parental rights, but it is such a sticky thing. That baby would still be half his child. He has a right to have a child under his own free will. Signing away parental rights isn’t like flipping a switch causing you to forget that someone who is half of you (does he have my eyes? Does she laugh like me? Is her chin like her grandma’s?) is walking around somewhere. I’m sure his decision is just not him trying to be an asshole. As someone familiar with adoption, you know that even when adoptions are done with full conviction that the best choice is being made…there are usually still the feelings of ties to that someone out there in the world. And imagine if he agreed, but did not want to sign away his rights. He could file for joint custody..and would be entitled. Can you imagine all of the legal issues that would come into play? It is unfortunate that she will never be able to have a biological child, especially under the circumstances….but I don’t feel that her “right” to have a child should supersede his right to choose not to have a child in that way. It seems so easy to jump to the defense of the poor woman, who has fought cancer, and if being kept from having a baby of her own….but the man involved agreed to parent a child with her when they were partners, a couple. When their situation changed, he was entitled to rethink that decision. It does seem unfair, but I think the correct decision was made.
I hope that made some sense. It is really, really late….and I hate disagreeing with you, Izzy. :) Okay, deep breath…click submit….
Oh, no! I think this is an incredibly tough one!
This is why I am so concerned about the latest reproductive technologies.
To call this issue a thorny one is to understate.
If this particular reproductive technology had not existed, she would be out of luck, no?
So I’m very reluctantly going to have to side with mel.
But it’s breaking my heart to do so.
What a sticky, sad situation. I can’t imagine her pain. It seems heartless of this man to take away her only chance. If he were more sympathetic, he could just have parental rights terminated, as you suggested.
I have mixed feelings on this one. Even though the woman may have promised to bear all financial responsibilities there are cases where this has happened and the court still nails the father for financial support. What a shame how this has worked out for the woman though.
I remember in college reading about girls donating eggs to help fund their education. I didn’t have a particularly strong opinion one way or the other back then. Now, as a parent I realize the connection we have with our children. I understand that they seek reflections of themselves in the adults in their lives, just as we as parents look for glimmers of ourselves in our children. I think it’s very muddy to talk about cutting out the source of a life, whether it’s an egg donor or a disinterested father. I ache for this woman, I really do. I wish the guy felt differently. I wish there were a happy ending, but ultimately I have to respect that he has a say in whether his seed is used to create life. And it’s probably not fair as I sit here with two girls born from my own body to say that adoption is no less a parent child relationship than a child born from one’s body.
I agree with Mel. While I feel awful for this woman, it was incredibly short-sighted of her to preserve her eggs as fertilized embryos before she was prepared to have kids. Why not save her eggs until she was certain when and with whom she wanted to have kids? Look at it the other way. What if the man wanted to have some of the embryos implanted into HIS future wife/partner? Isn’t he just as entitled to do that? Would the woman be an asshole for preventing him from doing that?
Well congratulations for just p*ssing me right off.
What a jerk. What a callous ahole.
Oh.My.God.
“but the man involved agreed to parent a child with her when they were partners, a couple. When their situation changed, he was entitled to rethink that decision.”
I don’t know…does that mean that if she was already pregnant, he is entitled to demand she get an abortion because their situation changed and he rethought the decision? I mean, whether they are implanted in her uterus or not, they are EMBRYOS, not just eggs.
I do think it’s unfortunate that the woman decided to have her eggs frozen as embryos instead of eggs. And I think he’s being a little bit heartless. I’m also torn on this one.
Gah … I got cut off before I finished.
To go against the grain here, I really think that this comes down to a matter of compassion at the most basic of levels.
This guy was obviously with her when she was diagnosed with CANCER of all things, he must have stood by her for a little while at least, and he agreed to this whole deal with the eggs.
To have her go through all of that, and then hit her over the head with yet another huge life-altering event, is just beyond selfish.
Agreements can be reached, written up, enforced.
I just see this as selfish. And callously cold.
That argument is a bit flawed because of the introduction of a third party on his end where this isn’t one on hers. But yes, actually I do believe that if HE wanted use of the embryos, she should allow him, too, since they are half his (although that scenario is unlikely as he is clearly able to father children).
Holy Jesus. I can’t even imagine her despair.
My heart hurts for her.
He agreed to fertilize the eggs, knowing it was the only way she’d ever be able to have children, after her treatment. There is no excuse, IMO, for his heartless, selfish behavior. It makes me sick that a human being could behave in such a way. Why is it okay for HIM to decide to have a family later while taking away her only chance? What a sick, sick man.
