# Hypothetical: a shot given to a pregnant mother that ensures a heterosexual child. Do you do it? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 1, 2012, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-a-shot-given-to-a-pregnant-mother-that-ensures-a-heterosexual-child-do-you-do-it/630075 "2012-08-01T17:23:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2012, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-a-shot-given-to-a-pregnant-mother-that-ensures-a-heterosexual-child-do-you-do-it/630075/21 "2012-08-01T18:19:21Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > No, I don’t think I would. I have no problem with a gay child, and I can only see things getting better for gays. It seems your answer goes mostly to how you would feel about a gay child. Is that right? Do you think about it as far as what your child’s life might be like? Actually, I see you took that into account some, but which was more important to you. Also, can you, or others, share more of the pros/cons for choosing either way? ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2012, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-a-shot-given-to-a-pregnant-mother-that-ensures-a-heterosexual-child-do-you-do-it/630075/22 "2012-08-01T18:22:46Z")
Boy, if only there were successful gays in America. I guess it’s a never ending hell, unless of course not everyone is a hung up as the OP. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2012, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-a-shot-given-to-a-pregnant-mother-that-ensures-a-heterosexual-child-do-you-do-it/630075/23 "2012-08-01T18:24:05Z")
Well, the OP’s ignoring me so I may as well say “yes” to the hypothetical and express awe at his wisdom in proposing it. ---
**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2012, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-a-shot-given-to-a-pregnant-mother-that-ensures-a-heterosexual-child-do-you-do-it/630075/24 "2012-08-01T18:24:36Z")
No. My child’s sexual orientation is not on the list of things that I am concerned about. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2012, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-a-shot-given-to-a-pregnant-mother-that-ensures-a-heterosexual-child-do-you-do-it/630075/25 "2012-08-01T18:25:19Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Is this just a knee-jerk response, or did you weigh the pros and cons? If so, what turned up in each column? Pros: [ul] [li]If I were bigoted against homosexuals, it would keep me from torturing my child with religious nonsense. But I’m not.[/li][/ul] Cons: [ul] [li]It’s the kind of thing a bigot might do, so I’d feel morally sullied.[/li][li]It demeans homosexuality like a disease or disorder.[/li][li]It would tell my child that I wouldn’t have liked _the real_ them.[/li][li]It would artificially distort the amount of homosexuals in the world, and make it harder for them to pair bond.[/li][li]It would make bigoted people happy, and I enjoy their suffering.[/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2012, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-a-shot-given-to-a-pregnant-mother-that-ensures-a-heterosexual-child-do-you-do-it/630075/26 "2012-08-01T18:26:25Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > It seems your answer goes mostly to how you would feel about a gay child. Is that right? Do you think about it as far as what your child’s life might be like? Actually, I see you took that into account some, but which was more important to you. Admittedly, not too much, since I never ever want to have a child. However, there is no real guarantee that my straight child’s life will be simple and easy just because they’re straight. I just don’t see being gay as an automatic guarantee that life will be miserable or anything. If I ever did have a child, I’d want a daughter, anyway, so she’d be a lesbian, and I see even less problems for a lesbian than a gay man. How about _that_? Can I have the shot that guarantees me a daughter? Can you answer the question? Would you do it? Why? What’s there about being straight that guarantees happiness? Look at all of the happy, happy straight people in the world. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2012, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-a-shot-given-to-a-pregnant-mother-that-ensures-a-heterosexual-child-do-you-do-it/630075/27 "2012-08-01T18:28:30Z")
[quote=“Lobohan, post:25, topic:630075”] [li]It would tell my child that I wouldn’t have liked _the real_ them.[/li][/QUOTE] Well, since your kid is ~90% likely to born straight, odds are the precaution was unnecessary and they were “really” going to turn out straight, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2012, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-a-shot-given-to-a-pregnant-mother-that-ensures-a-heterosexual-child-do-you-do-it/630075/28 "2012-08-01T18:29:56Z")
