Gary and Tony Have a Baby

Gary and Tony Have a Baby is a CNN documentary that follows two gay men through the process of using donor eggs and a gestational surrogate to have their baby. According to Jennifer Chrisler, executive director of Family Equality Council, “CNN did an excellent job of telling the story…the piece shows that gay parents are good parents. They experience the ups and downs of any other family on the path to parenthood. Importantly, the documentary underscores how diverse American families now are. Anchor Soledad O’Brien and the In America team flexed their journalistic muscle by allowing the cameras to just roll and by allowing the story to unfold organically, without bias either in support of or in opposition to gay parenting.”

Following a debut New York screening of the film on June 15, CNN hosted a panel of LGBT parents to discuss the documentary. Chrisler shared with the audience her own experience of creating a family through donor insemination and the very real discrimination and barriers the one million LGBT parents raising two million children face today in the U.S.

Chrisler points out that although the documentary follows the story of a gay male couple having a child through IVF with donor eggs and a gestational surrogate, that LGBT  people become parents in numerous ways including adoption, donor sperm insemination, fostering, and having children while in straight relationships. 

One technical problem with the documentary was the narration that refers to Gary and Tony’s surrogate as the baby’s “mother”.  Surrogates are not mothers. They carry the pregnancy, but that does not mean they are the child’s mother.

According to the Family Equality Council, one out of five gay couples, and one out of three lesbian couples, are raising children today. And, according to the Child Welfare League of America, the National Adoption Center, and the American Medical Association, it is impossible for any reasonable person to argue that as a group they are not good parents.