Like a few other posters, you seem to answer based on how it would affect, or not affect, you. Now maybe you did take that into consideration. If so, I have to ask, are you of the mind that the world that life is as easy for a gay child as a straight one? That there isn’t a strain of bigotry, ridicule and bullying reserved for gay kids? Is that time behind us?
Ironically, it would have implications for children of parents that choose not to choose down the line. Unless MORE people choose non hetero than already happens naturally (which seems unlikely). So the people that choose not to choose are most likely making their kids hook up options worse and worse as time goes on.
So it might well turn in a race to straightdom at some point.
Obviously, a child’s race or ethnicity depends on the socially-constructed rules of the society in which it is born - but it is going to be in some way derived from yours (by “yours” I mean your wife’s and/or yours) - assuming it is biologically yours, that is. Exactly how depends on where you are.
For example, the socially-constructed rules in the US state that the child of a Black and a White parent is “racially” Black (hence, Obama is Black). It inherits the “race” of one of its parents, the Black one. In other places, the child of a Black and a White parent would be considered an intermediate or mixed category - derived from both parents.
In both cases, the parents would have a recognized interest that their kid be visibly derived from them, regardless of how “race” is socially classified.
Im glad you think so, as it means that you have a good life, but you simply do not and cannot know that to be a fact.
Ok. But it still seems to me that in my case, the pill accomplishes the same purpose (as far as the hypothetical happiness of the future child) if it makes my kid white as it does it if makes my kid straight.
It’s not as serious, though. You would reduce the number of gays, but in a very large population, that effect would not be as significant. Each gay could still, in theory, find a mate - albeit the total population pool to choose from would be smaller.
Making a disproportionate number of males creates a harsh competition for the remaining females (assuming percentage of heteros doesn’t change). Some hetero men are guaranteed not to find mates.
Ugh. I have a kneejerk reaction against the shot; what right do I have to mess with the characteristics of my kid?
I might take it, though, for the reason others have named: because it ups my chances, statistically speaking, for grandkids. And I really want grandkids!
But I also would really want the kid to be a girl. (Again, it would probably make her life easier, as I have far more knowledge of how to parent a girl than I do on how to parent a boy. Also would statisically up my chances for grandkids, because any child of ours? Is going to be a science/math nerd, and the reproduction odds are WAY better for science/math nerd girls.) If there were a shot I could take to make the kid a girl, would I take it? Again, probably yes…
In both cases, though, I’d feel really oogy about it. And maybe that would convince me not to do it…
Does it make a difference that I selected my mate partially because I thought he would make really awesome kids who would have a leg up in the world?
Oh thats certainly true. But as time went on the pool would get smaller and smaller and at some point IMO even all but the most pro gay /whatever happens happens folks would be like “shit, that poor kid will never find a “mate”!” at which point the race would be on.
It would kind of be like the evolution of farm families as a way to make a living. Its okay, not so bad, not so good…find some other way to make a living kid!
I guess it might reach some equilbrium of folks that no matter what won’t make the choice, but I bet it would result in a small fraction of gay folks than exist today.
Except to the extent that the child itself wishes a visible connection to its parents. For example, a child with a black father and a white mother may wish, as it grows up, that it had visibly dark skin, because of who its father is. Others would naturally assume the child’s father was not its biological father if it was 100% white, which may also cause the child a certain amount of unhappiness.
There’s no way to predict what the child would desire in the case your describing- and as far as avoiding being a victim of bigotry, it is the same. There’s no reason to believe that a child in that case would have a greater chance at a particular skin color preference than the other- assuming the parents stay together.
I was thinking about it on the way home and I think this is pretty much a distinction without a difference. There are a plethora of reasons why people choose to abort the female baby. There would also be reasons why people would take the no-homosexual pill. It seems to me that the rock bottom relates to value - the female in those societies is not valued as much as the male to those people. Homosexuals are not as valued as heterosexuals to some individuals.
In any event, you quote another ‘reason’:
Which is under the cultural heading. It seems as though you are inferring that this is the proved reason? If not, then I don’t see the distinction you are making. Further, even here, it indicates that the female is:
- A liability (she does not contribute to her family)
- A burden (the family has to raise money to sell her off).
If you follow that up with the other reasons, and it seems to me to be an apt comparison. In that society to be a female is a burden, a liability to the family, and they also experience discrimination. You might argue that the welfare of the female is secondary to the parents (who are assuming the burden), but certainly someone could say that they would opt for the male-only pill simply because life is harder for the females.
This last line is all that is important since that’s what makes the comparison apt. In that society, a female does face a lot of discrimination. A female does have factors that could conceivably contribute to the female’s unhappiness.
Since happiness was the paramount reason for taking the anti-homosexual pill, why not also it apply to the anti-female pill?
The same argument can be made for selecting only heterosexuals. For one thing, it wouldn’t force society to actually make strides at tolerance. Instead of encouraging homosexuality to be accepted into society (like interracial marriage), it’s actively avoided. This would make any homosexuals who slipped through the cracks potentially face an even worse atmosphere than they do now.
