NationStates Jolt Archive

Of course it's ethical. No one would have a problem if there was a pre-natal treatment that would make a baby immune to cancer. To a pregnant mother, is "your baby has a disease and will die before he's 30 if he doesn't receive treatment" any different than "your baby is gay and you will never have grandchildren if he doesn't receive treatment"

Of course it's ethical. No one would have a problem if there was a pre-natal treatment that would make a baby immune to cancer. To a pregnant mother, is "your baby has a disease and will die before he's 30 if he doesn't receive treatment" any different than "your baby is gay and you will never have grandchildren if he doesn't receive treatment"

Obviously, it's completely different. Cancer is a disease by all objective standards and homosexuality is not according the vast majority of medical and scientific organizations.

You have to prove that a 'disease' is harmful, and just not choosing to have children is not evidence of harm.

Of course it's ethical. No one would have a problem if there was a pre-natal treatment that would make a baby immune to cancer. To a pregnant mother, is "your baby has a disease and will die before he's 30 if he doesn't receive treatment" any different than "your baby is gay and you will never have grandchildren if he doesn't receive treatment"

that depends entirely on the side effects of the treatment. if it would kill the mother but prevent cancer in the child, im thinking it wont be approved. with modern medicine its a balancing act between potential benefit and potential harmful side effect. many many treatments are disallowed because the downside is just too large.

and what makes you think that gay people never have children?

Funny...now the fetus has rights...

What would it matter if you chose for your child not to be gay? You can chose to kill it for christ's sake...changing its orientation is a lot less ridiculous I'd say.

Funny...now the fetus has rights...

No, it doesn't.

What would it matter if you chose for your child not to be gay? You can chose to kill it for christ's sake...changing its orientation is a lot less ridiculous I'd say.

You can't choose to kill the child. You can choose to kill the fetus. I have no problem with anyone changing the sexual orientation of the fetus (whatever that would constitute.) I do have a problem with changing the sexual orientation of the child through changing the fetus, however - just as I would object to changing the fetus so that the child would suddenly die at age ten.

I think it's ok to geneticly change the child to make sure they're stright. I mean....I'm ok with homosexiality, but when you get down to it, what does it profit? If everyone was gay(like a lot of my homo friends want it to be) then we wouldn't reproduce AT ALL. No one to adopt and there is really no point to it.

I'm not against it, I just find it a bit pointless. So if I had the choice to make sure my child wasn't gay. I'd do it.

Funny...now the fetus has rights...

What would it matter if you chose for your child not to be gay? You can chose to kill it for christ's sake...changing its orientation is a lot less ridiculous I'd say.

you should probably try to think this through a bit then.

No, it doesn't.

You can't choose to kill the child. You can choose to kill the fetus. I have no problem with anyone changing the sexual orientation of the fetus (whatever that would constitute.) I do have a problem with changing the sexual orientation of the child through changing the fetus, however - just as I would object to changing the fetus so that the child would suddenly die at age ten.

Heh…semantics…

You claim to have a problem with changing the future sexual orientation of a child by changing that of the fetus, and continue to say that you have a problem doing anything to the fetus that may impact it later in life, and yet you do not object to simply killing it and robbing it of whatever life it may have. I call you a hypocrit.

You said it yourself that the fetus has no rights. In our legal system, the mother has dominion over the fetus (i.e. she can chose to abort it), so why does she not also have the right to change something about it?

you should probably try to think this through a bit then.

What is it, exactly, that I should be "thinking through?" My statement? If you don't agree with it I invite you to argue against it, but don't leave some bullshit holier than thou dismissive response proclaiming yourself to be of higher intelligence simply because of a different view point. Think that through.

Heh…semantics…

No, sorry, it's not.

You claim to have a problem with changing the future sexual orientation of a child by changing that of the fetus, and continue to say that you have a problem doing anything to the fetus that may impact it later in life,

That may impact the CHILD later in life.

and yet you do not object to simply killing it and robbing it of whatever life it may have.

Because then there is NO child.

:rolleyes:

That may impact the CHILD later in life.

Because then there is NO child.

:rolleyes:

Are you serious? I say, "You claim to have a problem with changing the future sexual orientation of a child by changing that of the fetus, and continue to say that you have a problem doing anything to the fetus that may impact it later in life," and your response is "that may impact the CHILD later in life." I love how you continue to point out the difference, almost as if you believe there is no connection between a fetus and a child. I must wonder what you believe a fetus becomes. If you do something to the fetus, it will impact it (meaning the fetus which ultimately becomes a child) later in life.

As for your "rolleyes" comment, obviously there would be no child, but that does not take away from the fact that since a fetus becomes a child, that killing the fetus would ruin any potential life that potential child would ever have.

You say it is wrong to alter the potential life of a fetus (straight or gay). You said yourself, "I do have a problem with changing the sexual orientation of the child through changing the fetus." Why then do you not have a problem with the ultimate destruction of the fetus, therefore preventing ANY life that the child that fetus becomes may have?

What is it, exactly, that I should be "thinking through?" My statement? If you don't agree with it I invite you to argue against it, but don't leave some bullshit holier than thou dismissive response proclaiming yourself to be of higher intelligence simply because of a different view point. Think that through.

the difference between an action that results in a live child and an action that doesnt.

the difference between an action that results in a live child and an action that doesnt.

Then I stand by my statement. I fail to see how changing something about a fetus is somehow more dramatic and less ethical than destroying it outright.

Are you serious? I say, "You claim to have a problem with changing the future sexual orientation of a child by changing that of the fetus, and continue to say that you have a problem doing anything to the fetus that may impact it later in life," and your response is "that may impact the CHILD later in life." I love how you continue to point out the difference, almost as if you believe there is no connection between a fetus and a child. I must wonder what you believe a fetus becomes. If you do something to the fetus, it will impact it (meaning the fetus which ultimately becomes a child) later in life.

As for your "rolleyes" comment, obviously there would be no child, but that does not take away from the fact that since a fetus becomes a child, that killing the fetus would ruin any potential life that potential child would ever have.

You say it is wrong to alter the potential life of a fetus (straight or gay). You said yourself, "I do have a problem with changing the sexual orientation of the child through changing the fetus." Why then do you not have a problem with the ultimate destruction of the fetus, therefore preventing ANY life that the child that fetus becomes may have?

Okay, law 101. For there to be a suit, there must be a complaint. In the case of abortion, there is no one to complain. No person exists or ever existed. No that's a subject of debate, when personhood begins, but the point is that there is no debate that future personhood is not and never has been recognized. Even in the Bible the crime of causing a miscarriage is considered a crime against the parents, not against any child.

Now, in the case of a born child, there is undebateably a person who has rights and that person has had its sexuality changed in this example. It was changed irrevocably and can be construed as harm by the person.

In the case of abortion, there is no person and thus no harm can be claimed.

It's really that simple. You can argue about abortion all you like, but your current argument defies logic.

Then I stand by my statement. I fail to see how changing something about a fetus is somehow more dramatic and less ethical than destroying it outright.

The fetus has no right. The procedure we are discussing affects a living child, not a potential one. It has as much affect on an actual human being as signing a child into slavery before it is born or doing drugs. Harm occurs to a child in the case where one is born, which is the expressed intent of the procedure (to birth a child with a changed sexualtiy).


Here, I'll make it simpler. According to you it is destroying a child by preventing it from existance, no?

Are you serious? I say, "You claim to have a problem with changing the future sexual orientation of a child by changing that of the fetus, and continue to say that you have a problem doing anything to the fetus that may impact it later in life," and your response is "that may impact the CHILD later in life." I love how you continue to point out the difference, almost as if you believe there is no connection between a fetus and a child. I must wonder what you believe a fetus becomes. If you do something to the fetus, it will impact it (meaning the fetus which ultimately becomes a child) later in life.

As for your "rolleyes" comment, obviously there would be no child, but that does not take away from the fact that since a fetus becomes a child, that killing the fetus would ruin any potential life that potential child would ever have.

You say it is wrong to alter the potential life of a fetus (straight or gay). You said yourself, "I do have a problem with changing the sexual orientation of the child through changing the fetus." Why then do you not have a problem with the ultimate destruction of the fetus, therefore preventing ANY life that the child that fetus becomes may have?

*sigh* Something like three quarters of this thread has been devoted to explaining over and over and over again why one cannot harm a child if said child never exists. If I am pregnant and I take thalidomide, and my baby is born with flippers for arms, I have caused a child to have flippers for arms. If I am pregnant and I take thalidomide but abort at 4 months, I have not caused my child to have flippers for arms, because I never had a child. One cannot harm a nonexistent being. This really isn't a complicated concept.

Are you serious? I say, "You claim to have a problem with changing the future sexual orientation of a child by changing that of the fetus, and continue to say that you have a problem doing anything to the fetus that may impact it later in life," and your response is "that may impact the CHILD later in life." I love how you continue to point out the difference, almost as if you believe there is no connection between a fetus and a child. I must wonder what you believe a fetus becomes. If you do something to the fetus, it will impact it (meaning the fetus which ultimately becomes a child) later in life.

Obviously. But the reason I continue to point out the difference is because you repeatedly fail to recognize it.

I care about the rights of the CHILD - and thus I object to changing his or her sexual orientation. I don't care about the rights of the fetus, because I think they pale in comparison to more compelling considerations - like the autonomy of the mother.

So, if there is no child, I could care less what is done to the fetus. If there IS a child, however, or WILL be a child (that is, the mother intends to carry to term), then suddenly there is a being with full rights of personhood involved - and when the mother makes a decision that will affect that child, those rights are worthy of consideration.

As for your "rolleyes" comment, obviously there would be no child, but that does not take away from the fact that since a fetus becomes a child, that killing the fetus would ruin any potential life that potential child would ever have.

So? I don't care about potential persons. I care about actual persons.

This is an ACTUAL child in this case - an ACTUAL child whose sexual orientation is not the result of nature, but of his or her mother's imposition.

There is no ACTUAL child after an abortion.

I challenge anyone who says that harm to a child that occurs in utero is equivalent to abortion to answer these questions:

If one claims that preventing the birth of a child is harm to the child, and one must to make the above claim, then do you claim this to be consistently true (that some child is 'murdered' by preventing a birth)?

If not, why not?

If so, then how can you claim that women saying no to sex isn't exactly equivalent as it undoubtedly prevents the possibility of a resultant birth? How can you support birth control in any form? In fact, wouldn't you have to support people having absolutely as much sex as they possibly can since all of these non-births are being caused by a lack of the processes continuing that cause them?

See the problem with the potential human argument is that logically it has not beginning and no end, because potential always exists. If I turn down a date, I have ended the line of descendants from me and that potential partner and prevented our children, our children's children, etc. According to the logic of birth prevention being murder, we are all mass murderers.

Then I stand by my statement. I fail to see how changing something about a fetus is somehow more dramatic and less ethical than destroying it outright.

look at the topic.

i can tell that you dont like abortion but the topic isnt about abortion.

its no more relevant to this discussion than it is to the discussion of whether or not parents should be allowed to spank their children. after all, isnt a spanking less of punishment than having destroyed him before he was born.


legal abortion does not make it OK to do anything that might enter one's head to the fetus that will be brought to term.

The fetus has no rights, and the orientation changing procedure is done to the fetus. Problem? Oh ya...the child's going to be born with his rights already violated.

So the child is born straight. Is he going to be angry that he's not gay? Is he going to be upset, with his entire being telling him to go after women, that he isn't instead going after men?

Jocabia, how is this change harmful? And yes preventing a child through abortion, when a fetus, which will ultimately become a child, is destroyed, is in turn destroying the child.

I challenge anyone who says that harm to a child that occurs in utero is equivalent to abortion to answer these questions:

If one claims that preventing the birth of a child is harm to the child, and one must to make the above claim, then do you claim this to be consistently true (that some child is 'murdered' by preventing a birth)?

If not, why not?

If so, then how can you claim that women saying no to sex isn't exactly equivalent as it undoubtedly prevents the possibility of a resultant birth? How can you support birth control in any form? In fact, wouldn't you have to support people having absolutely as much sex as they possibly can since all of these non-births are being caused by a lack of the processes continuing that cause them?