If this man had any question what so ever about the stability of their relationship at the time he gave his sperm for implantation, then he should have backed out then. Is the real issue becoming a parent with some one he is no longer in a relationship with, or is the real reason financially responsibility? If it is the latter, then he should have been given the option to sign away his parental rights and obligations so that this woman could have the child/children that she wants to have. Does he not realize he is taking away her only option to have a biological child of her own? Does he not even have the smallest amount of compassion for a women that he obviously loved at one time, or he never would have asked her to marry him in the first place?
I hope that this miscarriage of justice leads to changes in the British law in regards to frozen embryos. There should be a more detailed contract available that gives either parent the right to move forward with the use of the embryos or the right to back out if the relationship ends. It is such a gray area when the couple is not married. That throws a monkey wrench into the situation from the get go.
Oh my good God! Someone should cut off his balls, freeze them and then tell him that it’s unfair to any potential women he has sex with. He could accidentally get someone pregnant and that just isn’t right.
His balls. Get his balls someone.
Jamie
Wow, I think I’m going to have to agree with the earlier comments on this one. The long-term legal and potential financial implications of this situation are HUGE. My husband was faced with a similar decision early in his life, having small doses of chemotherapy in his teens. He made the decision then to have his sperm frozen, and then later destroyed them. I think oftentimes we put so much emphasis on the mother’s point of view, that it becomes almost too easy to just assume that the “father” is an a$$hole, when really he has just as much right to his decision as the mother.
Although, as Jess stated, perhaps better provisions in the law and changes to the contracts required will come of this messy situation.
This will be unpopular but…He’s the selfish one? She wants to force him to be a father (whether financially responsible and involved or not) against his will. She wants to purposely bring a child into the world whose father doesn’t want it. If a woman has control over her reproductive life up to the point of destroying an embryo in utero against a man’s wishes (i.e. abortion) doesn’t a man deserve the same right to decide when/how his fertilized embryos are used? A woman deciding to abort a pregnancy because she doesn’t want to have a child (even though she could give it up) is protected by law - I believe men should be too.
It’s a tricky one all right. I feel for the woman, I really do, but in deciding to fertilize the eggs, she did give him a say in what happens next. He probably didn’t have to be such an arse about it, but she should have let her eggs live the single life until she was ready to be pregnant.
And I swear to god, at first I thought this post was about Celine Dion. Shudder.
Ugh I guess the good news out of this is that there aren’t more spawn of his wandering the earth. I’m with you. This sucks.
I think this is a tough one too. It sucks.
I realize this occured in the UK, so I’m not sure of their laws. But if your compare it to the U.S. - a woman can get an abortion without the consent or knowledge of her husband, boyfriend or one-night stand. The genetic other-half has no say. It’s totally left up to her.
So why in this case are they leaving it entirely up to him? I’m guessing because he is invested with DNA.
Either way, this boils down to him being a jackass.
How horrible for this woman. But I think the right legal decision was made. However, morally, I think the man should have had an ounce of compassion for his one time lover. He does sound like an asshat.
But no matter which way you turn, this is a thorny debate. How sad for that woman.
i wish i’d known i could freeze some embryos before i started chemotherapy last year.
Tough one. Hindsight is always 20/20, but I really think she should have kept his stuff separate and just frozen her eggs. I’m always a little leery when major life decisions are made without a marriage in place first, not that it can’t work, but it’s an added insurance.
FYI: http://www.bloggerschoiceawards.com/blogs/show/6269
Freezing unfertilized eggs is a new thing and it’s a little more iffy that freezing embryos.
Who knows if freezing eggs was even possible when they did it.
I agree that it is really unfair for the woman here. She put her trust in someone for the future and he wussed out big time.
I don’t even know - I still can’t get over the fact that they actually can harvest and freeze eggs like microwaving a burrito…
It bothers me that two people would approach something so serious and not be committed enough to get married. Though I have no doubt this situation would arise as easily among those who were legally married. Plenty of jerks are married men too I’m told :)
I guess I’m pretty conservative about the “don’t have babies unless you’re married” old school of thought :)
That is so sad. Instead of destroying the embryos, he could’ve just disown the embryos and let the mother take care of it on her own. I think it was better if she saved it before it was fertilized.
I was thinking a lot of those same things when I saw that story in the newspaper. But whether it’s in the UK or here, in light of today’s Supreme Court decision, I think the broader issue is what happens to matters involving women when men are deciding them. Regardless of which side of the issues we may come down on, wouldn’t it be better to have a few more gals weighing in on our reproductive rights?
