Last week, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg tweeted a picture of himself and his partner lying in a hospital bed holding two newborns. “We are delighted to welcome Penelope Rose and Joseph August to our family,” he wrote.

The picture is a metaphor. After all, neither of these men carried a child or went through labor and delivery; a woman did. They didn’t need a hospital bed; she did. But she’s missing… from the photo and the larger picture. 

As Katy Faust of Them Before Us observed, if created via egg “donor,” these babies were forced to lose their genetic mother. If delivered by surrogate, these children lost a relationship with their birth mother. Many children are adopted at birth by necessity, of course, but this loss was inflicted. And now, these children will be deprived of the maternal love that only women can provide, and which all children crave and need.

This should not be normal. And we shouldn’t just scroll through our news feeds as if it is.