These are complicated matters, to say the least. But the most important.

I wrote a little rant in defense of Martina Navratilova daring to have an opinion on surrogacy.

Surrogacy, IVF — even adoption — are difficult things to talk about. They involve the most intimate issues. Each is different, with different approaches/options. America could afford to have a national retreat to get together and take a deep breath and learn and share on all these things. But it would probably take our lifetimes to even begin to tackle all the issues involved and the myriad ways they have touched – and created — and in some cases (IVF, surrogacy) destroyed — life.

And then add to the mix miscarriage.

And, the ever-pouring-salt-into-open-wounds issue of abortion.

Navratilova got grief because people consider her a hypocrite for being opposed to surrogacy, because she and her wife made use of adoption, another alternative to the natural way of having children. For obvious reasons, the latter wasn’t happening for them.

Adoption and surrogacy are, in fact, different things. And adopting a child who would have otherwise been aborted or spent (more) time in the foster-care system or international residential care is most definitely a different thing.

And it is not judging anyone and the choices they’ve made – or the worth of a child alive today because of IVF or surrogacy — to insist on a real, clear, moral/ethical, scientific, healthy debate about what surrogacy means for women and families and life itself.

I do a drive by in my column of Pete Buttigieg and his husband for a social-media tweet when they became fathers. For a while, they didn’t talk about how their children came to be with them. But the photo of the two of them in a hospital bed seemed to communicate a mainstreaming of the elimination of mothers — and the obvious woman who had to have given birth to the children — that is dangerous to children and culture. Not because men are sinister, but because women are necessary for children. And children ideally need a mom and dad when possible. And a woman who carries and delivers a baby has done no small thing.

In surrogacy, many women who sign up as surrogates desperately need the money. They have no idea what they are getting their bodies into. Or their relationships. It’s almost impossible to.

Meanwhile, there are children alive today who need homes. There are children who are in the wombs of women who don’t think they are up for the job of parenting. Again, a mom and a dad are ideal, but if you are a good person or people who will give one of those children a home, that needs to be a different conversation than surrogacy and the desires of adults.

Eventually, Buttigieg talked about how they used private adoption. Ryan Hanlon from the National Council for Adoption wound up writing to clarify a few things about the process after he did.) Wouldn’t it be something if, instead of shutting down Navratilova on surrogacy, we talked about how to help children already alive and promote private adoption as an alternative to abortion?

Buttegieg is no pro-lifer. Nor Navratilova. But that’s the point. Yes, adoption by same-sex couples is going to be a matter of some debate, too. Single parents, also. But if we got to the point where we called out some of the dangerous things about surrogacy and some of the benefits of adoption — which, of course, even in the best of situations is a rupture — wouldn’t that be an improvement in our discourses (or lack thereof) on human life and family?

And about mothers: Always celebrate her courage. Always make sure she has options. And never erase her.

People recoiled at Adriana Smith being used as an “incubator” for her unborn child recently in Georgia. Because we don’t want women to be used. There’s a real concern there. Saving the life of the child was a good that did come out of that awful situation that no one chose. But we should have that same instinct about not using women when it comes to surrogacy. Money doesn’t make it right. And, in the case of adoption, the birth mother is heroic. If she was abortion-minded, that child may very well be a miracle.

These are complicated matters, to say the least. But the most important.

Martina Navratilova will be made to feel like she can’t tweet about surrogacy, but we’ll talk endlessly to no evident end about Jeffrey Epstein. That makes no sense. And does no one any good. Especially the children who have to deal with the consequences.