The Country That Used to be England Heads Deeper Into Senile Dementia

A reader writes:

Have you seen this wonderful news from the Country That Used to be England? The only Catholic news source I’ve seen run the story so far is the Italian PiuVoce.Net, so I’ve included the article below with my translation thereof.

All the best,

Stephen Little
Ph.D. in Literature Program
University of Notre Dame

Vi gira la testa? Forse siete antiquati
e certamente non inglesi…
DUE MADRI E ZERO PADRI:
I “PROGETTI PARENTALI“
La piccola Lily-May Betty Woods, nata lo scorso 31 marzo in Gran Bretagna, è il primo neonato inglese ad avere sul certificato di nascita non una madre e un padre ma una madre e un’altra madre. La donna che l’ha partorita, dopo averla concepita con fecondazione in vitro da donatore anonimo, vive infatti con un’altra donna, che ha chiesto e ottenuto di poter usufruire dell’opportunità, ora garantita dalla legge britannica, di essere legalmente “padre” della piccola. Va bene, la testa gira un po’: una donna compare come padre, il vero padre è un donatore di seme sconosciuto, la vera madre vale, sul certificato e dal punto di vista legale, tanto quanto la madre-padre virtuale, e questa equivalenza varrà anche in caso di eventuale conflitto tra le due. Ma se vi succede – che vi giri la testa – forse è perché siete molto antiquati e certamente non siete inglesi. Tutto si può fare, nel meraviglioso mondo delle finzioni politicamente corrette. Si può decidere, per esempio, che non si fanno più figli ma che si mettono a punto “progetti parentali”, in nome dei quali si può sostenere l’insostenibile, e cioè che un bambino può avere due madri e nessun padre. Nemmeno lontano, nemmeno fuggito, nemmeno assente. No, proprio nessuno. Anzi, mi correggo. La piccola Lily-May Betty potrà conoscere, al compimento dei diciotto anni, l’identità del “donatore”, grazie al quale è venuta al mondo. Una prospettiva davvero invidiabile.

Does this make your head spin? Perhaps you’re old-fashioned–and you’re certainly not English…

TWO MOTHERS AND ZERO FATHERS: [CHILDREN AS] “PARENTAL PROJECTS”

Lily-May Betty Woods, a little girl born on March 31 in Great Britain, is the first English newborn to have on her birth certificate not one mother and one father, but one mother–and another mother. The woman who gave birth to her, after have conceived her through in vitro fertilization through an anonymous donor, lives in fact with another woman, who has asked and obtained permission, now guaranteed by British law, to be the legal “father” of the little girl. All right, let’s get this straight: one woman is listed as the father, the true father is an unknown seed donor, the real mother is equivalent–on the certificate and from the legal point of view–to the virtual “mother-father”, and this equivalence will hold also in the case of an eventual separation between the two [women]. If this makes your head spin, perhaps it is because you are old-fashioned, and [you are] certainly not English. Anything is possible, in the brave new world of politically correct fictions! One may decide, for example, that one no longer has children but rather makes “parental projects”, in whose name one may sustain the unsustainable, namely that a baby may have two mothers and no father. Not a long-distance father, not one who has left, not an absent one. No, truly no one. Actually, that’s not entirely true. The little Lily-May Betty will be able to know, when she reaches eighteen years, the identity of the “donor” thanks to whom she came into the world. Truly an enviable prospect.

I sometimes get the feeling that the last English subject, just before he or she is spitted on a scimitar, will say, “May have have just one last word before I die?” The executioner, a true son of Saladin, will forego his bloodlust for Allah for a moment and allow the victim to speak their peace. The victim will compose himself for a moment, draw a deep breath–and then release one final torrent of profanity against the Pope. It’s the one constant in English life for the past five centuries. Today’s post-Christian culture would be horrified by almost everything that the shifting winds of English history have served up since the Reformation, but all True Englishmen from Henry, to the Restoration, to the Victorians, to Swinging London to the present can all agree one thing: screw the Pope and Catholic teaching. This sort of story represents the final senility of English culture, just before the whole thing collapses and gets replaced by people who actually believe something beyond My Personal Truth of the Moment. And England will welcome it because, say what you will about Muslims, at least they aren’t Catholic.

Message to the Thing that Use to Be England: Children are not property and they are not projects for personal fulfillment until you get bored and move on to something else. They are persons made in the image and likeness of God and they deserve a mother and a father.