Given the following as axiomatic: 1: We live in a world where mouth-breathing idiots persecute and discriminate against gays, always unjustly and sometimes violently, and occasionally fatally. 2: Being gay is neither better nor worse than being straight. Then you are a liar and/or a sadist if you intentionally decide to subject your child to easily preventable suffering. Yeah, it’s really easy to decide to stand on principle about tolerance and acceptance and harmony when you’re not the one who has to suffer the consequences. Edited to add: but I’d really rather line up the bigoted mouth-breathing idiots against the wall, so we wouldn’t need to have conversations like this. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2012, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-a-shot-given-to-a-pregnant-mother-that-ensures-a-heterosexual-child-do-you-do-it/630075/29 "2012-08-01T18:32:32Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Well, since your kid is ~90% likely to born straight, odds are the precaution was unnecessary and they were “really” going to turn out straight, anyway. Yeah, surely. I assumed there was a gaydar-lock on my wife’s uterus. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2012, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-a-shot-given-to-a-pregnant-mother-that-ensures-a-heterosexual-child-do-you-do-it/630075/30 "2012-08-01T18:33:12Z")
Straight male. My answer is no. I’d want my child to receive any procedures that will make it healthier. Or maybe even give it a clear objective advantage, although that’s a murkier issue. But sexual orientation falls outside of this. It’s neither an advantage or a handicap. I wouldn’t choose to make my child gay or straight. The child should be what it is. ---
**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2012, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-a-shot-given-to-a-pregnant-mother-that-ensures-a-heterosexual-child-do-you-do-it/630075/31 "2012-08-01T18:33:47Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Given the following as axiomatic: > > 1: We live in a world where mouth-breathing idiots persecute and discriminate against gays, always unjustly and sometimes violently, and occasionally fatally. > > 2: Being gay is neither better nor worse than being straight. > > Then you are a liar and/or a sadist if you intentionally decide to subject your child to easily preventable suffering. Yeah, it’s really easy to decide to stand on principle about tolerance and acceptance and harmony when you’re not the one who has to suffer the consequences. You could say the same thing about race, religion, and a whole host of other items. If you had a shot to guarantee ‘the perfect child’, what race, religion, orientation, etc, would it be? Personally speaking, I think that some societies are actually getting more tolerant of homosexuality. As I live in one of those societies, I see your post as being anachronistic. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2012, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-a-shot-given-to-a-pregnant-mother-that-ensures-a-heterosexual-child-do-you-do-it/630075/32 "2012-08-01T18:35:44Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Given the following as axiomatic: > > 1: We live in a world where mouth-breathing idiots persecute and discriminate against gays, always unjustly and sometimes violently, and occasionally fatally. > > 2: Being gay is neither better nor worse than being straight. > > Then you are a liar and/or a sadist if you intentionally decide to subject your child to easily preventable suffering. Yeah, it’s really easy to decide to stand on principle about tolerance and acceptance and harmony when you’re not the one who has to suffer the consequences. > > Edited to add: but I’d really rather line up the bigoted mouth-breathing idiots against the wall, so we wouldn’t need to have conversations like this. There’s still a lot of anti-semitism in the world. Should Jewish parents raise their children as Christians (or Muslims if they live in a predominantly Islamic country) for the good of their child? ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2012, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-a-shot-given-to-a-pregnant-mother-that-ensures-a-heterosexual-child-do-you-do-it/630075/33 "2012-08-01T18:39:37Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > 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? Easy? That’s clearly a point that can be debated (and has been, in later posts), although I’d argue that life isn’t usually easy for anyone. Fulfilling? What the heck? Since when did being gay take fulfillment out of one’s life? I don’t know how you define it, but mine doesn’t have a lot to do with the reactions of people around me, no matter how bigoted. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2012, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-a-shot-given-to-a-pregnant-mother-that-ensures-a-heterosexual-child-do-you-do-it/630075/34 "2012-08-01T18:39:39Z")
I’d never do it, I’m not going to cater to the homophobes. And I’d try to have it outlawed; although I expect that it would instead become mandatory many places. And even where illegal I expect many doctors who are “good Christians” would inject the mother without telling her what they were doing. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2012, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-a-shot-given-to-a-pregnant-mother-that-ensures-a-heterosexual-child-do-you-do-it/630075/35 "2012-08-01T18:40:19Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Yeah, surely. I assumed there was a gaydar-lock on my wife’s uterus. Fair enough - if we’re hypothesizing a magical pill that can 100% “cure” the gay in utero, I guess it’s fair to hypothesize a magical device that 100% _detect_ the gay in utero. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2012, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-a-shot-given-to-a-pregnant-mother-that-ensures-a-heterosexual-child-do-you-do-it/630075/36 "2012-08-01T18:41:26Z")
> [@Meatros](#): > > No. > > My child’s sexual orientation is not on the list of things that I am concerned about. I can understand that. But I thinks it’s safe to say that your child having as happy and fulfilling a life as possible is pretty important. So, it seems you believe that those two things would be equal whether he/she was heterosexual or gay. Is that right? ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2012, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-a-shot-given-to-a-pregnant-mother-that-ensures-a-heterosexual-child-do-you-do-it/630075/37 "2012-08-01T18:46:29Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Straight male. My answer is no. > > I’d want my child to receive any procedures that will make it healthier. Or maybe even give it a clear objective advantage, although that’s a murkier issue. > > But sexual orientation falls outside of this. It’s neither an advantage or a handicap. I wouldn’t choose to make my child gay or straight. The child should be what it is. But it would be “what it is”. It would be part of his gestation. No one knows the degree to which a person’s sexuality is purely genetic, etched on the fertilized egg, so to speak. As far as your other point, it appears that you’re of the mind that gays in society suffer zero disadvantage or handicap? I’m rather surprised to see you take that position. I assume I must be misunderstanding you somehow. ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2012, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-a-shot-given-to-a-pregnant-mother-that-ensures-a-heterosexual-child-do-you-do-it/630075/38 "2012-08-01T18:47:46Z")
> [@Max\_the\_Immortal](#): > > I wonder if we should have a followup thread about a shot that ensures a white child, regardless of the parents’ heritage. Feel free. I am White so I don’t think I would intimately understand what goes into that decision. However, there is nothing wrong with being gay, or black, or a short guy…however, if I was told my son would only be 5’ 2" tall and I could have a shot to make him 6’? HELL YEA! To sit there and say “There is nothing wrong with being a short guy. I am not going to cater to discrimination” and doom your son to being short would be the height of cruelty. If your child was going to be deaf or blind and the parent could have undid that before being born but didn’t? Height of cruelty. Damn them to hell if they did that. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2012, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-a-shot-given-to-a-pregnant-mother-that-ensures-a-heterosexual-child-do-you-do-it/630075/39 "2012-08-01T18:48:28Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > There’s still a lot of anti-semitism in the world. Should Jewish parents raise their children as Christians (or Muslims if they live in a predominantly Islamic country) for the good of their child? I don’t think religion is relevant, as one can choose to leave or enter a religion when they get older. Race is closer, but I’d ask to save that for another thread. ---
**Author:** ![Simple\_Linctus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Simple\_Linctus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simple_Linctus)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2012, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-a-shot-given-to-a-pregnant-mother-that-ensures-a-heterosexual-child-do-you-do-it/630075/40 "2012-08-01T18:50:49Z")
I would. I’d like my genes to be spread to as many people as possible, and staistically straight kids leads to more grandkids (etc). I don’t see any reason that would make me a bigot. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-a-shot-given-to-a-pregnant-mother-that-ensures-a-heterosexual-child-do-you-do-it/630075.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-a-shot-given-to-a-pregnant-mother-that-ensures-a-heterosexual-child-do-you-do-it/630075.md?page=3)