See the problem with the potential human argument is that logically it has not beginning and no end, because potential always exists. If I turn down a date, I have ended the line of descendants from me and that potential partner and prevented our children, our children's children, etc. According to the logic of birth prevention being murder, we are all mass murderers.

Once again, you claim that this shift is harm. That's a rather large leap, is it not?

As for the rest of your posts, condoms aren't killing anyone, because nothing is destroyed as of a result of using condoms. Sperm, by itself, doesn't amount to anything. A fetus, on the other hand, is a far different story. It amounts to a child.

A fetus, on the other hand, is a far different story. It amounts to a child.

Er, no, it amounts to a fetus. "Fetus" and "child" are two different words because they mean two different things. Funny how that works.

Once again, you claim that this shift is harm. That's a rather large leap, is it not?

As for the rest of your posts, condoms aren't killing anyone, because nothing is destroyed as of a result of using condoms. Sperm, by itself, doesn't amount to anything. A fetus, on the other hand, is a far different story. It amounts to a child.

Again, this is logically flawed. You are claiming that it harms a potential life, which a condom undoubtedly does. You are saying a child is denied life, which equally occurs when a condom is employed.

Now if you claim a fetus has rights, that's a different story, but the point is that we are not making that claim and thus there is nothing illogical about talking about rights violations for a person while ignoring claimed rights violations when no person exists. In fact, it's completely logically consistent. You are attempting to change the givens to destroy the argument while claiming you aren't doing so. Again, flawed.

Meanwhile, you failed to actually answer my question. You're claiming an argument from potential and then when called on it pretend as if it's because the fetus is special which is not at all the same argument. Which is it?

EDIT: And, no, I'm not claiming it must be harm, only that you are talking about as if it is, so I am simply matching the terms of the debate. Something you refuse to do. It's not important whether it's harm, your argument rests on it not mattering if it's harm or not. If you wish to argue whether or not it is harmful to change the orientation that is the original debate that you tried to subjugate by claiming harm doesn't matter because a fetus doesn't have rights according to pro-choice people.

Er, no, it amounts to a fetus. "Fetus" and "child" are two different words because they mean two different things. Funny how that works.

Does a fetus not become a child, poliwanacraca? Funny how that works.

Again, this is logically flawed. You are claiming that it harms a potential life, which a condom undoubtedly does. You are saying a child is denied life, which equally occurs when a condom is employed.

Now if you claim a fetus has rights, that's a different story, but the point is that we are not making that claim and thus there is nothing illogical about talking about rights violations for a person while ignoring claimed rights violations when no person exists. In fact, it's completely logically consistent. You are attempting to change the givens to destroy the argument while claiming you aren't doing so. Again, flawed.

Meanwhile, you failed to actually answer my question. You're claiming an argument from potential and then when called on it pretend as if it's because the fetus is special which is not at all the same argument. Which is it?

EDIT: And, no, I'm not claiming it must be harm, only that you are talking about as if it is, so I am simply matching the terms of the debate. Something you refuse to do. It's not important whether it's harm, your argument rests on it not mattering if it's harm or not. If you wish to argue whether or not it is harmful to change the orientation that is the original debate that you tried to subjugate by claiming harm doesn't matter because a fetus doesn't have rights according to pro-choice people.

Whether a fetus has right and whether a fetus should have rights are entirely different things. Obviously it doesn't per American law. Should it? Heh...

As for what my arguement "actually is," it hardly has to be one or the other.

And as for harm or not, I'm for the ability of the parent to change the fetus. I have not been talking about it as though it would be harming it. But you are correct, my arguement rests on it not mattering, which neither one of us has proven one way or the other. I've given my viewpoint, you've given your's.

Does a fetus not become a child, poliwanacraca? Funny how that works.

some do. some dont.

IMO homosexuality is not extremely natural behavior (but for a very small percentage of people it might be). But on the otherhand I think altering someone's hormones before they are born is much more unnatural so i owuld be against it.

Whether a fetus has right and whether a fetus should have rights are entirely different things. Obviously it doesn't per American law. Should it? Heh...

As for what my arguement "actually is," it hardly has to be one or the other.

And as for harm or not, I'm for the ability of the parent to change the fetus. I have not been talking about it as though it would be harming it. But you are correct, my arguement rests on it not mattering, which neither one of us has proven one way or the other. I've given my viewpoint, you've given your's.

Unfortunately, yours rests on the flawed logic of claiming you can't claim one as harm without claiming the other. Since we believe the fetus is not a person, as does the law, then abortion would not harm a person while altering the child to, for example, make it homosexual, could certainly be argued to harm and the child is CERTAINLY a person. You logic is flawed. Swallow it. It tastes good.

Does a fetus not become a child, poliwanacraca? Funny how that works.

Does a sperm become a child? Funny how that works.

A fetus is not a child anymore than a sperm is. Meanwhile, the vast majority of abortions are not performed on a fetus.

Does a fetus not become a child, poliwanacraca? Funny how that works.

Actually, it is not at all uncommon for a fetus not to become a child, as I have no doubt you are aware. A fetus can develop into a child, if the conditions are right, just as sperm can fertilize eggs, and sex can lead to pregnancy. There's a rather significant difference between "can" and "will."

Would you take the same hands off approach if parents were choosing to make their children homosexual?

Of course, heterosexuality and homosexuality is irrelevant.

And it does have lingering effects on the child. The lingering effects are the purpose of the procedure. The child does exist once it is born, and once thta happens anything done in utero to that child that alters it is certainly a question of ethics. Can I make it four feet tall, provided I do it in utero? Three? Two? One? Where is the line and who makes it when we're talking about designer children?

If there is no confusion after the child gains some sense of self, then for there to be lasting relevant effects, then you must be assuming that either homosexuality or heterosexuality is inherently better.

I will admit that there is a fine line here. Creating toy children whose development is severely retarded would be a horrendous practice. Eugenics is a difficult topic to address but rejecting it simply because we have not yet set a line as to what is legal and what is not is irresponsible.

Their belief does not dictate reality.

The intention is that it does... otherwise it is pointless.

It could be that a homosexual parent would feel that they would relate to a homosexual child better, and thus be a better parent because of it. Eugenics is not simply a matter of eliminating the socially undesirable or creating designer babies, it may have strong practical benefits.

And when it comes down to it, unless you can show me how any sexuality causes harm, then choosing the sexuality before it becomes an issue seems to be a non-issue best left to the concerned parents.

Of course, heterosexuality and homosexuality is irrelevant.



If there is no confusion after the child gains some sense of self, then for there to be lasting relevant effects, then you must be assuming that either homosexuality or heterosexuality is inherently better.

I will admit that there is a fine line here. Creating toy children whose development is severely retarded would be a horrendous practice. Eugenics is a difficult topic to address but rejecting it simply because we have not yet set a line as to what is legal and what is not is irresponsible.

No, I don't view one as better than the other. I would equally have a problem if my parents had chosen brown eyes for me instead of my natural blue or brown hair instead of my natural blond. It's about not altering me to their whim.

No, there should be no breeding out of things that are not directly harmful. The purpose of medicine is to cure and improve the lives of human beings, not to satisfy the desire of certain groups to engineer society to their whims. In fact, breeding out "undesirable" traits in general reeks of a combination of genetic determinism and social engineering...it's like trying to turn nurture in to nature, greatly reducing the freedom of individuals to determine themselves.

I would find it quite amusing if people "bred" out homosexuality only to see it come back later...I have a feeling its origins are a lot more complex than we think. People are more than the sum of their parts, after all.

It could be that a homosexual parent would feel that they would relate to a homosexual child better, and thus be a better parent because of it. Eugenics is not simply a matter of eliminating the socially undesirable or creating designer babies, it may have strong practical benefits.

And when it comes down to it, unless you can show me how any sexuality causes harm, then choosing the sexuality before it becomes an issue seems to be a non-issue best left to the concerned parents.

You've just given them value. The procedure automatically denotes value. Your suggestion does as well, suggesting that somehow your sexuality changes how you relate to people of an alternate sexuality. I simply don't agree that such a thing is likely and any procedure no matter how benign has the potential to cause damage.

It could be that a homosexual parent would feel that they would relate to a homosexual child better, and thus be a better parent because of it.

Parental convenience is hardly a good case for such an imposition.

unless you can show me how any sexuality causes harm

It doesn't. It remains an illegitimate imposition upon the child.

Then I stand by my statement. I fail to see how changing something about a fetus is somehow more dramatic and less ethical than destroying it outright.

I have had this discussion before.

In one hand, they say that a child who never lives can't have the right to live.

Yet they are perfectly able to be inconsisten and say that a child who never was homosexual has the right to be homosexual.

Yet they are perfectly able to be inconsisten and say that a child who never was homosexual has the right to be homosexual.

Unless you're like me and you don't really support either.

Yet they are perfectly able to be inconsisten and say that a child who never was homosexual has the right to be homosexual.

No, this is not at all an inconsistency. The right of the child is not to be homosexual, but to have a sexual orientation that hasn't been interfered with.

No, I don't view one as better than the other. I would equally have a problem if my parents had chosen brown eyes for me instead of my natural blue or brown hair instead of my natural blond. It's about not altering me to their whim.

Why are the genes your parents gave you by copulating any different than those they give you through a geneticists manipulation?

Why are the genes your parents gave you by copulating any different than those they give you through a geneticists manipulation?

Well, for one, the parents don't really have any control over what happens; the child is born with traits inherited from both parents, and the precise allocation is random.

I could only imagine the kind of problems that might occur when one parent decides that their kid would be more attractive with their eyes, or body type, or whatever; it seems to cheapen the process by subjecting it to their whims and might end up causing all kinds of relationship problems in addition to those stresses already experienced during pregnancy. I just see a lot of risk relative to the reward.

Why are the genes your parents gave you by copulating any different than those they give you through a geneticists manipulation?

Because there is no will behind one, while there is behind the other.

One subordinates me; the other does not.

Why not? Many Homosexuals admit that they would have rather been straight so they didn't have to suffer being bullied as a kid and find it easier to make a family and just generally fit in.Out of curiosity, would you be just as happy if parents want a treatment to make a straight child gay? Perhaps gay parents would like to have a gay child, thinking they might relate better... or, pick your reason.

I ask because I want to gauge whether you like this as a "cure" for homosexuality, or whether it really just fits the "consumer" model of parenting: parents should be able to "choose" what "kind" of child they want--one way or another.

You've just given them value. The procedure automatically denotes value. Your suggestion does as well, suggesting that somehow your sexuality changes how you relate to people of an alternate sexuality. I simply don't agree that such a thing is likely and any procedure no matter how benign has the potential to cause damage.

Is sexuality arbitrary or is it not?

No, this is not at all an inconsistency. The right of the child is not to be homosexual, but to have a sexual orientation that hasn't been interfered with.

And I do not support the manipulation of sexuality after a child has developed said right.

And I do not support the manipulation of sexuality after a child has developed said right.

When does that right apply?

I was just thinking that if I could somehow make sure that my progeny never turned to religion through some sort of tampering in utero... then I thought, I'm kind of a bad person for thinking that might be a correct choice. Power to the babies and whatever weird choices they make!

Well, for one, the parents don't really have any control over what happens; the child is born with traits inherited from both parents, and the precise allocation is random.

I could only imagine the kind of problems that might occur when one parent decides that their kid would be more attractive with their eyes, or body type, or whatever; it seems to cheapen the process by subjecting it to their whims and might end up causing all kinds of relationship problems in addition to those stresses already experienced during pregnancy. I just see a lot of risk relative to the reward.

Exactly, it seems to cheapen the process. However, no process has value or merit simply because it is natural. You cannot cheapen something that had no value to begin with.

And I do not support the manipulation of sexuality after a child has developed said right.

So would you apply the same logic to modifying the fetus so that the child dies a decade or so after birth?

After all, the manipulation occurs before the child develops a right to life... right?

Because there is no will behind one, while there is behind the other.

One subordinates me; the other does not.

Unless you can show how is is the will and not the control that causes subordination, I will assume this is a nonsequitor.

