It’s the not-too-distant future. A fertility-research company has perfected a method of artificially combining the DNA of two people of the same gender, and producing a viable embryo, which can then be carried to term by a human, resulting in a perfectly healthy child. The procedure isn’t much more complicated or expensive than a standard In-Vito Fertilization, and has about the same success rate. They’re now seeking approval to offer this service to the general public in the U.S.
So, I ask you…what do you think the public reaction to this development would be? The political and/or religious fallout? Would it cause no more of an uproar than same-sex couples already having children today (albeit kids genetically related to only one parent, at most), or would we have a frigging holy war on our hands?
And, for the record, I personally would have no moral qualms with something like this. Hell, I’d be all for it, just for the sake of science…and because it’d be cool.
Given the way the fruitbats have reacted to even the distant possibility of biological offspring of just one person (i.e., cloning), I think it likely that this would weird them out enough to shout out that it’s eeeevil.
I personally wouldn’t have a problem with it, figuring that what two consenting adults choose to do would be their own business.
Of course, I also expect the social conservatives to get their panties in a bunch over this, citing the usual ambiguities over religion and “the natural order” and whathaveyou. The Republican Party, upholding their principles of minimum government interference, will push for new laws and regulations restricting or banning this practice. The Democrats, being as disorganized and diverse as usual, will probably waffle a bit on the topic and then declare it’s a matter of individual states’ rights.
But the idea that this would be allowed to pass without incident is wishful thinking.
I don’t have a problem with this, but I do have some qualms about cloning. From a scientific standpoint, this is really cool.
As of now? Huge. But by the time this can be adapted to work for humans, I think (and certainly hope) that gay marriage will long since have been legal, so who knows. Maybe the remaining social conservatives (i.e., those that would hold the same opinions as the current ones do) would emit a last whimper and roll over (at least on the issue of homosexuality)?