This is a horrid situation to be in. Like a previous poster said, I wonder if freezing the eggs alone was even an option. If the embryos were her only sure option at the time, then this was an incredibly callous act on the man’s part. If she had the egg-only option, then that does really grey things up for me.
Either way, my heart goes out to her. She thought she had a chance of still bearing children, and it got taken away from her. That sucks.
Also my heart goes out to him a bit. Now he’s “that arse who wouldn’t let his ex-girlfriend have biological children.” Let’s see him find a date and a life partner after this.
He could have waived his rights to the potential children instead, and that would’ve been more compassionate. That’s true.
On a lighter note, how about what Rita Rudner said she thought about when dating a man and considering marriage. She would ask herself: Is this the man I want my children to spend every other weekend with?
Boy, ain’t that the truth. Relationships are so fragile, and something you think is solid can turn out not to be for reasons you can never imagine in the beginning.
Or maybe it’s just me.
Quite a story. Personally, I agree with you and side with the woman. The guy consented to having the eggs fertilized with his sperm. The resulting embryos are half hers; he should have no right to destroy them against her wishes. I think the appropriate remedy would be termination of parental rights on his part.
I keep coming back to this post so frequently I feel like a stalker. I am stunned at the number of female posts that think terminating your parental rights and just disowning the embryos (and resulting child) would be so easy for this guy to do. Would it be that easy for you to do? Just forget you had a child? And do we want to train even more guys to think that way?
It’s the glass is half full or half empty scenario. It depends on your viewpoint. The baby is half hers, so she should be able to keep it, but it’s half his so he should destroy it.
Like you, Izzy, I was adopted, and all my life I have had a disconnect. I didn’t realize this UNTIL I birthed my children.
Seeing and knowing another person that is genetically related to me changed my life. When my daughter was born I felt “real” as opposed to a poser…an interloper who didn’t really, totally belong to a family.
So, while the law is the law, the guy is a jerk for stealing such an important connection from her. The genetic connection is powerful. Having said that, the genetic connection will be 50% to the jerk; so, maybe she’s better off without that reminder.
Frankly, for *some* men (and women) I think it would be very easy to do. Men refuse to support and walk away from their children every day with no training whatsoever.
And people also sign away their parental rights when they give up a child for adoption. It’s not a completely foreign concept.
In this case, if the guy doesn’t want to terminate parental rights, then I’m sure the woman would let him be involved as he is the biological father.
My point was that to knowingly and intentionally destroy someone’s only remaining chance to have a child because the guy changed his mind is incredibly selfish and cruel. Why should his wishes trump hers?
It’s a difficult situation and there are no easy answers but this is not the last time we will see a case like this. I think the discourse is good.
I sympathize with the woman, but I think the man’s rights need to be respected. If the woman feels so strongly a need to *have* a biological child, why can’t we respect the man’s feeling that he *doesn’t* want to have a biological child. Both feelings are valid.
It’s difficult to know if we have the right partner. We can’t be too sure of the intentions of our parter. He/she may suddenly change if an event happens It’s better if we play it safe and take whatever precautions as possible.
Damn. It’s late and I’m tired. So all I’m good for is a knee-jerk reaction. And that would be this:
What a dick.
Pardon my French.
I’m sure that if my head were working right now, I’d have a well-thought and even-handed out response which would be more understanding to his POV. Maybe tomorrow.
Unfortunately there are an awful lot of people out there who get perverse pleasure in making others miserable. My heart goes out to the poor woman. I hope that there is some equally giving person who would share an egg with her someday when she decides whe wants to have children. It is odd that we can sometimes count more on the kindness of strangers than on the “love” that others have professed for us.
The man should have thought all of this through before agreeing to take part. It’s not like he had to say yes to begin with, and now? Little late.
I hope the settlement came with plenty of tissues for the whiner crybaby.
And from my grumpier side, let me not forget to point out that the poor children would have had a selfish bastard for a father.
what a difficult debate! I come at this from two angles, being British, and having recently undergone IVF myself. For those who don’t agree with the process, I met my husband late, we tried unsuccessfully for three years to have a baby naturally, and as my 40th is approaching, decided to go for it with over a year of debate! Now, the law is much tighter. We had to sign pages of paperwork, covering all “ethical” aspects of this choice - what if something happened to my husband, would he give me rights over any embryos created? What if he changed his mind later? What if something happened to me? (yes, I also had to consider that, in case, unbelievably, he might wish to use the eggs in someone else (thankfully, not a lot of thought went into that issue from both sides!). But it really does make you think. It raises hugely difficult ethical and moral dilemmas. I am changed afterwards, for sure. I have struggled with the ethics in many ways. I just felt strongly that our bodies were owrking, and it was just age that was against us - all tests confirmed that. So I ache terribly for this woman, but know my husband had difficult decisions to make in our circumstances, and within the confinfines of a very happy marriage. I would like to think the ex-boyfriend hurts for his decison, even though I can’t bring myself to condemn him completely.