When does that right apply?

I am not an expert on child development, so I will say shortly after the right to life is established. It could not be before as sexuality is pretty meaningless without life.

Regardless of one's views on the ethics of conducting this straightening process on an unborn child, based on the precedent set down by the legalization of abortion, can it be prohibited by law? If a woman has a right to eject the fetus/embryo/whatever-the-pro-choice-lobby-has-conjured-up-now, then doesn't she also have the right to determine how it develops? Wouldn't placing controls on what a woman can and cannot have done on the unborn child, and thus, her body, be violating her reproductive rights?

I am not an expert on child development, so I will say shortly after the right to life is established. It could not be before as sexuality is pretty meaningless without life.

I'm primarily interested at what point the right to life is established; it's a necessary principle that has to exist before any real discussion about its related subjects can really happen.

Regardless of one's views on the ethics of conducting this straightening process on an unborn child, based on the precedent set down by the legalization of abortion, can it be prohibited by law? If a woman has a right to eject the fetus/embryo/whatever-the-pro-choice-lobby-has-conjured-up-now, then doesn't she also have the right to determine how it develops? Wouldn't placing controls on what a woman can and cannot have done on the unborn child, and thus, her body, be violating her reproductive rights?

I agree with you completely. Though, if she is going to make such choices that apply only to her own body, I suggest that the umbilical cord never be cut so as to maintain that the child is always part of her body. At least, until it is dead or she dies.

I am not an expert on child development, so I will say shortly after the right to life is established. It could not be before as sexuality is pretty meaningless without life.
I know the abovementioned is not directly relevant, but just to mention something: the issue that arises is that the future person will have suffered a harm, even if it was done when the child was a foetus. If you go by the non-aggression axiom, it can be counted as the initiation of force against person by the future person, should they judge it to be so, and thus grounds for prosecution. I do not consider this alteration ethical, but if the aggrieved party had no complaints, it'd be legal.

Exactly, it seems to cheapen the process. However, no process has value or merit simply because it is natural. You cannot cheapen something that had no value to begin with.

I don't mean in the natural sense, I mean in the ethical sense; this seems to reduce human life to a product, or machine, that can be customized according to the whims of its manufacturers. Humans are more than the sum of their parts, and should be treated accordingly.

So would you apply the same logic to modifying the fetus so that the child dies a decade or so after birth?

After all, the manipulation occurs before the child develops a right to life... right?

I'm tirelessly consistent, and reductio ad absurdum does not work well.

Unless you can show how is is the will and not the control that causes subordination, I will assume this is a nonsequitor.

For someone who denies that liberty encompasses a right to life beyond simple non-aggression, it is strange that you maintain that there is no difference... but nevermind.

I tried to explain the principle in words, but I kept on returning to the earlier formulation you objected to, so perhaps an example will suffice.

Imagine a child who has been genetically modified to be utterly servile. She obeys the command of everyone else without question, never even thinking to disobey, or to pursue her own path. This is her foremost desire, and requires none of the usual indications of coercion; so has she been programmed.

Would it be morally acceptable to modify a fetus so as to create such a child? Certainly the change is not harmful; the child is perfectly healthy and perfectly happy.

I'm tirelessly consistent, and reductio ad absurdum does not work well.

I honestly don't see how you can conclude that that is anything other than murder.

Is sexuality arbitrary or is it not?

I would say it is arbitrary to all but the person whose sexuality it is. That person is the child and should be the only one choosing what it is.

Would it be morally acceptable to modify a fetus so as to create such a child? Certainly the change is not harmful; the child is perfectly healthy and perfectly happy.
Out of curiosity, is there any legal principle by which a third party can press charges vicariously on behalf of an incapacitated victim of an aggression, such as the one above?

I'm tirelessly consistent, and reductio ad absurdum does not work well.
It is inconsistent with the non-aggression axiom though.

I'm primarily interested at what point the right to life is established; it's a necessary principle that has to exist before any real discussion about its related subjects can really happen.

Yes, and it is a tricky issue as well, as we start discussing infanticide as well as abortion.

Regardless of one's views on the ethics of conducting this straightening process on an unborn child, based on the precedent set down by the legalization of abortion, can it be prohibited by law? If a woman has a right to eject the fetus/embryo/whatever-the-pro-choice-lobby-has-conjured-up-now, then doesn't she also have the right to determine how it develops? Wouldn't placing controls on what a woman can and cannot have done on the unborn child, and thus, her body, be violating her reproductive rights?You're drawing too much out of the precedent.

The abortion decisions establish two relevant facts:

1) If the state wants to regulate prenatal treatments, it must have a COMPELLING reason to do so.
2) The state's interest in the health of the mother becomes "compelling" after roughly the first trimester, and its interest in the life of the foetus becomes "compelling" at roughly the beginning of the third trimester.

It is important to understand that the Court passed judgment on ONLY these interests: the health of the mother and the life of the child. States MAY still come up with other interests that the courts may consider "compelling" enough to stand up to due process scrutiny.

For example, the courts have ruled that an interest in "diversity" in higher education is compelling enough to support some forms of affirmative action. Perhaps, in this case, the state could argue that an interest in "natural diversity"--or an interest in preventing a form of "persecution" against a minority--is compelling enough to support a ban on prenatal treatments that would "breed out" said minority.

I know the abovementioned is not directly relevant, but just to mention something: the issue that arises is that the future person will have suffered a harm, even if it was done when the child was a foetus. If you go by the non-aggression axiom, it can be counted as the initiation of force against person by the future person, should they judge it to be so, and thus grounds for prosecution. I do not consider this alteration ethical, but if the aggrieved party had no complaints, it'd be legal.

Then why isn't the deprivation of the opportunity for life not also harm?

You can say that no person existed so no harm could be visited, but I say that no homosexual person existed so it is not harmful that he is heterosexual.

I don't mean in the natural sense, I mean in the ethical sense; this seems to reduce human life to a product, or machine, that can be customized according to the whims of its manufacturers. Humans are more than the sum of their parts, and should be treated accordingly.

Your love for humanity is somewhat unfounded. Why exactly are humans more than the sum of their parts? What about us makes us so special? Granted we're far more advanced than every known species...but why should be be exhaulted or "treated accordingly?" The argument could be made that we're the most disgusting species on Earth.

I am not an expert on child development, so I will say shortly after the right to life is established. It could not be before as sexuality is pretty meaningless without life.

You don't get it. If I commit an act that affects the child when it does have rights then the effect may as well have occurred at that time. It is not the time of commission that determines when or how a subject is affect but the time of effect. You must admit that the effective change of sexuality is not present until the sexualtiy develops which is obviously long after the child is born.

It is no different than if I signed my child into slavery prior to birth. The effect would not be prior to his/her birth but when the child's liberty was actually infringed upon, which is of course after its birth. This is pretty basic to the discussion and your ignorance of it really is destroying the ability to approach this logically.

I don't mean in the natural sense, I mean in the ethical sense; this seems to reduce human life to a product, or machine, that can be customized according to the whims of its manufacturers.

What are they if not this?

Humans are more than the sum of their parts, and should be treated accordingly.

Humans become something more than the sum of their parts, they are not born as more than the sum of their parts, so in my opinion the genetics of the person are of little consequence, if you want to make this argument.

Then why isn't the deprivation of the opportunity for life not also harm?

You can say that no person existed so no harm could be visited, but I say that no homosexual person existed so it is not harmful that he is heterosexual.

No, you can't. A person exists in the example of changing sexuality. According to your claim I could do anything I like to the fetus, make it mentally ill, make it born without arms, make it born without a pelvis and this doesn't matter because no healthy person existed. However, the fact is that the person was born damage and the fault for that damage is the parents.

If one could argue that changing the sexuality of a child once born is wrong, then it is equally wrong to do it at any other time, because it affects the child in EXACTLY the same way. If the effect is no different, then whether or not it is harm is no different either.

For someone who denies that liberty encompasses a right to life beyond simple non-aggression, it is strange that you maintain that there is no difference... but nevermind.

That I will to shoot you and that I shoot you on accident are both equal forms of aggression and both repayed equally. Intent (the will) is meaningless.

I tried to explain the principle in words, but I kept on returning to the earlier formulation you objected to, so perhaps an example will suffice.

Imagine a child who has been genetically modified to be utterly servile. She obeys the command of everyone else without question, never even thinking to disobey, or to pursue her own path. This is her foremost desire, and requires none of the usual indications of coercion; so has she been programmed.

Would it be morally acceptable to modify a fetus so as to create such a child? Certainly the change is not harmful; the child is perfectly healthy and perfectly happy.

I understood the words when you explained the principle.

If a person is naturally and happily servile, it is not harmful to the person to be servile.

EDIT: If it were impossible for a person to ever be nonservile, then servitude can not be counted as an opportunity cost.

I would say it is arbitrary to all but the person whose sexuality it is. That person is the child and should be the only one choosing what it is.

How does a person choose their genes?

this seems to reduce human life to a product, or machine, that can be customized according to the whims of its manufacturers.

This is a better expression of what I was getting at than my own statements.

If a person is naturally and happily servile, it is not harmful to the person to be servile.

I agree; that's what I said. The problem is that this person has been MADE servile; the servility is not truly natural, but rather has been imposed.

There is nothing wrong with someone who is truly naturally servile, but it is clear to me that there is something wrong with genetically modifying the fetus so as to generate a servile personality. If you disagree, I don't know if we can get any further with this.

It is inconsistent with the non-aggression axiom though.

In what way?

How does a person choose their genes?

They don't. That's the point. If anyone were to choose their genes not related to actually objective harm then those choices are arbitrary to the person making the choice and not arbitrary to the person. It's quite simple really. Why should you be permitted to make a choice that is arbitrary to you and not to me when no harm is present?

In what way?
It is a change made to the future person in spite of their will.

Then why isn't the deprivation of the opportunity for life not also harm?
Because no victim will ever exist. Keep focused on what the non-aggression axiom suggests - that any action initiating force against an individual is illegitimate.

I agree; that's what I said. The problem is that this person has been MADE servile; the servility is not truly natural, but rather has been imposed.

There is nothing wrong with someone who is truly naturally servile, but it is clear to me that there is something wrong with genetically modifying the fetus so as to generate a servile personality. If you disagree, I don't know if we can get any further with this.
That reminds me an awful lot of BNW, with particular regard to the Deltas and Epsilons.

I agree; that's what I said. The problem is that this person has been MADE servile; the servility is not truly natural, but rather has been imposed.

If the child was servile without eugenics it was still "MADE servile", the child does not have a choice in either situation.

Secondly, you are operating from a different definition of natural. The prediliction to servitude of course was not the product of nature, but it is a matter of uncoerced behavior.

There is nothing wrong with someone who is truly naturally servile, but it is clear to me that there is something wrong with genetically modifying the fetus so as to generate a servile personality. If you disagree, I don't know if we can get any further with this.

Dispell my disagreement. It would really be quite simple. You must differentiate between the child who is servile due to random genetic coupling and one who is servile through purposeful genetic manipulation.

WHY DOES WILL MATTER?

This is a better expression of what I was getting at than my own statements.



I agree; that's what I said. The problem is that this person has been MADE servile; the servility is not truly natural, but rather has been imposed.

There is nothing wrong with someone who is truly naturally servile, but it is clear to me that there is something wrong with genetically modifying the fetus so as to generate a servile personality. If you disagree, I don't know if we can get any further with this.

Precisely, by the logic employed by our friend, murder is not a crime because the person doesn't complain. Denying a person's right to self-determination has long been recognized as illegal and unethical. If one were to force a person to take drugs that make them unable to say no to sex it would be no different and that has long been considered rape and should be.

It is a change made to the future person in spite of their will.


Because no victim will ever exist.

What victim exists that has their life after 10 years taken away from them?

You say that, concerning abortion, no living person existed to have their life taken away from them, I say that, in our present scenario, no person existed who had a life past ten years to be taken away.

If the person never had the opportunity, how can opportunity be lost?

If the child was servile without eugenics it was still "MADE servile", the child does not have a choice in either situation.

