Abandon Ship by Captain, Abandon IVF child by Intended Parent

For centuries there has been an unwritten rule that captains of a ship get rescued last when a ship is in distress. Capt. E. J. Smith of Titanic dutifully did this. But are there any laws to enforce this? What if a captain of a ship is selfish and decides to abandon ship in a time of distress before all the passengers have been safely rescued? Can you enforce that by laws? Is abandoning ship by a captain before rescuing the passengers “akin to murder” as South Korean president claimed? What about abandoning an IVF child in a foreign country that an adult consented to?

Much like what a captain is to a ship, a woman is to a family. Even IVF laws are written with this in mind leaving little for male IVF parents. She is the soul of the family, the bond that ties, the glue that holds it together, the soul that forgives relentlessly and the soul that takes on more unsaid hardships for the sake of the family. We all know who it is, we all have one in the family, we call her “mother”. Lately in a surprising way, captains of ships in distress have known to abandon ship rather than rescue its passengers. The unwritten rule has been broken, now what? What if the mother decides to abandon an IVF child, what do we do? There is an unwritten rule that IVF parents are engaged in IVF/surrogacy because they want a child and they would NEVER abandon an IVF child, but what IF someone does exactly that – abandon an IVF child, now what? The unwritten rule has been broken, what about the survivors who made it?

When the unthinkable happens, one has to move forward. Like when an IVF father has to live in exile because his IVF child is not welcome to the US. Like when the captain abandons ship then the vice-captain or someone lower in the chain of command takes over and do what they do best and possibly giving up their life while trying to save others. For an IVF child who has been abandoned, the first thing is who pays the surrogate who agreed to do this for a fee or does she not deserve any payment since the intended parent abandoned? Who raises the IVF child and what are their rights? Or does the child go to an orphanage and be lied to all their life and never revealed they were born through IVF only to be abandoned? Do we just shove the issues under the carpet? As in gambling, it comes down to skin in the process. Maybe if you have your womb, or your egg or sperm then maybe you are more obligated to NOT abandon the innocent IVF child. There may even be laws to track you down since you would be the “biological parent”. But if you have no ties to the child, then you can abandon the innocent child with no legal consequences. Does that seem right from the perspective of the abandoned IVF child who is in legal limbo? We as human beings are better than that or are we? Or are we all like the captain of the Italian Ship and the captain of the South Korean ship where we abandon ship and no legal consequences will occur. There are “non-biological” IVF parents who have made big sacrifices showing that it’s not the biology that counts but it’s the intent of an intended IVF parent much like a captain abandoning ship.

A parent-child relationship is based on the connect of the hearts based on truth and not what the laws say. US laws require a genetic link between a US parent and a child born outside the US, is that how we define parentage? Just like the innocent deaths of so many passengers who could have been rescued, the innocence of childhood has been killed from IVF siblings forever. For a captain of the family, the same person can be a spouse, a lover, a parent to their child AND a abuser or abandoner of their child. Which name do you refer with? A captain on a ship is still a captain but if he abandons ship, what name do you refer with? – The South Koreans refer to the abandoning captain by “Evil of Sewol”. The South Korean president likened the abandoning captain to “murder”.

I miss my son terribly, I miss my son missing out on growing up with his sibling terribly. I do have the last words he told me and the pictures of us together and they mean “I love you, Papa”. Let us see if that’s where we pick up from when we are together again or has he been brainwashed and alienated? What he thinks about me is largely up to the person raising him whether to choose to say the truth or lie in their best interest – certainly not the “child’s best interest” which is considered the gold standard by courts which I fail to grasp in an international, immigrant, IVF, intersex family case – whose best interest is kept?