I really don’t see it as forcing him to to do anything - yes, he’s be the bio father but she’d give up all rights. Sure she could try to get something later, but a lot of things could happen later. I could be wrong, but I think in these cases they sometimes freeze them like that because there is a better chance the eggs would be produce a succesful birth in the future, otherwise she would have froze them separately. Poor woman.
I see this whole awful mess as a huge endorsement for doing things the old-fashioned way: getting married, then trying to have a baby, then initiating divorce procedings, then having the courts work out who gets control over which marital asset. Because I’ll bet that’s how the courts would view the embryos. And divorce law has traditionally worked to ensure the equitable distribution of assets.
“The man should have thought all this through before agreeing to take part” - Maybe he did, as much as he could have and took refuge in the fact that the agreement he signed guaranteed he’d have the right to change his mind at any time up to implantation. He was 22 at the time. She really should have thought through all the possible problems as well. She was older and had been through 2 divorces already so it’s not like the idea of a relationship coming to an acrimonious end was foreign to her. In any case, I think he did the stand-up thing to insist that any child of his would be one that he wanted and was prepared to be part of it’s life. You might be interested in his version of the events. I don’t necessarily agree with all he has to say but it certainly sounds as though having a child “out there somewhere” would have been emotionally tragic for him.
(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_ id=448572&
in_page_id=1879)
I have tried to figure out why this whole debate resonates so strongly with me - I think because everyone (myself included at least initially) is only focusing on what She wants or what He wants and not how the child would be impacted or how they would have felt being born into this situation.
I’m sorry but I just don’t think that having a child “out there somewhere” would be more “emotionally tragic” than her never being able to have children at all. And if having one “out there somewhere” realy bothered him, he could always opt to be in the child’s life.
No matter how you slice it, IMO, the burden she bears NOT being able to have children is far heavier and more painful than the one he would have to bear if she did have any children.
Incidentally, there are plenty of commenters who do see it your way.
Wow! What an ugly scenario! I do think this is a good example of why every established religion takes sex so seriously.
We women can learn from this: we cannot trust men as much as we want to.
One more thing: can you imagine choosing to raise a child for whom the only response about the father is “he didn’t want you”? Can you imagine growing up knowing that?
That’s because we’re women who have or want to have children. I get that. It is tragic for her - I am beginning to understand how that is because my brother and his wife have been doing the fertility drug thing with no success and she is devasted. I’m not insensitive to her pain.
But then, I also live with a man who gave a child up as a teenager and I know how much that continues to haunt him and how vigorously he pursued his rights in the case of our 2 children from another marriage.
And I know how I felt when my biological father abandoned me and my siblings when we were small. All of us continue to be affected by that to varying degrees all these years later. My elder brother spent most of his life chasing after the man trying to make him want/love him. This is a crappy situation from every angle.
As far as the comments on both sides of the issue - how wonderful to have a discourse with varying opinions that doesn’t devolve into a flame war!
I promise to stop now. :-)
I can understand why he did what he did. You point out that contracts can be drawn up to excuse him of financial liability but no contract would change the fact that the child would be of his biology too. He created the embryos so that they could have a child together one day, not so that she could hve a child with his genetic material after they had split.
You say “even though the genetic material in those embryos is HALF hers, HE has been granted the right to have the embryos destroyed” but what if you turn that around. You argue that SHE should be allowed to have the child/ren even though half the genetic material is HIS. I accept it is not like for like in so far as he can still produce new sperm and she has no more eggs in this case but as a point of principle I see no reason for the double standard. I also reject that reproduction is a ‘right’. There are a hell of a lot of people who certainly shouldn’t be reproducing, but that’s another issue for another day.
This particular situation need not occur any more since at the time they couldn’t just freeze her eggs because of technology, they needed to create embryos. To avoid this the advancements to allow unfertilized eggs should be used.
No, reproduction is not a right. It’s actually a biological imperative.
What I meant is that it’s her right to be able to use her only remaining eggs.
If he wasn’t absolutely sure that he wanted this woman to be the mother of his children, he shouldn’t have participated.
Whether the law allows for it or not, changing his mind and seeking a court’s approval to destroy the embryos is wrong.
No need to stop. Your comments and thoughts are completely welcome here :)
This makes me just very sad. I don’t really have a better word to describe it.
I’m torn with how I feel about this.
