I’m just going to add to what i said in an earlier post on its own:
My question re: 911’s donor-conceived child handling remains centered around like: What are saying about donor, recipient parents, and donor child relationships here? If we are entering a plot dependent on the legal gray areas of donor conception and custody in the US, what is the point of that plot? Knowing that queer and infertile people are most likely to be harmed by those legal gray areas, how could this plot portray the various characters involved as heroes or victims or villains and why? Why should we be comfortable with a double standard on donor-conceived families vs. adoptive families re: biology vs. family of choice when everyone’s favorite white guy character gets to acquire the kid in question? In a conservative political environment that is continuously looking to strip away reproductive rights, what does presenting the donor-recipient parents as ineffective parents who cannot raise the child compared to the biological donor’s “natural bond” with them say when politicians want to restrict IVF and place religious-based parameters on both that process and adoption? Is that actually acceptable just because of the possible “two dads” outcome?
And to be clear - these aren’t questions that I think need to be addressed in every fanwork or one-off post about kid acquisition spec. But they are questions we should be asking of the show itself since it decided to go that route, and of ourselves as a reality check that they should be asked and discussed in general. Because this is actually a real life issue that real people who decide to have families this way face being presented on prime time TV on a show that regularly gets top ratings, entirely irrespective of your favorite cute kid trope on ao3, so genuinely: what the fuck 911?
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