ON THEIR OWN, gay parenting and surrogate motherhood are both controversial. Together, they raise a difficult new question: should technologies developed to treat infertile heterosexuals also be used to make families for homosexuals?

For decades now, lesbians have been bearing children via the relatively low-tech method of artificial insemination using donor sperm. But for gay men to create a genetically-related family, the process is far more medically complicated. Dr. Robert Stillman of Shady Grove Fertility Centers in suburban Washington, DC argues that advanced reproductive medicine should be reserved for people who are medically infertile. Stillman says he is not opposed to gay families, but won't treat homosexuals because he wants to avoid becoming a social engineer.

"They are not infertile from the medical definition. Our role as medical practitioners, to remain legitimate, is to practice medicine. That's what we ought to stick to. That's what we're good at," Stillman says.

Medical ethicist Evelyne Schuster argues that assisted reproduction should not be offered to couples who cannot "naturally" reproduce.
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Many who oppose gay families also argue that children fare best - both socially and psychologically - in traditional, heterosexual families with a mom and dad. But medical ethicist Susan Wolf, a law professor at the University of Minnesota, says studies suggest that growing up in a conventional family is less important than growing up in a loving one. She says children of gay parents do just fine."That isn't what wrecks a kid," Wolf says. "What wrecks a kid is no love, and no resources, and other things that have nothing to do with orientation.

Dr. Ringler says that Lucas and Mark are the first gay male patients in the infertility group practice, California Fertility Associates. Ringler concedes that this case pushes the limits of reproductive technology. "It makes me think, should I be using my craft to do this?" Ringler says. "My mission is to help couples overcome problems conceiving. It doesn't matter if they are gay or lesbian.

As in most states, California has no laws preventing gay men from having children with a surrogate mother. The ethics committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, the nation's main group of infertility specialists, said in a 1994 report that "the child's best interest is served when it is born and reared in the environment of a heterosexual couple in a stable marriage." But the report also said it was "willing to accept the view" that non-traditional couples can raise healthy kids, and therefore have a moral right to reproduce.

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