Without getting into whether or not it should be allowed, it seems to me that the hypothetical black family is in a different position than the hypothetical parents of the gay fetus. The black family is going to have to teach their child to deny being related to them, which would most likely lead to self hatred and, and fear of people finding out about their genes. Which would be what people who decided to pass for white went through decades ago.
These kinds of things wouldn’t come up for the parents of the gay fetus. Then again, if that technology was available, maybe people would discriminate against people who were only straight because they had the procedure done.
You’re right. It’s a selfishness, to an extent, but as I said upthread it’s a selfishness I can sympathise with. You can’t ask people to not help their kids out for the sake of all kids. A case might be made in terms of grandchildren, on the other hand, but that’s considerably more nebulous. I think this is just one of those occasions where it would be nice if people put everyone’s interests above their own particular ones, but it’s not going to happen and really you can’t blame them.
Another problem I have with this-who the hell is going to pay for all of this?
And Dutchman, do you honestly think that buck teeth compare to the stigma of being gay? I don’t think people with crooked teeth have to deal with being kicked out of their homes, being denied the right to marry, the right to adopt children. I don’t think being called “bucky” can compare to being called a pervert, a freak, unnatural, a sodomite, a child molestor. You aren’t told you’re going to hell or that you’re mentally ill for having big teeth, are you?
Yes, I think everyone has been picked on a time or two, and can probably relate somewhat. But being gay, being a minority of some sort-it cannot compare to having “buck teeth”. :rolleyes:
No, he does not. And he pretty much said as much himself; as he quite clearly stated, it’s the only yardstick he has with which to measure the stigma of being gay. Nowhere does he claim they’re equally difficult.
Also, I suggest jam or peanut butter for your foot. You might as well enjoy the taste, at least.
I very much agree with Vox Imperatoris and Illuminatiprimus. We should be willing to weed out the more nasty genetic drift that has popped up in our shallow pool. We know that individual brilliance does not have to be pre eminently linked with degenerative congenial conditions. Stephen Hawkings is out statistical outlier. We may lost a small amount of genetic diversity, but only as trimming of the cancerous branches. Both of the above posters stated it more eloquently than I did. But that is not really the OP…
As for uterine hormones selection for sex? Gay or Straight isn’t really any sort of genetic advantage for my hypothetical children. I believe that attitudes about sexual preference will change eventually in the world. Really, why do I care who you screw? I want that change, and think the emotional and cultural diversity of a more accepting society would be a positive change in itself. Let them be Gay! They sure throw more entertaining parades than us straight folks.
And in the US society there would be no chance for their ever to be a mandatory test or change, as there could be no link to any negative affect on society. It couldn’t be the next Great Experiment. There would be no outcry to raise, unless it was on purely religious reasons.
Or Massive depopulation maybe? But Gay Men and Women don’t lose their baby producing abilities. Their preferred pairing (for which ever reasons) simply result in couples that are infertile… for the time being…
Either way, the world needs more babies like I need a third dick. Having a child for your own genetic life boat is a selfish act. If you wanted them to have an “easier” life then you could start them off with the knowledge that being gay is ok? Wouldn’t that be easier than meddling in the womb?
So in short, no, I couldn’t see a reason to select for Gay/Straight… as CarrieD mentioned earlier, bi-sexual might be the best option! Maybe if people were more… umm… satisfied they could stop shooting at each other?
I presented my situation which I thought was awful enough as a basis for my opinion that I would intervene to save my children the same fate.
Now that you’ve told me how awful it can be to be gay, I’d have to say that the very idea that your having vile and disgusting feelings about intervening on behalf of your children prevents you from choosing to save your children from the same fate somewhat disconcerting.
A “time or two” ? Let me tell you that my condition was chronic depression throughout high school.
And I was a minority. A minority of one. No fucking support group.
Don’t you fuckin tell me how bad it was for me :rolleyes:
We don’t know enough to know what’s linked with what with any certainty. Certainly we DO know that frequently genius and madness are inextricably linked. So, we could get rid of all of our wild-eyed nutters and homicidal maniacs, but at the cost of ridding ourselves of genius–of the next Einstein, Mozart or Tesla. In any case, what you propose begins to look an awful lot like a slippery slope. Who gets to determine what constitutes “nasty genetic drift?” Where’s the line between what’s acceptable to eradicate in our gene pool and what isn’t? I don’t know. Do you?
I’d like to ask everyone who said they’d use hormone therapy/genetic engineering to ensure their children would be straight a question. What would you think of someone who did the opposite and ensured their kids would be gay or bisexual? What if they wanted to do something even stranger (say engineer a kid to be asexual (ie no sexual desire whatsover)? Or if they wanted to confine ensure their children would have large (or small) genitals? What if they wanted to create a with functioning male and female genitalia? If your response involves anthing along the lines of “making life easier by making them like the majority” how far would you go? Would you ensure they had the same skin color as everyone else?
And yet, doesn’t this support Dutchman’s position that changing the offspring’s sexual orientation pre-birth could result in much less unhappiness for the offspring during its life?
Suppose you could tell whether your baby was going to be ugly or attractive (obviously different people have different ideas as to what is ugly and what is attractive, but there are certain attributes that are generally recognized as ugly and others as attractive) - would you be accepting of a procedure which allowed you to change ugly people into attractive ones pre-birth? Obviously being attractive does not make life easy in itself, but I think physical appearance is one area that can have an effect on how happy/successful someone is.
If you would be against this, are you also against post-birth cosmetic improvements? Braces? Nose jobs? What if the cosmetic surgery is performed on a baby post birth, but before they have formed decision making capabilities? As a parent, would you want your child to be more physically attractive than they might otherwise have been?