Secondly, you are operating from a different definition of natural. The prediliction to servitude of course was not the product of nature, but it is a matter of uncoerced behavior.



Dispell my disagreement. It would really be quite simple. You must differentiate between the child who is servile due to random genetic coupling and one who is servile through purposeful genetic manipulation.

WHY DOES WILL MATTER?


Easy to do. It's the same as differentiating between you being born without an arm and me cutting it off arbitrarily. I'm quite certain you'd notice the difference and so would everyone else. Do you deny this? The difference is that in the both cases harm occurred but in the first case there is no person to whom the harm can be attributed. In the second, there is.

It's the difference between having a heart attack and having someone intentionally cause a heart attack.

What victim exists that has their life after 10 years taken away from them?

You say that, concerning abortion, no living person existed to have their life taken away from them, I say that, in our present scenario, no person existed who had a life past ten years to be taken away.

If the person never had the opportunity, how can opportunity be lost?

Again, a person exists. The quality of that person do not change their rights. It doesn't matter if you were going to die the exact moment that I killed you, if I kiled you it's murder. This isn't complicated. The law, ethics, personhood and the idea of rights are not qualified in the way you'd like to qualify them. If I cut of your arm at 10 no person exists that had an arm past 10. I guess no violation of rights, huh?

Your logic is flawed. In your scenarios, rights do not exist, because according to you everything that happens to you was meant to happen from the moment someone decided to do it, instead of having the effect at the time that you are denied whatever it is they denied you.

Precisely, by the logic employed by our friend, murder is not a crime because the person doesn't complain. Denying a person's right to self-determination has long been recognized as illegal and unethical. If one were to force a person to take drugs that make them unable to say no to sex it would be no different and that has long been considered rape and should be.

And once again, who has ever had the self-determination over their genes requisite for it to be violated?

What are they if not this?

I would say they are human beings. There is more to humanity than its biology; one might see the ability of humans to freely determine themselves, or their subjective experiences, as signs that we each have something unique that is not reducible to more fundamental parts.

Humans become something more than the sum of their parts, they are not born as more than the sum of their parts, so in my opinion the genetics of the person are of little consequence, if you want to make this argument.

Well, no. Even though humans are more than the sum of their parts, those parts are still factored in to their humanity and so have similar ethical considerations.

That reminds me an awful lot of BNW, with particular regard to the Deltas and Epsilons.

The same thing was going through my mind.

It was actually considering BNW that led me to several of the conclusions that I have argued for in this thread.

If the child was servile without eugenics it was still "MADE servile", the child does not have a choice in either situation.

I don't believe I referred to choice versus lack of choice.

"MADE servile" implies action. There is no action if the child is naturally servile; there is no attempt to impose servility upon him or her. It simply happens. Thus the child is neither objectified nor subordinated; he or she simply is.

Secondly, you are operating from a different definition of natural. The prediliction to servitude of course was not the product of nature, but it is a matter of uncoerced behavior.

I know I am. That is what I was getting at when I mentioned "truly natural."

And what, exactly, is your problem with coercion - assuming the coerced person is just as happy as otherwise?

Dispell my disagreement.

This is the difficulty. The principle to me is intuitive, from contemplating Brave New World and the subject of genetic modification in general. If you don't see it, I doubt I am capable of dispelling your disagreement, even if I had an amazing intellect and all the time in the world.

It would really be quite simple. You must differentiate between the child who is servile due to random genetic coupling and one who is servile through purposeful genetic manipulation.

WHY DOES WILL MATTER?

Because there is no servility and no objectification without an intent. The person who naturally is servile, or who naturally is gay, straight, bisexual, or whatever, merely IS that and has not been MADE that. He or she has not been treated as an object that can be manipulated at its owner's whims.

Keep focused on what the non-aggression axiom suggests - that any action initiating force against an individual is illegitimate.

Yes, let us focus on this.

To start, what does the axiom constitute as force?

Yes, let us focus on this.

To start, what does the axiom constitute as force?
Physical compulsion of another to achieve one's ends. To use an analogy, in order for one to be genetically modified against their will, they must be restrained. A future person cannot give their consent to the modification, and therefore may consider it an initiation of force, given that they were unable to consent.

Regardless of one's views on the ethics of conducting this straightening process on an unborn child, based on the precedent set down by the legalization of abortion, can it be prohibited by law? If a woman has a right to eject the fetus/embryo/whatever-the-pro-choice-lobby-has-conjured-up-now, then doesn't she also have the right to determine how it develops? Wouldn't placing controls on what a woman can and cannot have done on the unborn child, and thus, her body, be violating her reproductive rights?

no she does not. a woman only owns her own body. therefore, within reasonable legal limits, she can elect a medical procedure that ends her pregnancy, that remove the fetus from her body. she does NOT own the fetus inside her. she does not have carte blanche to do with it as she will.

the fetus is the "property" of the mother and the father within limits set by the state.

consider for a moment the easier situation of frozen embryos. a frozen embryo is jointly owned and controlled by both biological parents. the mother cannot decide on her own to have it implanted in her body, to give it to another couple or to destroy it. any decision has to be jointly made with the father. her motherhood conveys no special status in this case.

of course the same is true of the newborn baby. both parents have equal legal control over everything that happens to the childs (as long as no court has removed parental control)

as you know, there are things that we are not allowed by law to do either with our own frozen embryos or with our newborn babies. the state has a say in what happens with both.

in the same way, a woman is not allowed to do whatever enters her head to do that will effect her growing fetus. she has a right to abortion to a point but she is not allowed, for example to thrust a knitting needle into the head of her 8th month fetus just because it happens to be inside her body. a woman who has taken so many drugs while pregnant that her baby tests positive for drugs is very likely to have her baby taken away from her.

we dont at the current time DO post conception designing of our babies beyond the obvious diet and exercise routines needed for the making of a healthy baby. any proposed procedures would never be a matter of pleasing the mothers taste in babies. it would have to pass normal medical reveiws that require testing to make sure the results are as predicted, necessity for the fetus involved, lack of harmful side effects and probably something else im not thinking of at the moment.

now IF it should turn out that people are gay because of some hormonal imbalance in the mother, she surely will be able to decide to get that treated. her body, her hormones, as long as there are no detrimental side effects to the fetus, her decision.

The quality of that person do not change their rights.

Then a person with down syndrome should be looking for the person to sue for their lack of rights?

If I cut of your arm at 10 no person exists that had an arm past 10. I guess no violation of rights, huh?

You misinterpret my argument. If you cut off someone's at age 10 there did exist a person who was entitled to an arm after the age of ten.

Your logic is flawed. In your scenarios, rights do not exist, because according to you everything that happens to you was meant to happen from the moment someone decided to do it, instead of having the effect at the time that you are denied whatever it is they denied you.

No, not at all. I only say that "you" cannot be denied something before "you" are "you". "You" cannot have something taken away before "you" are "you".

Out of curiosity, is there any legal principle by which a third party can press charges vicariously on behalf of an incapacitated victim of an aggression, such as the one above?

Anyone familiar with law care to answer? :)

The same thing was going through my mind.

It was actually considering BNW that led me to several of the conclusions that I have argued for in this thread.
Likewise. I have reconsidered my position on prenatal genetic modification entirely, given that it could have very undesirable consequences and entail severe violations of the future person's free will.

Physical compulsion of another to achieve one's ends.

Are you sure it isn't physical compulsion that inhibits one's own ends?

When we consider compensation, do we value the damages according to how much the victim lost, or how much the aggressor gained?

EDIT: Namely is it not the violation of property, whether it be land ownership, self ownership, or the like?

Are you sure it isn't physical compulsion that inhibits one's own ends?
How so?

When we consider compensation, do we value the damages according to how much the victim lost, or how much the aggressor gained?
By how much the victim lost.

EDIT: Namely is it not the violation of property, whether it be land ownership, self ownership, or the like?
By use of force, yes. In this case we are refering to a violation of self-ownership.

breeding out homosexuality? now there is a good idea!

Anyone familiar with law care to answer? :)

im not sure which aggression youre talking about

next of kin can.

if done by next of kin, the state sometimes steps in to appoint a legal guardian for those who cannot take care of such things themselves.

Anyone familiar with law care to answer? :)I didn't get a look at the original question, so there may be important details of which I am unaware... but if the question is, as it appears here, simply whether a person can sue on behalf of someone who is not capable of suing on her/his own behalf... then the answer is "yes."

But first you must get a court to declare you guardian ad litem--guardian at law. It's basically the same principle as suing on behalf of minors.

I didn't get a look at the original question, so there may be important details of which I am unaware... but if the question is, as it appears here, simply whether a person can sue on behalf of someone who is not capable of suing on her/his own behalf... then the answer is "yes."
That is more or less it.

But first you must get a court to declare you guardian ad litem--guardian at law. It's basically the same principle as suing on behalf of minors.
How would you get the court to do so ordinarily?

im not sure which aggression youre talking about
Oh, I was quoting a prior quotation - the aggression is genetically modifying a person besides their will.

By use of force, yes. In this case we are refering to a violation of self-ownership.

First off, it not necessarily be use of force, but violation without consent. Force is simply the most recognizable method.

But anyways, how is ownership established, especially self-ownership?

I didn't get a look at the original question, so there may be important details of which I am unaware... but if the question is, as it appears here, simply whether a person can sue on behalf of someone who is not capable of suing on her/his own behalf... then the answer is "yes."

But first you must get a court to declare you guardian ad litem--guardian at law. It's basically the same principle as suing on behalf of minors.

In the hypothetical about which Europa Maxima asked his question, it was not so much that the person would be of suing herself; rather, the violation itself was such that she would have no desire to do so.

To re-post the example:

Imagine a child who has been genetically modified to be utterly servile. She obeys the command of everyone else without question, never even thinking to disobey, or to pursue her own path. This is her foremost desire, and requires none of the usual indications of coercion; so has she been programmed.

But anyways, how is ownership established, especially self-ownership?
I am assuming you mean of the future person. As soon as they become human from foetus the right enters into play. Since genetic modifications done to the foetus will inevitably affect the person, they have violated their right to self-ownership. It then remains for this individual (provided they are able) to decide whether or not they will seek restitution.

I am assuming you mean of the future person. As soon as they become human from foetus the right enters into play. Since genetic modifications done to the foetus will inevitably affect the person, they have violated their right to self-ownership. It then remains for this individual (provided they are able) to decide whether or not they will seek restitution.

You are jumping around here.

How is self-ownership established? What is the method?

How is self-ownership established? What is the method?
Keep in mind I am assuming a libertarian society, in which case it is considered axiomatic. A libertarian society cannot deny the right to self-ownership, as this would lead to all contingent rights withering away.

How would you get the court to do so ordinarily?Well, parents are automatically the legal guardians of minor children in their custody. In the event of the parents' death, if they have made their intentions clear then legal guardianship passes to the person(s) of their choice. Otherwise, a court may seek out a relative to take custody; failing that, custody generally passes to state officials.

In cases of incapacitation, a court may sometimes appoint a spouse, family member, or even a close friend or personal attorney as the "general guardian" for a person, having general legal power to handle her/his affairs. The court may also appoint a "special guardian," who might have power over matters of property but not, for instance, power to make medical determinations or other decisions about the person.

A guardian ad litem is appointed for specific legal proceedings. This often happens in divorce proceedings, when the court appoints a person to look out for the best interest of the children--this is usually a social worker or attorney. A court may also appoint such a guardian in cases of abuse, where obviously it is inappropriate for the parent(s) to represent their children.

More generally in the case of an incapacitated person, anyone can file to become the guardian for a specific legal matter. Because the state tries to hold the guardian to a very high standard of responsibility, it is often more easier to find an attorney who will prosecute the case, and to make the attorney her/himself the guardian ad litem for the prosecution of the case.


Oh, I was quoting a prior quotation - the aggression is genetically modifying a person besides their will.Hmm... There are going to be obvious legal difficulties here if the procedure itself is legal. In that case, the parents are the legal guardians of the child and they have the power to make medical decisions on her/his behalf. If the procedure is illegal, obviously the state can appoint a guardian. Otherwise, you're probably dealing with a dispute between the parents, in which case the state will appoint a guardian (probably a social worker) anyway.

