by Jean Hatchet, The Critic
Leaving children with only men who are not their parents is foolish and dangerous
In their lifetime not all women have babies, not all can, and not all want to. Yet every person who gives birth is a woman and all mothers are female. Feminists in the UK fought very hard for reproductive rights, and we defend them fiercely just as we do the right to retain the word “woman” and “mother” exclusively for female people.
You can’t and shouldn’t force women to be mothers, then, but at the same time men should not be allowed to completely replace women in the parenting of children, whether that is by adoption or surrogacy. Given the statistics on male violence against children, it simply isn’t safe for the child — and especially for babies — to be raised exclusively by male strangers.
This week saw the horrendously distressing court case of Baby Preston. Preston Davey was 13 months old when he was brutally murdered after serious sexual and physical cruelty, by two men who were allowed to adopt him.
Jamie Varley was convicted of murder, sexual assault and taking indecent images of Preston, and he has been given a whole life order. His sexual partner John McGowan-Fazakerley was convicted of sexual abuse, child cruelty and allowing the death of a child, and he has been sentenced to 25 years. Baby Preston’s body was found to have 40 internal and external trauma injuries, including some consistent with “forcible penetration”.
It is almost unbearable to consider what this infant endured at the hands of these two depraved men. Preston was removed from his mother at 5 days old and after a period with foster carers he was handed to his rapist murderers. Inquiries will probably follow into social work failures and will also likely include the ignoring of red flags made evident to Jamie Varley’s colleagues at the school where he was a Head of Year and safeguarding lead.
The stark reality is that these two male strangers should never have been allowed to parent Preston. Not because they were gay, not because they were insufficiently screened (though they clearly were), but because they are men.
Also from The Critic: Get men out of nurseries by Adam James Pollock