Further, if society can just get rid of desirables with a shot, then I would think this could encourage even more bigotry towards other characteristics.
Like I said earlier, if this were the 1800’s, would you argue that African American’s should use the shot so that their children would be white? That would ensure that their children would not be slaves and thus have a better life.
Imagine we live 100 years in the future and anti-gay prejudice has totally and completely vanished… gay marriage is legal, gay adoption is legal, there’s been a gay president, gayness is just utterly “normal” in all ways, in all countries in the world (yeah, I know, I wish).
Then what would your answer be?
I think there’s something interestingly paradoxical about this. In the current cultural climate we live in, I think there’s a reasonable case along the lines of “I don’t see anything wrong with being gay, but at the same time I wouldn’t want my child to be the victim of bullying and prejudice… suicide rates are still sky high among gay teenagers, etc. So I would take the shot”. But at the same time, saying that you would take the shot feels an awful lot like saying that you would love a straight child more than a gay child, and thus value straights higher than gays, so it’s tempting to not take the shot just because taking it is “wrong”.
On the other hand, if all the prejudice was truly gone, there would no longer be that “he will be bullied” factor pushing you towards getting the shot, so it would seem that the only reasonable answer then would be not to get the shot. But on the other hand, if prejudice was truly gone, and there wasn’t this big political/cultural issue hanging around being the elephant in the room, people might not find it objectionable to make the same kind of minor logistical judgments you might make if there was a similar shot that ensured that your child was right-handed. Sure it’s not a big deal, and it’s not like I value right-handed people over left-handed people, but there are various minor situations in which it’s advantageous to be right-handed as opposed to left-handed. Similarly, in this hypothetical future, it’s really not a big deal if you’re gay or straight, but there are minor logistical reasons why being straight might be easier (larger mate selection, can have natural-born offspring with your loved one), so you might make that choice without having to worry about what signal it was sending or what statement it was making. (Of course, that assumes that you’d be willing to make even minor choices of that sort… there’s an interesting debate about whether any sort of prenatal meddling at all is a Bad Idea, and a response of “of course I wouldn’t take that pill, I wouldn’t do anything to change my unborn child at all, for the worse or the better” is certainly a reasonable and consistent one.)
Since this the hypothetical can only exist in a world of pure fantasy. I’d rather give my child the shot that gives them a 100% chance to gain super powers.
It is interesting- though I don’t take the last view you mention. If there was a pill that could (with no risk) make my future child more resistant to disease, or have better teeth/vision, or even be taller or smarter or more athletic, I might well be for it. If we could afford it, I can certainly imagine going for it. But I can’t imagine wanting my wife to take the pill the OP suggests- and I can’t, so far, see how it’s any different (in the wanting-to-lower-the-chances-of-being-a-victim-of-bigotry sense) then a pill that would change my future black (or perceived as black) child to white. The possible benefit just does not seem worth the cost of making such a big change to the child’s identity.
The hypothetical anti-gay shot without side effects has been criticized for being magically unrealistic. A much more plausible development would be the development of a prenatal test for a child’s being gay or likely to be gay. Assuming that gayness is in fact determined before birth by genetic or other factors, such a development is not at all impossible. Then what happens?
It may be instructive to consider the example of prenatal testing for Downs’ Syndrome. It is estimated (Wikipedia cites a number of studies) that something like 90% of Downs’ pregnancies are now aborted in the US and UK. If a prenatal gay test existed, would there be a similar decline in the numbers of gay children born?
Downs Syndrome is a seriously disabling and life-limiting condition; being gay is neither of those things and I am in no way implying any equation between the two. The question is, what would be the result of such a test becoming available?
I would wager that, despite our best intentions, there would be an calamitous drop in the number of gay babies born. Parents, when asked, would hem and haw and lie to pollsters, but behind closed doors would trip all over themselves to schedule the abortion. The rate might not be as high as 90%, but it would probably be way over 50%.
My motivation isn’t sucking up to monsters. Not an evil god, and not homophobic bigots. I’m not going to twist my hypothetical child to please a collection of vermin.
By your logic, it’s a shame that back before the Civil War they couldn’t have injected black mothers with something that made their children grow up happy to be slaves; it would have stopped so much suffering after all.
The wonderful people of the SDMB are not an accurate representation of the feelings towards homosexuals of the average population. And to be quite honest i imagine most of them would change their tune when they realized the worlds gay population just dropped from 10% to .01% after the shot came out.
Good post and points there.
I would not take the Guarranteed* Straight shot. I would take a Guarranteed High Self Esteem shot. That’s really all you need in life.
*Did I even spell that right?
I also think that people aren’t considering what the social impact would be if OTHER PEOPLE were choosing to have the anti-gay shot.
I think a lot of people are picturing the world in which they make this choice would be a world like the one we live in now where a good 10% (or so) of people are gay and it’s fairly mainstream/accepted now.
But imagine the possible consequences if this shot was popular in society and the prevalence of homosexuality in the population had dropped down to less than 1%.
Would it matter if your gay child would have a hard time finding others like himself in the new society? What if the rarity of gays in that world increased the amount of discrimination they faced?