More generally in the case of an incapacitated person, anyone can file to become the guardian for a specific legal matter. Because the state tries to hold the guardian to a very high standard of responsibility, it is often more easier to find an attorney who will prosecute the case, and to make the attorney her/himself the guardian ad litem for the prosecution of the case.
That is what I had in mind. If an acquaintance could convincingly argue that the parents of the child are unfit on the ground that they are harming the child (e.g. engineering it to be servile, or retarded), could they attempt to become a guardian in law?

In the hypothetical about which Europa Maxima asked his question, it was not so much that the person would be of suing herself; rather, the violation itself was such that she would have no desire to do so.I see.

Again, I think it will come down to whether the procedure itself was legal. If yes, and neither parent opposes it, then there is little that a third-party can do besides lobby to change the law. If, say, the mother decides to have the prenatal procedure without the father's consent, and the father thinks it harmed the child, the father could sue and an attorney or social worker would be appointed to represent the child. (I am assuming that in general a father would not be able to call for the procedure against the mother's objections.)

Of course, the state could also intervene if evidence is presented by a third-party that the procedure, though legal, has been somehow abused--for instance, maybe the parents use this servile child as an actual slave, compelling the child to perform labor which is, while "voluntary," nevertheless excessive or abnormal to ask of a child. In that case, a court would also appoint a guardian besides the parent. It would be treated like a child-abuse case.

That is what I had in mind. If an acquaintance could convincingly argue that the parents of the child are unfit on the ground that they are harming the child (e.g. engineering it to be servile, or retarded), could they attempt to become a guardian in law?Let's assume that such manipulation is legal.

The most likely case, it seems to me, is that the law would allow genetic manipulation, but that the law itself would not cover all cases. Any such law would be likely to exclude manipulation to make a child retarded or otherwise handicapped... but the question might arise, is servility or obedience a handicap?

Let's say that parents have this procedure done, and the child is born perfectly servile. Let's say that the child is born and, for the sake of argument, the parents are not particularly abusive: they don't ask more of the child than the average parent would--just good behavior. The difference is that this child actually obeys, and consistently. There is never a need for punishment.

You come along and you think that the child's interests have been harmed. You have two options:

1) Alert the authorities and ask them to file criminal charges against the parents and/or the physician who performed the procedure. Your argument is that the procedure did, in fact, "handicap" the child (or whatever language the law uses), so that in performing this particular genetic manipulation the law was broken. (Obviously, if the law is truly libertarian and allows whatever manipulations the parents choose, this is not a realistic option. But speaking of "realistic," I maintain that the law is unlikely to allow blatantly detrimental manipulations.) The courts will have to decide if this was prohibited by the law. The parents will argue, of course, that it is an advantage: a life without punishment and, moreover, a child who excels in school (doing all homework, naturally) and in the workplace, where he/she will follow every employer's instructions to the letter. The child is set for success. ..... The courts will decide whether this is really an advantage or disadvantage.

2) Alert the authorities that you believe the parents are not acting in the child's best interests, regardless of the legality of the specific procedure. To have proper standing, you'll need to make a claim that it is possible to remedy, so it would greatly help if there were some procedure or retraining available that could actually make the child less servile--you are suing to have the procedure/training done to fix the damage the parents have done. Alternatively, you would have to argue that the child will suffer financial costs due to her/his condition: perhaps you argue that he/she will ultimately be very susceptible to fraud or scams, since he/she is prone to do as he/she is told. To have standing, there has to be something the court can order someone to do that will alleviate or remedy the situation.

Again, the court would appoint a guardian.

1) Alert the authorities and ask them to file criminal charges against the parents and/or the physician who performed the procedure. Your argument is that the procedure did, in fact, "handicap" the child (or whatever language the law uses), so that in performing this particular genetic manipulation the law was broken.
If it violated the non-aggression axiom, it'd indeed be illegal.

To have standing, there has to be something the court can order someone to do that will alleviate or remedy the situation.
Assuming it is possible, I'd imagine the court would order the physician to reverse the damage done at the very least.

All right, thanks for your input - it's helped me clarify how courts would adjudicate in this situation.

Take into account that homosexuality is caused by an indbalance of hormones in the brain. It is a bodily disfunction. Therefore, is it ethically wrong to cure a disease? To treat a genetic disorder. The answer is no. I don't see where the problem is here.

Keep in mind I am assuming a libertarian society, in which case it is considered axiomatic. A libertarian society cannot deny the right to self-ownership, as this would lead to all contingent rights withering away.

From your favorite:

It is worth mentioning that the ownership right stemming from production finds its natural limitation only when, as in the case of children, the thing produced is itself another actor-producer. According to the natural theory of property, a child, once born, is just as much the owner of his own body as anyone else. Hence, not only can a child expect not to be physically aggressed against but as the owner of his body a child has the right, in particular, to abandon his parents once he is physically able to run away from them and say "no" to their possible attempts to recapture him. Parents only have special rights regarding their child — stemming from their unique status as the child's producers — insofar as they (and no one else) can rightfully claim to be the child's trustee as long as the child is physically unable to run away and say "no."

Self ownership is established by the self-appropriation, the homesteading, of ones own body as a child.

If this is the case, and the child finds it impossible to claim a body that will live past the age of ten, how can we then state that its claims are violated when it dies at ten?

Take into account that homosexuality is caused by an indbalance of hormones in the brain.

It is indeed hormonally caused, if we believe these scientists. But it seems more in the category of "different from heterosexual" than "imbalanced."

It is a bodily disfunction.

Not really. No more than any other non-universal natural trait is.

Therefore, is it ethically wrong to cure a disease?

If you consider homosexuality a "disease" - yes.

From your favorite:
That he is.

If this is the case, and the child finds it impossible to claim a body that will live past the age of ten, how can we then state that its claims are violated when it dies at ten?
I am not sure why you bring this up repeatedly. The issue is that a modification was made to the child against its will.

Take into account that homosexuality is caused by an indbalance of hormones in the brain. It is a bodily disfunction. Therefore, is it ethically wrong to cure a disease? To treat a genetic disorder. The answer is no. I don't see where the problem is here.

A different balance=/= imbalance. Just like different people have differing levels of anxiety,aggression and other factors. If it's not causing a quality of life problem, then leave it be.

I am not sure why you bring this up repeatedly, or even why the child would find such a claim impossible. The issue is that a modification was made to the child against its will.

The modification was made to a fetus which had no will.

Tell me how a child can homestead a body that has never existed.

Self ownership is established by the self-appropriation, the homesteading, of ones own body as a child.

Circular. Self-ownership must precede the right to appropriation by labor; otherwise, what's the basis for the right to appropriation by labor?

Circular. Self-ownership must precede the right to appropriation by labor; otherwise, what's the basis for the right to appropriation by labor?

It is not appropriation by labor, it is appropriation by will.

The modification was made to a fetus which had no will.

Tell me how a child can homestead a body that has never existed.
Soheran just picked up on something I hadn't noticed; indeed, self-ownership is antecedent to appropriation. I am not sure why Hoppe made that error, it's inconsistent with his other work (he even argues self-ownership is axiomatic).

At any rate, as soon as it comes into existence it will own itself. It will own its body, and have suffered a violation of its right to self-ownership.

Take into account that homosexuality is caused by an indbalance of hormones in the brain. It is a bodily disfunction. Therefore, is it ethically wrong to cure a disease? To treat a genetic disorder. The answer is no. I don't see where the problem is here.

if it were caused by an hormonal imbalance, it would be curable.

so where are all the cures?

we dont know what causes homosexuality. most of us realize that it doesnt matter why someone is gay any more than it matters why they are left handed.

there is nothing wrong with it.

Soheran just picked up on something I hadn't noticed; indeed, self-ownership is antecedent to appropriation. I am not sure why Hoppe made that error, it's inconsistent with his other work (he even argues self-ownership is axiomatic).

At any rate, as soon as it comes into existence it will own itself. It will own its body, and have suffered a violation of its right to self-ownership.
Though I haven't read the work in question, doesn't that seem to say you have to own something first?
A fetus doesn't own a body, it's still part of the mother. If she decides to do something to the fetus it's her right.
It's like saying you got some land in an inheritance and now want to sue the previous owner for damage to the land. Damage that occured before it was yours.

Soheran just picked up on something I hadn't noticed; indeed, self-ownership is antecedent to appropriation. I am not sure why Hoppe made that error, it's inconsistent with his other work (he even argues self-ownership is axiomatic).

It is simultaneous. The moment the person wills to control himself, he appropriates himself. It is not a concerted effort to appropriate oneself, it is an spontaneous relevation.

At any rate, as soon as it comes into existence it will own itself. It will own its body, and have suffered a violation of its right to self-ownership.

You asked me why I kept reiterating my point, now you keep mentioning self-ownership, so I will ask you one last time: How does the child establish self-ownership over something that is not itself?

The moment the person wills to control himself, he appropriates himself.

By what right?

Take into account that homosexuality is caused by an imbalance of hormones in the brain. It is a bodily dysfunction.You can only call something an "imbalance" if you have already decided that the alternative is "normal."

If you want to be objective, you can only say that sexuality is determined by the proportion of certain hormones in the brain (if this research is correct). One such proportion causes a heterosexual preference; another causes a homosexual preference; and should we presume that variations in between result in the variations making up the various degrees of bisexual preference?

How do you choose which one is "correct"? Is the "correct" preference 100% heterosexual, or 90%? 75%? Should the procedure eliminate all erotic interest in the same sex, or just some of it?

By what right?

It is the first right.

It exists because any other claim to your body is contradictory with the other's claim over his body.

Why are the genes your parents gave you by copulating any different than those they give you through a geneticists manipulation?

I must admit my disappointment, you started so strong and then started making arguments so full of holes you should be embarassed. We have a right to determine what happens to our bodies. That right is accepted. It conveys rights that deal with current and future technologies. For example, are you suggesting that simply because I can't do it 100 years ago, that I didn't have a right to decide whether or not my genetics were altered and when we have viral agents that change our genetics (assume we're talking about using this in adults) that we don't have the right to control it because it didn't exist 100 years ago.

By your logic I don't have a right to decide whether or not I get a new heart because at one time it was impossible. You control your body and everything in it. You do. You did. And you always have. Occassionally the law chooses a proxy for you so that necessary decisions can be made when you are incapable, but this is hardly necessary and that is not the argument you are making. This argument is just sad.

Though I haven't read the work in question, doesn't that seem to say you have to own something first?
A fetus doesn't own a body, it's still part of the mother. If she decides to do something to the fetus it's her right.
It's like saying you got some land in an inheritance and now want to sue the previous owner for damage to the land. Damage that occured before it was yours.
There is a difference - the body will not be inherited. The foetus will transform into a person. No right violations occur with an abortion of the foetus, since the person will never come into existence to enforce its rights.

It is the first right.

It exists because any other claim to your body is contradictory with the other's claim over his body.

It is a right that you always have, had and will have. You keep pretending that rights for a person suddenly appear, but it is the person that suddenly appears, not the rights. The rights always exist. You have a right to make decisions about your body and when a decision was made has nothing to with whether you or someone acting on your behalf have a right to that decision.

It is the first right.

It exists because any other claim to your body is contradictory with the other's claim over his body.

Then self-ownership does not arise from appropriation by will. It arises from rational consistency.

Of course, that tells us absolutely nothing about when it begins... if I say that my right to self-ownership is somehow derived from my status as a human being, then it could effectively be argued that the fetus has such rights as well, but if I found my self-ownership on my status of having the username "Soheran," I need never grant that anybody else has the right of self-ownership.

It is a right that you always have, had and will have. You keep pretending that rights for a person suddenly appear, but it is the person that suddenly appears, not the rights. The rights always exist. You have a right to make decisions about your body and when a decision was made has nothing to with whether you or someone acting on your behalf have a right to that decision.
Good argument. As soon as the person appears, they may enforce their right, which was aggrieved. In the case of an abortion, the person will never appear, ergo the right cannot be enforced.

The modification was made to a fetus which had no will.

