TMZ.com

started reporting this morning that the late Michael Jackson is not the “real” father of “his” children.    I put those words in quotations, because they seem like contradictory words to have in a single headline–how can they be his if he is not their father?

Jackson is listed as the father on all three of his children’s birth certificates.  But if it is true, as TMZ and other media outlets are reporting, that Jackson’s children were conceived with both donated sperm and donated eggs, and then carried to birth (in the case of the older 2) by Jackson’s ex-wife Debbie Rowe… then so what?

Here’s what I don’t understand.  Jackson is the legal father of all three children.  Rowe is the legal mother of two of the children.  What difference does it make whose sperm and eggs were used?  We’re talking about donors here, not birthmothers or biological parents.

I have friends who are a lesbian couple, and who have a toddler son.  The boy was concieved by artificial insemination with sperm from a donor.  They are still his mothers.  The donor can’t just show up one day and decide that he’s their father.  He has signed away any legal rights to be part of this baby’s life. 

My sister has asked me to be a surrogate for a baby she wants to conceive with her egg and her husband’s sperm (she can make babies, she just can’t carry them).  If I do that, the child will be hers, even if I carry it to term.  Why wouldn’t the reverse be true? 

As an adoptive mother, I know better than most how many different ways there are in which to create a family.  Michael Jackson wanted those children, he claimed them, his name is on the birth certificate, and they are his legal heirs. 

Michael Jackson was a strange and troubled man in many ways, but I don’t think there’s any doubt that he loved his children…as only a father could.