This is a question for everyone, man or woman, gay or straight. But please identify yourself as far as gender and sexual orientation with your answer.
So, there exists a shot given to the mother, or a pill, and it magically ensures that the child will develop into a heterosexual being. There are zero side effects to either mother or child. The child about to be born is yours. This is a crucial point. I’m talking about a micro view—you and your about to be born child. Do you administer the shot/pill? Why or why not?
straight male. I’d never do that. In fact, I’d probably* prefer* if my daughters (or sons if I had any any) were gay. Why on Earth would I want to “ensure” I have a heterosexual child?
That point occurred to me, too. I recognize the OP’s effort to create a magical hypothetical, but surely this a decision the pregnant woman should make, right? This is a medication being administered (by hypodermic, yet) into her body, so it should be her call.
Also, are we assuming the shot is free, or at least inexpensive? I dunno about spending, say, a million bucks just to guarantee a straight child.
By the way, I’m a straight guy. I suspect, though, the OP has me on ignore so he may not address the price issue unless someone else raises it.
Straight male with a three-year-old and another child on the way. The idea horrifies me in the same way that a shot designed to change any other harmless psychological feature of the child horrifies me. I’d see a lot more personal benefit from a shot that guaranteed my child would be a fantasy geek like Dad, but I wouldn’t advocate that shot either.
At the risk of drawing fire…and if I was female…it would depend on how much it cost.
I would be more interested in a shot, without side effects, to make a child taller, smarter, less prone to depression, etc. I would take that over the OPs hypothetical.
I would just want my child to have less hurdles to trip him up. Seems like Gays have it harder and so would think about not having my child go through that.
Firstly, Mom gets to decide; secondly, I don’t much care for hypotheticals, but setting those points aside I don’t ask that the injection or pill be given.
Why? Because a) I doubt there’s any such thing as drugs with no potential side effects, especially if they work at the genetic level; b) I don’t think sexual orientation is a significant measure of a person’s worth or predictor of future happiness; c) nearly all the gay people I’ve ever known seem to live full, rewarding lives, and for the ones who don’t their sexual orientation doesn’t necessarily seem to be the reason; and d) I’m the sort of person who feels that people aren’t obligated to change things about themselves that have no real negative effect on anyone else, just to make a bunch of bigots happier.
I’d prefer the daughters be gay and the sons be straight, just so that in 15 years neither of them will be bringing home a teenaged boy. Saves me the cost of a shotgun to be casually cleaning while we’re introduced.
Okay, you don’t care about the bigot’s happiness. But how about your child’s? Do you expect that he/she would have an equally easy and fulfilling life either way?
You doubt a pill/shot with no side effects? What part of “magical” don’t you understand?