Tell me how a child can homestead a body that has never existed.

See this highlights the flaw in your argument. The expressed purpose of the procedure is to alter the child not the fetus. The fetus is simply the vehicle for the change. If the child never exists there would be no point to procedure. For example, no one would ever get this procedure for a fetus they were planning to abort.

There is a difference - the body will not be inherited. The foetus will transform into a person. No right violations occur with an abortion of the foetus, since the person will never come into existence to enforce its rights.While I agree that a child has the right to "inheirit" a body as free from flaws as its mother can manage. Such as not smoking crack while pregnant.
But the example given just seemed to say that your rights only have precedence once you acquire the body.

I must admit my disappointment, you started so strong and then started making arguments so full of holes you should be embarassed. We have a right to determine what happens to our bodies. That right is accepted. It conveys rights that deal with current and future technologies. For example, are you suggesting that simply because I can't do it 100 years ago, that I didn't have a right to decide whether or not my genetics were altered and when we have viral agents that change our genetics (assume we're talking about using this in adults) that we don't have the right to control it because it didn't exist 100 years ago.

By your logic I don't have a right to decide whether or not I get a new heart because at one time it was impossible. You control your body and everything in it. You do. You did. And you always have. Occassionally the law chooses a proxy for you so that necessary decisions can be made when you are incapable, but this is hardly necessary and that is not the argument you are making. This argument is just sad.

I have quite the opposite sentiment concerning this discussion. I have come to expect discussions with you to dwindle down to comments about how stupid your oppositions arguments are and attempts to prove this through horribly inaccurate analogies. I have not been disappointed.

When you come up with an analogy that shows that an entity can make a claim before said entity exists, post it and I will bow graciously before you and the fourth wall.

By the way: Why are the genes your parents gave you by copulating any different than those they give you through a geneticists manipulation?

While I agree that a child has the right to "inheirit" a body as free from flaws as its mother can manage. Such as not smoking crack while pregnant.
But the example given just seemed to say that your rights only have precedence once you acquire the body.
I realised now I made an error - Jocabia offered a better explanation of how a person may enforce their right to self-ownership (by virtue of the fact that it is the person that comes into being - the rights exist all along, but in the foetus stage cannot be enforced).

It is a right that you always have, had and will have. You keep pretending that rights for a person suddenly appear, but it is the person that suddenly appears, not the rights. The rights always exist. You have a right to make decisions about your body and when a decision was made has nothing to with whether you or someone acting on your behalf have a right to that decision.

So your right to own yourself originated with the beginning of time and continues long after you are dead? It is infinite.

When you have rotted and become nutrients bacteria, do you own that portion of bacteria that your body makes up?

I would find that absurd. I prefer to think that we have rights when we have a conscious and justified claim upon them.

So your right to own yourself originated with the beginning of time and continues long after you are dead? It is infinite.

When you have rotted and become nutrients bacteria, do you own that portion of bacteria that your body makes up?
How will you enforce the right if your personhood ends?

in the foetus stage cannot be enforced).

Sure they can - by proxy.

Can my right to self-ownership be violated while I am unconscious, and incapable of doing anything about it?

Then self-ownership does not arise from appropriation by will. It arises from rational consistency.

No, all ownership arises from the willful claim, the action of taking ownership. Multiple claims for the ownership are justified through rational consistency.

Concerning self-ownership, it is the acknowledgement of the primacy of the direct link between the person and his body that establishes the rational consistency that provides universal verification for the ownership of the self.

How will you enforce the right if your personhood ends?

Why would I want to?

Sure they can - by proxy.
Would this then not make it possible to consider the abortion a violation of self-ownership?

Can my right to self-ownership be violated while I am unconscious, and incapable of doing anything about it?
Yes, it could.

No, all ownership arises from the willful claim, the action of taking ownership. Multiple claims for the ownership are justified through rational consistency.

So before the child makes the claim, she has no right, because she has made no claim? I suppose that makes sense.

it is the acknowledgement of the primacy of the direct link between the person and his body

Why should anyone acknowledge that?

Good argument. As soon as the person appears, they may enforce their right, which was aggrieved. In the case of an abortion, the person will never appear, ergo the right cannot be enforced.

If the right is not enforced until the appearance of the person, then isn't the infinite nature of the right completely pointless? Wouldn't we just consider the advent of the right and the person to be simultaneous?

Would this then not make it possible to consider the abortion a violation of self-ownership?

No, because the mother's right to self-ownership permits abortion, whatever the rights of the fetus (according to the libertarian ethical framework, anyway. I reject that framework.)

Yes, it can.

How is that any different?

Why should anyone acknowledge that?

They must in order to make an external claim.

To say, "This is mine" they must acknowledge that there is a "me".

They must in order to make an external claim.

To say, "This is mine" they must acknowledge that there is a "me".

I agree that they must affirm their own existence. What does that have to do with recognizing a particular basis for the right to self-ownership?

How is that any different?
Because you are now in existence as a person. As a foetus you are not. You can therefore enforce your right to self-ownership once you recover. As a foetus you do not yet exist as a person to do so.

You can therefore enforce your right to self-ownership once you recover.

The violation is murder. I do not recover.

I agree that they must affirm their own existence. What does that have to do with recognizing a particular basis for the right to self-ownership?

By claiming the body of another, the claimant at the same time recognizes the primacy of the direct link between he and his own body and disregards the direct link between the other and its body.

That is the rational consistency.

I should relate now that this is an attempt at a faithful retelling of the philosophy, and that I am not at all sold on it.

I have quite the opposite sentiment concerning this discussion. I have come to expect discussions with you to dwindle down to comments about how stupid your oppositions arguments are and attempts to prove this through horribly inaccurate analogies. I have not been disappointed.

When you come up with an analogy that shows that an entity can make a claim before said entity exists, post it and I will bow graciously before you and the fourth wall.

By the way: Why are the genes your parents gave you by copulating any different than those they give you through a geneticists manipulation?

I already have. You can't sign me into slavery while I'm still a fetus, because again the intent is to make the child a slave, not the fetus. The effect occurs at birth, not before. This is no difference. The parent selling their fetus into slavery would be in violation of the law. And that's not a scenario. That's actually the law.

As to your "By the way": Intent. Again, it's the same reason you passing out and running into a car head on is not the same as intending to drive into a car head on. When you manipulate the genetics choosing the genetics of your child is the intent. When you choose a mate, choosing the genetics of your child is a side-effect.

As far as your comments about me, amusing. You've failed. Accept it. You're argument rests on flaws like claiming the action is done to the fetus rather than the child blatently and obviously ignoring the intent of the procedure. You've relied on this and similar ridiculous assumptions the entire argument.

So your right to own yourself originated with the beginning of time and continues long after you are dead? It is infinite.

When you have rotted and become nutrients bacteria, do you own that portion of bacteria that your body makes up?

I would find that absurd. I prefer to think that we have rights when we have a conscious and justified claim upon them.

Yes, in fact. This is exactly why I cannot defile your body and what happens to your body falls to your next of kin or to the instructions on your will EXACTLY like all of your other property. Once again you fail. If you were correct all of your property including your body would become community upon death and murder would not be against the law.

I should relate now that this is an attempt at a faithful retelling of the philosophy, and that I am not at all sold on it.
What exactly is your position on the matter? That a mother has unlimited power over the foetus?

By claiming the body of another, the claimant at the same time recognizes the primacy of the direct link between he and his own body and disregards the direct link between the other and its body.

Right, the "performative contradiction."

Too bad there are lots of ways such an act can be committed without any inconsistency on the part of the actor....

I already have. You can't sign me into slavery while I'm still a fetus, because again the intent is to make the child a slave, not the fetus. The effect occurs at birth, not before. This is no difference. The parent selling their fetus into slavery would be in violation of the law. And that's not a scenario. That's actually the law.

A child cannot become a slave while still a fetus because it cannot consent to a contract before the child exists.

As to your "By the way": Intent. Again, it's the same reason you passing out and running into a car head on is not the same as intending to drive into a car head on. When you manipulate the genetics choosing the genetics of your child is the intent. When you choose a mate, choosing the genetics of your child is a side-effect.

How is it any different for the child, the one whose rights for which we are concerned?

Yes, in fact. This is exactly why I cannot defile your body and what happens to your body falls to your next of kin or to the instructions on your will EXACTLY like all of your other property. Once again you fail. If you were correct all of your property including your body would become community upon death and murder would not be against the law.

So your right to life does preexist your person?

And your property becomes the property of those who have the greatest claim to it, be it through gifting via a will or establishment of a chain of inheritance. I actually would prefer property not covered by a will be made community property. As for my body, do what you want, I'm dead.

What exactly is your position on the matter? That a mother has unlimited power over the foetus?

I support self-ownership as a matter of practicality. I could not imagine nor would I want to imagine a world in which I did not own myself. I have a strong suspicion that most here would agree with that.

It seems quite plain to me that self-ownership is completely meaningless until the person is prepared to acknowledge the ownership, and at that point the person gains legal control over him/herself.

Before that, yes, the mother has complete control, especially during the pregnancy.

A child cannot become a slave while still a fetus because it cannot consent to a contract before the child exists.

A child does not have a sexuality while still a fetus. Welcome to the conversatiion. The effect is on the child and it is the intent of the procedure.


How is it any different for the child, the one whose rights for which we are concerned?

How is it any different in a car accident? Because we accept there is a difference between intended actions and unintended actions even if you don't know what that is.


So your right to life does preexist your person?

It certainly does and if you ever become a person, it will possible to excercise that right. However, it does not preexist your nonperson which is what happens when the fetal stage is the end of development. This should be obvious.

And your property becomes the property of those who have the greatest claim to it, be it through gifting via a will or establishment of a chain of inheritance. I actually would prefer property not covered by a will be made community property. As for my body, do what you want, I'm dead.


And that's your choice and should be honored. I wish to be cremated. That's my choice. Others wish to keep the integrity of their bodies. That's their right. Again, it's pretty amazing you can enter this discussion without having considered this.

Right, the "performative contradiction."

Too bad there are lots of ways such an act can be committed without any inconsistency on the part of the actor....

Such as?

Such as?

I believe I mentioned several when BAAWA brought up a variant of this argument a few months ago; I didn't expound this time because, firstly, I'm lazy, and secondly, I'm quite sure you were present in that thread.

For what it's worth, here are the three relevant posts on that thread:

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=11777373&postcount=130
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=11777547&postcount=133
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=11779025&postcount=149

The third comes closest to the response you want.

A child does not have a sexuality while still a fetus. Welcome to the conversatiion. The effect is on the child and it is the intent of the procedure.

It is the voluntary nature between the two free wills of the contract of slavery that undoes your analogy. It falls apart because your contract can only have one possible will, not because the intent is to enslave the child. The child has no will and cannot be bound.

There is no contract in the establishment of self-ownership, it is the establishment of the relationship between a conscious entity and its body. The child has a will and is bound.

How is it any different in a car accident? Because we accept there is a difference between intended actions and unintended actions even if you don't know what that is.

As far as I know the dead man cannot tell the difference between the accidental swerve and the deliberate one.

It certainly does and if you ever become a person, it will possible to excercise that right. However, it does not preexist your nonperson which is what happens when the fetal stage is the end of development. This should be obvious.

So rights are eternal but only exist when you become a person. Tell me what separates that from rights that occur simultaneously of consciousness.

Does this mean that the child born with down syndrome can hold his mother liable for his condition?

And that's your choice and should be honored. I wish to be cremated. That's my choice. Others wish to keep the integrity of their bodies. That's their right. Again, it's pretty amazing you can enter this discussion without having considered this.

I never considered this because it is utterly senseless. It makes no explanation of the sunset of copyrights and patents. It makes no sense of the transfer of property when not granted by a will. It makes no sense of the natural order of things in which all dead bodies eventually get used by future bodies.

Before that, yes, the mother has complete control, especially during the pregnancy.
But what if she intends to change some feature in the child, and not the foetus, as Jocabia pointed out? Is that not initiation of force against the child's will?

But what if she intends to change some feature in the child, and not the foetus, as Jocabia pointed out? Is that not initiation of force against the child's will?

