John Waters’ column in The Irish Times regarding the recent High Court decision to recognise a lesbian couple as a “de facto” family makes for fascinating reading. “Drunk with liberal hubris,” he writes, “have we reinvented the wheel of life, deciding that two lesbians playing House can trump the claims of the forces that create human life?”

The force that created human life, in this case, was a sperm – one which was accepted by the mother-to-be on condition that the donor wouldn’t play the role of father to any ensuing issue. If that condition wasn’t going to be agreed to, the woman would have found another donor willing to accept it. Women have practically all the power when it comes to reproduction of the species, and it is pointless for men to rail against it. However, the courts can intervene if this power is abused, and if a father’s rights are ignored – and they should do so every time there is a case where a father is denied access to his children. The Supreme Court upheld this father’s right to a fair hearing, when it prevented the child from being taken out of the country for a year, and they were right to do so, if only to establish an important precedence, in the absence of legislation.

Fathers have a rough time of it when it comes to separation and divorce, and I have the greatest respect for John Waters’ consistent dedication to raising awareness about their plight in his writings. But I would have assumed that what motivated him was a real sense of concern in cases where a man’s relationship with his offspring is disregarded and perhaps destroyed due to the way mothers are favoured in the courts. This is damaging to children, who should not have such loving bonds severed in this way. My interest lies, therefore, in a child’s right to a continuous connection with a loving parent. I do not base my opinion on anything other than what is best for the child. When it comes to adoption, for example, biological connections are always trumped by the impact of a consistently loving and secure home. Adopted children do not suffer because their parents are not genetically connected to them; issues that arise in adopted children later in life often come from a disrupted early experience with their biological mother, and have nothing to do with genes. Adoptive fathers and mothers are “real” parents.

Interestingly, this case, although a landmark in terms of the advancement of gay rights, by virtue of there being no element of discrimination against lesbians, would have resulted in the same outcome if the arrangement had been made between a married or unmarried heterosexual couple and a sperm donor. If the husband was infertile, the couple would have gone through the same process of selecting a sperm donor among their friends, came to the same arrangement with their gay male friend, with the notion that the donor would have played the role of a favourite uncle, and would have had exactly the same problems if he wanted to change his mind. Somehow I think the press would have covered the story a bit differently, seeing it as a bust-up between a gay man and a heterosexual man fighting over their right to be a father to their son, but in essence the dilemma from the child’s perspective is the same. However, I doubt John Waters would have worked himself up into such a lather, if that were the case.

I do not have some mystical notion that a child should be brought up by a father, just because he desires it. (The same goes for a mother, by the way.) When the courts get involved in the messy business of conflict resolution, deciding on access/custody rights, the atmosphere between parents is often toxic; the resolution must be the lesser of two evils, and is never ideal. This ruling places the welfare of the child above all other considerations, and is to be welcomed for its common sense and wisdom.