Conservative podcaster Michael Knowles of The Daily Wire recently came under fire after making insensitive remarks about gay couples who use egg donors to conceive children. During the February 21st edition of The Michael Knowles Show, he played a TikTok video of a gay male couple celebrating finding an egg donor, after two potential donors declined. Knowles accused them of “bragging about how they purchased a baby,” despite the men discussing finding an egg cell donor, not a fully-born child.
Despite being corrected on social media, Knowles continued his rant and even went as far as to compare the men to slave owners, pretending they were shopping for a Black slave. “We were going to look to where we could buy our cotton picker,” Knowles said, “We knew we wanted a cotton picker with nice big broad shoulders and nice thick, stocky legs like tree trunks. You know? Doing a great job out there in the field. And so we went, the first one didn’t work out. Second one, we couldn’t quite get them … at the fair. But the third one, finally we got him. Isn’t that great?”
The comparison is absurd, as egg, sperm, and womb donations are voluntary and not comparable to the horrors of slavery. In fact, egg and sperm donations are common and have resulted in the birth of thousands of children each year in the United States. Knowles’ statements were not only ignorant and offensive but also perpetuate harmful myths about LGBTQ+ families.
Despite efforts by right-wing politicians to restrict IVF and other reproductive services, Family Equality, a nonprofit organization, warns of the potential consequences of overturning abortion rights, as many states may make it harder for people, including LGBTQ+ individuals, to access reproductive health services like IVF in the future.