And as a mom by birthing and adopting, I would like to thank Amanda for her comment..
“…adoption is no less a parent child relationship than a child born from one’s body.”
As an adoptee, I too, have to believe that biology is not what makes a family.
I just thought it was terribly cruel for the man to fight to destroy the woman\’s own flesh and blood when she had pinned all her hopes on those embryos.
My heart goes out to this woman. The situation is tragic. Let’s remember though that it was cancer that robbed this woman of her fertility and not the ex-boyfriend.
There’s no such thing as absolute certainty in this world. The best we can do is try and make the best choices with the information we have to work with. That’s what both of these people did. And then things changed. As things do.
I’m sad for this woman but don’t think that her rights should supercede his right to decide that he does not want to father a child with this woman. For what it’s worth, I’m infertile and will probably never have a genetic child and that absolutely breaks my heart. As hard as that is, as much as I feel that on some level I can understand this woman’s heart, I have to cast my vote with him.
Nevermind her rights, his rights, her emotional impact, his emotional impact. What about those embryos? That life going to waste, being murdered. I know in-vitro is a miracle to many who can’t have children and I do support it, but in situations like these I have a hard time with intentionally creating a life with terms written into the contract to destroy that very life if the parties change their minds. It is an absolute pandora’s box, for sure, but when we decide to play GOD (and I use that term loosely), we need to be more responsible and ethical in our actions and laws.
hmmmm. I don’t think that not implanting an embryo qualifies as murder. I’m not sure that 4-6 cell embryos actually have rights. it’s an interesting question to ask though.
Wow! The justice system never ceases to amaze me. I’m with you in not understanding why termination of parental rights was not pursued more vigorously or why, if it was, the judge didn’t take that route. As an egg donor for IVF patients, the eggs I donate are fertilized by the donor male (sometimes a husband, sometimes a friend, whatever it happens to be with the recipient couple) and yes, the resulting child(ren) are half “mine” biologically, but I sign a whole stack of paperwork stating that I will never have rights or any claim of parenthood. In fact, I’m never told if a child or children result. For all I know those eggs are still frozen somewhere waiting for the right time for the couple to decide when to start their family.
I feel for this woman so much. I fear that as if the cancer wasn’t enough suffering for one lifetime, this will make her a its victim all over again.
Like others have said, this is a tough one. I definitely believe in paternal rights - but I think permission was given implicitly in his fertilizing the eggs in the first place. You could then go onto say, that he could have the right to demand that she abort had those eggs both been fertilized and implanted. After all they’re still “half his,” right? It’s a slippery, ugly slope.
Well, I don’t know. There are so many questions unanswered. What kind of character do they both have? (Is one or both filled with integrity and compassion or low lifes that would stab their grandma for $5.) Why did they break up? (Addictions, abuse, stress of cancer or just grew apart?) If he’s stayed with her through the cancer, why won’t he budge on this? I guess its difficult to make a decision if we don’t have all of the background info.
What a TOUGH issue. I can totally see both sides. On the one hand…her only chance to reproduce!!! On the other hand…I can definetly see that he should have a say so in in the question of his own reproduction. Being promised a free pass on child raising does not let him off the emotional/psychological/spiritual hook of having a child out there….
Its amazing the complexity of ethical questions these days…
My impulse is to simply say ASS… but it IS a tough one. Two people were involved; two people should get a say. But that also means that HE shouldn’t have the final word.
OMG! This story really breaks my heart. That man is so egocentric. Can’t he think of her instead of insisting what HE WANTED.
I’m so sorry for that girl. Hope she can find her happiness no matter how.
I agree that he should have taken the high road, and had some compassion for her. I’ll bet she’d have been willing to dissavow all knowledge of him, to have his name erased from any record to prevent future children from tracking him down, and some sealed documents drawn up to promise never to lay any claims at his doorstep.
At the same time, from a philosophical and legal standpoint, I think it’s trickier. We as women have been fighting for years for the right to impose our wishes on embryos that are half the man’s. Shouldn’t they be granted the same right, if we really want equality in the eyes of the law?
Also, I wonder perhaps if this had been approached differently, the outcome might have been different? I would hope that two people - former lovers or not - would be able to come to some arrangement if the situation is not set up as adversarial, but perhaps that is just me being all Pollyanna, yet again…
BTW - did you notice that the amercian psychiatric assocation is in agreement about the damage to be done by sexualizing children? They even have a task force set up to study it and have drawn some conclusions that are being widely publicized this month as a wakeup call to parents. Good on them, I say. Thought you’d be interested if you weren’t already on it (though I bet you are!).