dk

The question nobody wants to address is, "Is it wrong for a lesbian or gay to want their child to be gay or lesbian?"

Or...

Is it right or wrong for a gay or lesbian to make their kids gay, lesbian or bisexual?

Ensign Steve

How is that the quetion nobody wants to address? How is it different from the questions that have been addressed:

Is it wrong for a non-dwarf person to make their kids non-dwarf?
Is it wrong for a hearing person to make their kids hearing?
Is it wrong for a straight person to make their kids straight?
Is it wrong for a religous person to make their kids religous?

They're all the same question, and the answer boils down to "Designer babies: okay or not okay?"

mike_decock

You could probably infer my position from earlier posts, but my answer is that it is not wrong.

I think it would probably be less traumatic for a designer gay or lesbian child to be born into a gay or lesbian community instead of an oppressive "HOMOSEXUALITY IS A SIN AND ALL SINNERS ARE DEFENDERS OF THE DEVIL*" type household.

*Actual quote from an AOL chat room. One user kept repeating it over and over again.

-Mike...

echidna

The first question must be whether that trait is moral or not.

Is it wrong for rapists to make their kids rapists ?
I don’t think many people would argue that this is morally correct.

Dwarf, religious, homosexual, deaf, genetics aside, I don’t see anything inherently immoral about any of those traits. No, some of those children won’t fit into the 75th percentile in society, but I don’t see that as so objectionable as to override the freewill of parental choice.

At the end of the day, some parents will always seek to model their children after their own desires, much like the possessiveness and control one has over a pet or a hobby. Designer babies is much like an extension of this generally unpopular behaviour & it still seems unlikely that parental control is guaranteed over behavioural traits as the child grows up. But short of genetic manipulation I don’t see any practical way of stopping what I personally regard as poor parenting.

dk

dk: The rule of law proposes that all people are created equal. Designer babies therefore pose an eminent threat to the rule of law. .
Designer babies conceptualize people as programmable manufactured commodities protected under the auspices of laissez faire economics. The moral law and genetic laws appear to be at odds. The strength of a pluralistic society rests on the good will, merit, hard work, initiatives and liberty of a people in a free society. I find the prospect of an elitist establishment of laissez faire free market genetics industry incompatible with the proposition that all people are created equal. This conversation illustrates how immorality denigrates freedom with a mob mentality. Lets examine the progress made, and lost, in one of the oldest and most common genetic illness.
“The impact of HIV on the life expectancy of hemophiliacs has been dramatic. In a retrospective study of mortality among 701 hemophilic patients in the United States, median life expectancy for males with hemophilia increased from 40.9 years at the beginning of the century (1900-1920) to a high of 68 years after the introduction of factor therapy (1971 to 1980). In the era of AIDS (1981 to 1990), life expectancy declined to 49 years (Jones and Ratnoff, 1991) (Figure 6).”
----- IMPACT OF HIV INFECTION ON MORTALITY OF HEMOPHILIACS
“AIDS is currently responsible for about 75% of death in hemophiliacs; bleeding accounts for only 4% of deaths. The current life expectancy of hemophiliacs is 38.7 years, although it is 64.1 years for HIV-negative hemophiliacs; the current life expectancy for United States males is 72.3 years.”
----- Bloodsafety Summary - August 1998
This demonstrates how the liberty of gays has been magnified by the laws of genetics to terrorize the families of hemopheliacs. Image the terror of a HIV- hemophiliac experiences when they start to bleed. They must weight every transfusion against the looming odds of be infected by HIV. I don’t mean to minimize the tragedy of MSM, bisexual or IDU or any other group that chooses a high risk life style, but I find liberty a poor excuse for violating others. From a civil perspective this points out the difference between a genetic disease and immoral conduct manifest in the illegitimate exercise of power (liberty).

This raises a number of uncomfortable issues. For example I don’t understand why lesbians throw in with MSM, bisexuals and IDU. I don’t understand why the medical profession hasn’t stopped high risk individuals from giving blood. Or perhaps it is your contention that HIV is a genetic disorder that afflicts MSM, IDU and Hemophiliacs?

If MSM are assumed to contain a genetic component that determines sexual orientation
then
the high incidence or HIV amongst MSM may correlates to a genetically transmitted predisposition to HIV.

The argument is fallacious, because the transmission of socially transmitted diseases have been determined, explained and proven to be caused by the social habits in a particular community. The scientific evidence that sexual orientation can be genetically transmitted is very, very weak, more of a predisposition. The preponderances of the evidence has found sexual orientation, like social diseases, to correlate with social and cultural conditions. Where healthy functional family units and culture flourishes homosexuality isn’t a problem. In fact from a cultural perspective the sexual revolution strongly correlates with the rise of dysfunctional, broken and amputated families along with the rise in homosexual incidents, female crime, abusive mothers, abusive fathers and abusive intimates. These facts lead any rational person to conclude that the role of genetics is small, and the rise of homosexuality a product of social and cultural change from the sexual revolution. The only rational conclusion is that genetics are a secondary influence, while the sterile nature of homosexual relationships makes designer babies attractive to the homosexual cultural.

Bree

I hope this isn't side-tracking the conversation, but I don't know of a single gay or lesbian parent that actively wishes their child is/would be gay or lesbian as well. There's a lot of baggage that comes with being gay or lesbian in this society, and I wouldn't wish that kind of BS on anyone - especially my own kid. I have gay friends with extremely open-minded parents, and even they (the parents) grieved a bit when their children came out to them. In the words of one mother "it's not that I'm against C. being gay, it's just that life is going to be difficult for him, sometimes, and that's what makes me sad."

dk

You won't find a gay or lesbian that admits they want to make a child into a homosexual because it would impugn the ethics of their culture and community. .

Bree

Question: what "ethics of their [GLBT] culture and community" would be challenged?

dk

If homosexuals reproduce by molesting children emotionally, physically, culturally or socially then they violate the sancturary of children that oblige all good people.

I don't believe that to be the case, I'm simply pointing out that one of the primary obligations of government, law, and morality is the protection of children. Any group that poses a threat to children has a very limited future.

Ice

Then they would have to target the pedophiles who want to make their kids pedophilic...