Leading from this, if one believes that being gay results in MORE adverse effects regarding one’s happiness than physical appearances, shouldn’t it be understandable if a parent would want to prevent his child from having to go through that hardship?
Now, obviously if society was different from how it is today being gay may not necessarily have any negative consequences, in which such a decision might be superfluous. Couldn’t you say the same about ugliness though?
The stigma won’t affect the “un-gayed” kids though.
As someone who said I’d consider it:
If they made their child gay? We’ve made a lot of progress, and by the time the child reaches majority, hopefully gays will have all the rights that they’re entitled to. You’re going to need a good reason though, since straight is widely considered the human default. I would not approve of making the child asexual. Nor would I approve of making the child a hermaphrodite. Changing genital size? As long as it’s in the normal range, and there’s a rational reason for it, it’s okay. I can’t think of any possible rational reason to do such a thing though. Skin color? That’s out for the same reason I mentioned upthread. How’s the white child going to explain the black people who showed up at the parent-teacher conference?
I also wanted to say I wouldn’t be thrilled with any of these things, or with the hypothetical that sparked this thread. I won’t mention the “c” word for fear of hijacking, but I don’t like the argument that we should remove bits of things from people that are natural just so they won’t get teased. On the other hand though, while most gay Americans are living out their lives with normal ups and downs like straight Americans, there’s still a long way to go, and some areas are actually regressing, so I can see why someone would automatically choose to intervene.
If there was a way to make sure your kids wouldn’t turn out gay there would be VERY few gay people in the world. It would be a self fulfilling prophecy with people not wanting to doom their kids to a life of loneliness.
I guess what I mean is-wouldn’t we be better off fighting the stigma itself, rather than trying to irradicate homosexuality? What good is it going to do? Wouldn’t it make it worse? What would you do with the children whose parents DON’T “make them straight?” It’s only enforcing the idea that being gay is a defect to be corrected, isn’t it?
I admit, someday, if I ever decide to have children, I might just end up adopting. Considering all the meds I’m on. (Anti-convulsants-the so-called “cocktail”) And yes, there are chances of birth defects-one of them being cleft palate. (Others include heart and hearing problems, IIRC). And I feel guilty to worry about that-it CAN be fixed by surgery. But do I want to put a child of mine through all of that? Especially since I believe there are other complications as well.
Now, I don’t plan on having children any time soon, so it’s not a big problem right now. But sometimes, I do think about it, when discussions like this come up.
And Dutchman, FWIW, I’m sorry I made little of your experience. I shouldn’t have done so. However, it does alarm me the idea of making one’s child perfect, in order than he or she won’t be harassed. There’s no way you can assure that. Besides, I thought your main reason was so that you could have grandchildren?
And let me ask you this: suppose you did ensure that they weren’t gay. Would you tell them you did so?
The problem with the argument that you should eliminate homosexuality because of the effects of bigotry, that just means the bigots win. You just end up with a world of bigots with that strategy. By the same theory, you should engineer all children to be religious in societies where religion is popular, and engineer all females to be submissive to males in misogynist societies, and engineer all the children of non-powerful people to be submissive and unwilling to rebel in authoritarian societies.
If it’s much too big in males, or much too small in females, that interferes with it’s function. That’s a rational reason.
I think all would agree it would be better for society if people choose to fight the stigma rather than avoid it. Perhaps in the future being gay WILL be in many ways equivalent to being ugly - you won’t be treated differently for the most part, but the number of people willing to have sex with you is diminished compared to the average attractive straight person - though someone who is bisexual increases his/her options while someone who is kinda ugly doesn’t
It would be sort of prisoner’s dilemma though - it would be to the betterment of all if people fought the stigma, but for a particular individual set of parents, they might have incentive to do the procedure in order to spare their own child the hardship in the meantime.
I agree with DigitalC on what would happen if such a procedure were actually real - the gay population would probably be virtually eliminated. This in itself is quite a dicey topic - how desirable/undesirable would such a situation be? On the plus side, one less thing would exist for people to be discriminatory about (even if the discrimination is unjustified). On the downside, society would miss out on gay culture. There would certainly be a very uncomfortable transition period for the remaining gays in society. In the end I think society would be at a net loss, versus the alternative of making homosexuality socially acceptable. Der Trihs, would you support a procedure which would eliminate any genetic predisposition towards being religious, if such a thing could exist?
I agree with you there. the stigma and society’s reaction is the real problem, and the real and natural solution lies in engineering a change in society’s attitude.
Keep in mind, I brought this thread up in IMHO polling for poster responses as parents to a hypothetical. I wasn’t presenting the scenario in Great Debates to discuss a way of dealing with the problems for gays.
I’m very sorry to hear about your situation.
I was a little flippant in the OP. As mentioned in a subsequent post, the happiness of my child was the only real reason to contemplate intervention.
Frankly, I don’t know. If I think about it carefully the procedure is simply administering drugs and blood analysis for the mother to put her in “proper hormonal” ballance. Lots of women are undergoing hormonal therapy in any case.
That’s a complicated question. If you mean instilling some sort of compulsion to be atheist no; that’s not only unethical but dangerous. It gives me the image of cult leaders declaring themselves to be God being able to do what they want to compulsive atheists who can’t make themselves believe he exists.
But as far as removing any tendency towards being religious, I would support that ( tentatively; I’d really prefer to know about any side effects first ) for the same reason I oppose the former; I don’t like compulsions, natural or artificial. And a genetic tendency to believe in things that aren’t real, that have no evidence for them is a compulsion as far as I’m concerned.
As well, I support a general upgrade in human reasoning ability, which in my opinion would eliminate religion as a side effect anyway.
