Would You Want Forgiveness or Compassion?

Knowing and admitting to one’s weakness is the biggest strength. It takes a lot to admit to the truth.

We all have skeletons in the closet but what if they happen to be of innocent children whose rights have been violated, is that enough to speak up? They could be IVF children, they could be immigrants, they could be intersex families for whom laws do not exist. Threat of persecution is no reason to remain silent and being on the right side of truth and history is what matters.

A lot of people have said, aren’t forgiveness and compassion the same thing? To most, maybe. But to an immigrant, IVF parent of lovely IVF children, forgiveness and compassion are different. If you were climbing a staircase, where one step was forgiveness and other step was compassion and there is a fire burning below meaning you HAVE to climb, turning around is not an option, which would you choose? When a mother and father have raised their son to respect all, love your spouse and family, show compassion and forgiveness, why should he stay quiet? What is so heinous and criminal that they taught their child that we need to hold secrets or lie about? Don’t show compassion to infertile people, that don’t forgive liars, that don’t keep secrets? If none of these were taught, then two lovely IVF children would have never been born. As for the intersex  person, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture has called for a STOP to the surgery. So if torture is heinous, is that the spouse’s fault or is that the medical community who victimized an entire immigrant, IVF, intersex family? If an intersex person is a victim of the medical community, what is it for the spouse and children of an intersex family? The lying must stop and let truth prevail. In the meantime, splitting innocent siblings cannot be the RIGHT answer, its a slap to our humanity as a whole, isn’t it? A parent is not only about being able to provide food, shelter, education for their child but also fight for their child’s rights instead of violating them and a parent has to lead by example the virtues of compassion and forgiveness.

1) If you are frauded into an intersex marriage and find out the truth after marriage and even though laws allow you to get the marriage annulled, you stay, is that forgiveness or compassion? You go on to become a spouse caregiver, is that compassion or forgiveness?

2) Because you are in an intersex marriage, there is infertility. You go for IVF under secrecy and lies because no one should know about the infertility due to stigma. These lies mean breaking laws. Is that out of compassion or forgiveness?

3) When one goes for IVF in an intersex marriage, you need an egg donor and a surrogate. Compassionate women will agree to become egg donor or surrogate, not forgiveness.

4) The IVF clinic who works on the case and is successful in a first of its kind case in India and probably in the world, an IVF child of an intersex, immigrant family. Legally, this family cannot exist because no prevailing laws support it. So is everyone breaking the laws forgiveness or compassion?

5) An IVF father is forced to lie and remain silent and NOT celebrate the birth of his first child and pretend father’s day never happened because of secrecy and lies needed to bring the IVF child to the US, is that forgiveness or compassion?

6) When a person is infertile and is married, is infertility an “I” problem or a “We” problem? When there are lack of laws for IVF children and families, is that an “I” problem or a “We” problem for an IVF family?

7) When there is victimization at the hands of the medical community of intersex people and the families and spouse of intersex people, is the victimization isolated only to the “intersex person” or are the families like spouse, children, parents, siblings also victimized? Is it an “I” problem or a “we” problem?

8) When you have an IVF child born outside the US, all IVF children are subjected to US Immigration laws. What happens when an innocent IVF child is caught up in the complex web where simply laws have not caught up with technology, what do these US parents do – the easy way is to abandon the IVF child they wanted and quite possibly poured their life savings and emotional savings into OR give up their life in the US and live in exile and raise the child they always wanted. What about the rights of the IVF child, an innocent human being? Do they have a say? Is this the best we can do as a society in 2014?

9) It is one thing to have laws which have not caught up with technology, to some extent it may be even inadvertent, but what is it to use these “gaps in laws” for selfish advantage which directly  hurts the welfare of innocent children? Is this a new level of white collar crime in the 21st century? And are laws there to protect the innocent children or place them in legal limbo?

10) If you are an intersex, immigrant, IVF parent, will you want forgiveness or compassion or both? And what does an innocent IVF child who has been abandoned deserve? And what does an innocent IVF child who has been alienated from his sibling that he wanted and biological family deserve? If a parent of an intersex child can ask for compassion and forgiveness, what can an IVF parent ask for his innocent IVF children?

To move forward, why can’t we see some compassion for innocent IVF siblings who have NEVER met and UNITE them? History has shown that united we stand, divided we fall and splitting siblings including the US judicial system will simply not stand the test of time.