The child is not a contractual participant in its own creation. It has no will to express over its own creation.

It is the voluntary nature between the two free wills of the contract of slavery that undoes your analogy. It falls apart because your contract can only have one possible will, not because the intent is to enslave the child. The child has no will and cannot be bound.

There is no contract in the establishment of self-ownership, it is the establishment of the relationship between a conscious entity and its body. The child has a will and is bound.

False. The mother can absolutely make a legal contract on behalf of the child. However, she cannot make illegal contract on behalf of the child. You are talking about the mother doing something to the child that is illegal according to you (you said she would not be allowed to change the child's sexuality once it exists). When she does it is irrelevant because it is, in fact, done to the child. You are suggesting that the medium somehow changes legality, which simply isn't true.



As far as I know the dead man cannot tell the difference between the accidental swerve and the deliberate one.

Again you make fallacious assumptions. Dead men have rights. And the difference in intent is the difference between a crime and an accident. Meanwhile, of course, there is nothing saying a man can't survive the accident and it would be attempted murder if you intended to strike him with your vehicle and simply an accident if you didn't.


So rights are eternal but only exist when you become a person. Tell me what separates that from rights that occur simultaneously of consciousness.

Does this mean that the child born with down syndrome can hold his mother liable for his condition?

Again, simply because you don't understand the importance of intent doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I am not guilty of assault for tripping into you, but I am guilty of assault for tripping into you on purpose. The difference is not small in law or in life.


I never considered this because it is utterly senseless. It makes no explanation of the sunset of copyrights and patents. It makes no sense of the transfer of property when not granted by a will. It makes no sense of the natural order of things in which all dead bodies eventually get used by future bodies.
The sunset of copyrights and patents are not based on death. It absolutely makes sense of the the transfer of property. I can create a will that establishes a trust for my property and uses it as I please so long as it is legal. My rights and my will exist before and after my death. You fail on the most basic level.

Now do you have any arguments based on facts or are you going to continue to base them on things that are provably false?

The child is not a contractual participant in its own creation. It has no will to express over its own creation.

It does have a will to exert over the life it leads and if you or anyone else change that life intentionally and without the permission of the child or a proxy then are you clearly and obviously violating the rights of the child and if the actions are actions that are not legal to do to the child, for example cut it's arms off or kill it at 10, then they are not legal even if a proxy agrees to it.

Breeding out homosexuals? Aren't they doing that themselves by going gay?

:p

Aren't they doing that themselves by going gay?

No.

Breeding out homosexuals? Aren't they doing that themselves by going gay?

:p
I assume you were being facetious, but I'll take the bait - how could anyone even believe such a thing? It would indicate a huge misunderstanding of current theories as to why homosexuality arises (potentially involving recessive genes).

I'm with Pooby on this one... Sorta.

Whether or not Homosexuality is a recessive trait, shouldn't the fact that they can't reproduce be thinning out that gene by now?

I'm thinking that either Darwin was wrong or that homosexuality is a condition that can be managed akin to the twelves steps of AA.

I'm with Pooby on this one... Sorta.

Whether or not Homosexuality is a recessive trait, shouldn't the fact that they can't reproduce be thinning out that gene by now?

I'm thinking that either Darwin was wrong or that homosexuality is a condition that can be managed akin to the twelves steps of AA.

Yes, that's what it is. It's really penis is a very addictive substance and some men just have a penchant for addiction to penis.

A. homosexuals often have children.
B. homosexuals often have siblings.

In other words, there are lots of people to pass down the genes that homosexuals have. There are genetic disorders where children don't live past their early teens, yet those disorders continue. If you think because something hinders reproduction it cannot be passed on then you probably need to do a little more research on genetics.

False. The mother can absolutely make a legal contract on behalf of the child. However, she cannot make illegal contract on behalf of the child. You are talking about the mother doing something to the child that is illegal according to you (you said she would not be allowed to change the child's sexuality once it exists). When she does it is irrelevant because it is, in fact, done to the child. You are suggesting that the medium somehow changes legality, which simply isn't true.

All I can say is that you are inconsistent. It is pointless to discuss this anymore.

Again you make fallacious assumptions. Dead men have rights. And the difference in intent is the difference between a crime and an accident. Meanwhile, of course, there is nothing saying a man can't survive the accident and it would be attempted murder if you intended to strike him with your vehicle and simply an accident if you didn't.

Again, simply because you don't understand the importance of intent doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I am not guilty of assault for tripping into you, but I am guilty of assault for tripping into you on purpose. The difference is not small in law or in life.

We can take up the irrelevancy of intent in some other thread.

The sunset of copyrights and patents are not based on death. It absolutely makes sense of the the transfer of property. I can create a will that establishes a trust for my property and uses it as I please so long as it is legal. My rights and my will exist before and after my death. You fail on the most basic level.

Now do you have any arguments based on facts or are you going to continue to base them on things that are provably false?

The sunset of copyrights and patents are indeed based on death. The clock begins to tick when you are dead. Of course if what you say is true your rights go on for infinity.

I specifically stated transfer of property without a will. If your rights continue past your death, then that property in which is established no consent to transfer would go on unused throughout time.

We do have rights that extend beyond our life, but they are inconsistently applied and come from arcane and spiritual beliefs that we are something greater than what we actually are.

It does have a will to exert over the life it leads and if you or anyone else change that life intentionally and without the permission of the child or a proxy then are you clearly and obviously violating the rights of the child and if the actions are actions that are not legal to do to the child, for example cut it's arms off or kill it at 10, then they are not legal even if a proxy agrees to it.

I understand your argument quite easily, so why are you so woefully ignorant of mine?

The fetus has no rights, and the orientation changing procedure is done to the fetus. Problem? Oh ya...the child's going to be born with his rights already violated.

So the child is born straight. Is he going to be angry that he's not gay? Is he going to be upset, with his entire being telling him to go after women, that he isn't instead going after men?

Jocabia, how is this change harmful? And yes preventing a child through abortion, when a fetus, which will ultimately become a child, is destroyed, is in turn destroying the child.Well, there are several people in this thread who have said that they would sue if their sexuality had been changed by someone against their will, so, yes, I'd say that there are plenty of people who would be angry.

WHY DOES WILL MATTER?For the same reason that it is different when nature causes a rocks to fall on you and crush you and when another person intentionally does so.

I understand your argument quite easily, so why are you so woefully ignorant of mine?

I'm well aware of yours, it simply not founded in reality. You claimed that legal wills do not recognize rights after one is dead, but if they didn't they would be unenforceable, because the contracting party no longer exists. It's a view not founded in reality. You claimed that the handling of the body doesn't recognize this, but it does, of course. Another of your views not founded in reality. You claimed the reason a woman can't sign her unborn into slavery is because there you're missing a contracting party, but again that's untrue. She can sign contracts that are legal. That happens to not be. Another argument of yours not founded in reality.

The fact is that anything that is illegal to do during life in regards to rights is illegal to do before or after life. That's the facts.

Now, come tell me again how the handling of wills supports your arguments.

EDIT: Now, notice for the second time you've attacked me while I've attacked your arguments. Go back and look at what I said earlier and I actually attacked the logic of your argument and you basically suggested I'm an idiot. Now I'm ignorant. How about leaving off the ad hominems and trying to make an argument, huh? It appears it is not only I who thinks your argument is not founded in reality.

We do have rights that extend beyond our life, but they are inconsistently applied and come from arcane and spiritual beliefs that we are something greater than what we actually are.

Translation: "I was wrong"?

(Obviously, with a "but the law should agree with me, dammit" rider...?)

Well, the concept that being gay is something that can be avoided by biotechnical methods seems quite strange to me.
On one hand, because thinking of homosexuality as a genetic defect is a theory so obviously based on ideological rather than rational reasons. It just totally fits in neoconservative proto-racist socio-darwinism, which always likes to claim that blacks are poor because of genetical inferiority, that poor people are inferior, that certain peoples are genetically more diligent than others and all those other weird theories.
On the other hand, I believe that things like sexuality, taste, beliefs and stuff are influenced more by the environment you grow up and, even more important, by the spontaneity which produces free will. So I´d say, homosexuality is rather a "one-day-you-find-out-that-you-like-men-more-than-women-for-no-certain-reason"-thing, than being a "oh-my-genes-say-I-like-male"-thing. But Hu knows?

All I can say is that you are inconsistent. It is pointless to discuss this anymore.

Oh, look more ad hominems. My argument is consistent. Rights extend forever in both directions, but they can only be applied if a person existed at some time to apply them to. None of my arguments ignore that, ever. What would be illegal to do to a birthed child should be illegal to do to a child you intend to birth. That is completely consistent. Now, if you're giving up, well, you should. You've already lost.


We can take up the irrelevancy of intent in some other thread.

Except intent is not irrelevant. Intent is everything. It's the difference between something that involves a person who has harmed you and something that happens naturally. You're failure to address intent does not make it irrelevant. The law finds it relevant. Pretty much every legal and ethical force considers it relevant except you.


The sunset of copyrights and patents are indeed based on death. The clock begins to tick when you are dead. Of course if what you say is true your rights go on for infinity.

Really? So no patents or copyrights ever expire while I am alive. I think you better research that again. Even if I lived forever, those patents and copyrights would expire.


I specifically stated transfer of property without a will. If your rights continue past your death, then that property in which is established no consent to transfer would go on unused throughout time.

No, because your estate must be cared for, and your will cannot be known, so the law handles your estate in the most logical way possible. You're not there to exert your will so a proxy is chosen. Either you choose that proxy by assigning a lawyer or family member or the state will, just as it does when you lapse into a coma or when you are brain-damaged.


We do have rights that extend beyond our life, but they are inconsistently applied and come from arcane and spiritual beliefs that we are something greater than what we actually are.

Oh, wait, is that an admission that you're wrong. They are applied quite consistently. What you are claiming they do, is not what they do. There is an understanding after your death that you can no longer express your will, so they made a document consequently called *gasp* a will. You may fully exert your rights after your death provided what you wish to exert is not a danger to public health or illegal.


I see a lof of "can we stop talking about the arguments where I'm losing, please?" statements in this post. Why don't you just admit defeat and leave the thread with a bit of honor?

Ah, I see how it is then. You take the negative comments by the ignorant and offended critics of the research and the negative and accusatory manner of the journalist's tone, as the significant measure of the article.

No, I take the research itself at face-value. Nothing in this research is meant to address postpardum depression or any of the other issues you mentioned. It is focussed on sexuality - plain and simple. The critiques of this particular research are not focussed on the research itself, but on how others might use it - which is the subject of this thread. The OP asked whether it would be ethical to extend such research into human beings - to eventually have a hormone treatment to try and ensure that the child born would not be homosexual. That is what is under discussion here, despite your attempts to ignore that fact.

The researchers are not making a political statement. They are not making a moral statement on sexuality. They are studying something that may affect sexual orientation in animals and, it would appear, trying to reduce the incidence of homosexuality in rams for animal husbandry purposes. I see no problem with any of that, nor have I expressed any problem with it. What I *do* have a problem with is those who would misuse this research by immediately jumping to, "Yay! Now we can get rid of all teh gays!"

The results of the research itself is suggesting that the cause of the sexual orientation might be hormones, the cause is not genetics (and I’m sure that you understand the ramifications of that difference, or this conversation is pointless). The treatment of the mothers hormones during pregnancy could not otherwise affect the child’s sexual orientation if it were otherwise.

You are wrong on two counts. Taken with other studies (and the results of a study should always be interpreted in light of all available evidence), the results of the research suggest that hormones are a contributing factor to sexual orientation, not the cause. With all the research taken together, it would appear that genetics, hormones, and even birth order (in humans, anyways) can play a part in a given person's sexual orientation. It would also appear that, in certain types of sheep anyways, hormone balance in utero is a large contributor.

IF the research turns out to be onto something legitimate, and you continue to hold onto your preconceived notions of what is and what is not sexual orientation, then that is a sign that there is nothing more to be said here because your demand to end the research itself nothing different than just another flat Earther trying to stifle the research of Galileo because you don't like finding out that your preconcieved notions were incorrect… You should be ashamed of yourself.

Wow, way to go out on a limb and make yourself look ignorant. I never said that the research should be stifled or ended. I never said that the research isn't legitimate. In fact, it is really nothing more than a continuation of research I have cited fairly often in discussions of homosexuality.

But, once again, you are trying to change the subject. I wasn't discussing this particular research - research that is in sheep, not human beings. There are many things that I find completely appropriate in animals - either to increase our understanding of biology in general or for animal husbandry purposes - but not in human beings. For instance, I fully support the research practice of genetically altering mice so that we can watch them develop and see what types of developmental defects or diseases are caused by the lack of (or overexpression of) a given gene. I would never advocate such experiments in human beings.

I was discussing the OP's question - whether or not it would be ethical for a woman to undergo a hormone treatment with the express purpose of ensuring that the sexual orientation of her child would please her. Your attempts to twist that are irrelevant and, if intentional, dishonest.

Since there seems to be some confusion, let's put all the points together.

We are discussing the ethics of altering the sexuality of a child by a procedure prior to birth.

1) Abortion cannot be compared to altering a child.
1a) Abortion is to end a pregnancy, a condition of the mother. No child is involved in any way, because none exists.
1b) This procedure is to alter the child, the child is the point. The fetus is simply the vehicle by which the CHILD is altered. It definitely affects a child. Affecting the child is the purpose of the procedure.

They are not comparable by the very nature of the procedure.

2) Rights are eternal. They have no beginning and no end or they are not rights, they are priveleges. They only apply to persons. No person. No rights. However, once ther eis a person that person always had and always will have rights.
2a) This is evidenced by our respect of the will and the idea of next of kin which is equally applied when you are alive but unable to exert your will, like when you an infant or incapacitated.
2b) You may not do anything to your child via the fetus intentionally that would be illegal to do on purpose. For example, it is not rare to remove crack babies from their mothers.

3) There are only two things which create liability, intent or negligence. This is recognized both legally and ethically.
3a) It's the difference between an accident and manslaughter or murder.
3b) To decide the degree of liability generally the degree of intent, the degree of negligence and the degree of change in the injured party are all examined. One compares the injured party to the most likely outcome sans the intended or negligent actions.
3b1) In this case, minus the action the child would be born with a different sexuality.
3b2) If you are talking about diseases that occur simply as a result of two people having sex, the comparison would have to be to non-existence which can't be done. This is why it would be impossible to place a claim against one's mother for you being born with a disease unless one could specify and action that if not performed the birth would have still occurred but the disease would not have happened.

Let's accept that there is a debate as to whether changing the sexuality of a child is harming it. There is a debate as to whether or not a fetus is a person and, if so, when it becomes one.

However, these weak arguments that keep trying to claim that pro-choice people arguing that this unethical is inconsistent, because such an argument requires one to ignore reality.

As to you other tired post addressed to me, perhaps you should have some understanding of the field of study before slamming your foot into the back of your mouth as hard as you can over and over again, it's quite absurd... But to address the majority of your complaints, about the argument not changing the genetic aspect of it, and what the objectives of the research is or is not...

Maybe you should take your own advice here, PW.

An important aspect of the study is that homosexuality does not produce offspring, so researchers believe it is not a genetic trait, but a physical one.

"It wouldn't be passed down," he said. "It's got to be some type of biological phenomenon."

This quote suggests that the scientist has no better understanding of biology than your average high school student. I'm hoping that this was taken way, way out of context by the article's author. Otherwise, it casts all sorts of questions on the competency of the researchers.

Even if a genetically acquired trait makes it impossible for the animal to mate, that does not preclude genetic causes. There are all sorts of genetic possibilities. It could be a recessive trait that must be acquired from both parents. It could be some combination of genes that, in other combinations, do not lead to the trait. It could be any number of things.

The research in question certainly suggests that hormonal balance contributes to sexuality, but this researcher would have to ignore quite a bit of research to suggest that he is finding the single cause of homosexuality.

Perhaps I assumed too much for thinking you would recognize the significance of the research and how it attacks previously held conceptions of causes of sexuality identification, but then again, I didn’t address you because I know you don’t understand it.

It doesn't attack anything. The general consensus among scientists who study sexual orientation has been, for quite some time, that sexuality is a complex trait that is most likely affected by a number of factors. There is evidence for genetic contributions and hormonal contributions in utero. There are even a few studies that very early psychological clues might contribute.

Skin color is something we think of as being fairly simple, but it is controlled by at least five different genes, as well as being affected by diet, hormones, health, and environmental factors. Why would we expect sexuality, a much more complex trait (and one that also exists along a spectrum) to have a single cause?

I addressed Dem because I think she should be able to see the distinction between what the two concepts propose and how they differ. The basic element is, if the research proves to be right, then the mothers hormonal system forces the fetus ram’s brain to not fully develop by not giving it the required hormones to grow during gestation… the research is supposing this and despite the fact that in runs contrary to your world view of how these things should work in your opinion, it is what it is.

By "not fully develop," you mean "not become straight." You have already shown your bias here. I have read some of the research in this area. Strangely enough, the researchers don't claim that this is a defect, or that the brain "doesn't fully develop." It quite obviously does fully develop. Homosexual rams (or people) have perfectly functional brains.

The research does not suppose that the brains are not fully developed. It simply works on the knowledge that hormones affect the development of the brain and takes that further, to realize that changing the hormone balance could also change the development. It does not, like you, assume that homosexuality is a defect caused by a malformed brain.

Really? So no patents or copyrights ever expire while I am alive. I think you better research that again. Even if I lived forever, those patents and copyrights would expire.
Patents often expire during life, true. Conceivably, could not a copyright be recognised lifelong, even if you were to live for eternity?

You claimed that legal wills do not recognize rights after one is dead, but if they didn't they would be unenforceable, because the contracting party no longer exists.
Good point.

We can take up the irrelevancy of intent in some other thread.
If you do, post a link here - I'd like to see how this turns out.

Maybe you should take your own advice here, PW.



This quote suggests that the scientist has no better understanding of biology than your average high school student. I'm hoping that this was taken way, way out of context by the article's author. Otherwise, it casts all sorts of questions on the competency of the researchers.

Even if a genetically acquired trait makes it impossible for the animal to mate, that does not preclude genetic causes. There are all sorts of genetic possibilities. It could be a recessive trait that must be acquired from both parents. It could be some combination of genes that, in other combinations, do not lead to the trait. It could be any number of things.

The research in question certainly suggests that hormonal balance contributes to sexuality, but this researcher would have to ignore quite a bit of research to suggest that he is finding the single cause of homosexuality.



It doesn't attack anything. The general consensus among scientists who study sexual orientation has been, for quite some time, that sexuality is a complex trait that is most likely affected by a number of factors. There is evidence for genetic contributions and hormonal contributions in utero. There are even a few studies that very early psychological clues might contribute.

Skin color is something we think of as being fairly simple, but it is controlled by at least five different genes, as well as being affected by diet, hormones, health, and environmental factors. Why would we expect sexuality, a much more complex trait (and one that also exists along a spectrum) to have a single cause?



By "not fully develop," you mean "not become straight." You have already shown your bias here. I have read some of the research in this area. Strangely enough, the researchers don't claim that this is a defect, or that the brain "doesn't fully develop." It quite obviously does fully develop. Homosexual rams (or people) have perfectly functional brains.

The research does not suppose that the brains are not fully developed. It simply works on the knowledge that hormones affect the development of the brain and takes that further, to realize that changing the hormone balance could also change the development. It does not, like you, assume that homosexuality is a defect caused by a malformed brain.

Yes, clearly that post was more about attacking me than anything else. Even PootWaddle knows better than thinking that what that scientist said makes any sense in the context it was offered. It denies not just the genetic link but the existence of diseases like progeria. It denies the difference between genetic and heriditary. I'm certain that had PW searched through the bile, he'd have noticed how nonsensical what he was quoting was. However, the attack was clearly more important.

Patents often expire during life, true. Conceivably, could not a copyright be recognised lifelong, even if you were to live for eternity?

Copyrights can be renewed if one likes. It depends on how and if they were published and when. Copyright law is actually fairly complicated, but if death was the expiration of your rights, then it would also be the expiration of copyright and it obviously isn't.

Good point.


If you do, post a link here - I'd like to see how this turns out.

The problem is that intent is relevant. Completely relevant. The law and ethics both recognize the relevance of intent even if our friend doesn't.

:mad: I'm completly outraged!! Who the FUCK do these "scientist" think they are!!:upyours: They have no fucking right to help decide if an unborn child should be gay or not!! Not even thier parents should have a say in that! I think people who think they can decide this should be:sniper: !!I mean I'm perfectly happy being gay & so does my bf(queendom of camerin):fluffle: So do Ithink this is right [/U]Hell NO :p <(")>!And you people who do agree r just a bunch of homophobic sissy babies.[B] SO LIKE WHAT EVER!!:rolleyes:

:mad: I'm completly outraged!! Who the FUCK do these "scientist" think they are!!:upyours: They have no fucking right to help decide if an unborn child should be gay or not!! Not even thier parents should have a say in that! I think people who think they can decide this should be:sniper: !!I mean I'm perfectly happy being gay & so does my bf(queendom of camerin):fluffle: So do Ithink this is right Hell NO :p <(")>!

um, wow. First of all, these scientists are changing the sexuality of sheep for husbandry purposes. The question of doing so with people is a an extrapolation and what we're talking about, but there are no scientists currently changing the sexuality of human beings.

1) Abortion cannot be compared to altering a child.
1a) Abortion is to end a pregnancy, a condition of the mother. No child is involved in any way, because none exists.
1b) This procedure is to alter the child, the child is the point. The fetus is simply the vehicle by which the CHILD is altered. It definitely affects a child. Affecting the child is the purpose of the procedure.

They are not comparable by the very nature of the procedure.

2) Rights are eternal. They have no beginning and no end or they are not rights, they are priveleges. They only apply to persons. No person. No rights. However, once ther eis a person that person always had and always will have rights.
2a) This is evidenced by our respect of the will and the idea of next of kin which is equally applied when you are alive but unable to exert your will, like when you an infant or incapacitated.
2b) You may not do anything to your child via the fetus intentionally that would be illegal to do on purpose. For example, it is not rare to remove crack babies from their mothers.

3) There are only two things which create liability, intent or negligence. This is recognized both legally and ethically.
3a) It's the difference between an accident and manslaughter or murder.
3b) To decide the degree of liability generally the degree of intent, the degree of negligence and the degree of change in the injured party are all examined. One compares the injured party to the most likely outcome sans the intended or negligent actions.
3b1) In this case, minus the action the child would be born with a different sexuality.
3b2) If you are talking about diseases that occur simply as a result of two people having sex, the comparison would have to be to non-existence which can't be done. This is why it would be impossible to place a claim against one's mother for you being born with a disease unless one could specify and action that if not performed the birth would have still occurred but the disease would not have happened.

I can find no purer bliss than in the simplicity and efficacy of the logic used in this ironclad statement.

:mad: I'm completly outraged!! Who the FUCK do these "scientist" think they are!!:upyours: They have no fucking right to help decide if an unborn child should be gay or not!! Not even thier parents should have a say in that! I think people who think they can decide this should be:sniper: !!I mean I'm perfectly happy being gay & so does my bf(queendom of camerin):fluffle: So do Ithink this is right [/U]Hell NO :p <(")>!And you people who do agree r just a bunch of homophobic sissy babies.[B] SO LIKE WHAT EVER!!:rolleyes:
This is your first post, but in future please try harder to make sense. Also, I'd avoid the enormous letters.

um, wow. First of all, these scientists are changing the sexuality of sheep for husbandry purposes. The question of doing so with people is a an extrapolation and what we're talking about, but there are no scientists currently changing the sexuality of human beings.

Needless to say, my bliss was immediately disrupted. WHY, DEITY (OR NOT), DO YOU HATE ME.

um, wow. First of all, these scientists are changing the sexuality of sheep for husbandry purposes. The question of doing so with people is a an extrapolation and what we're talking about, but there are no scientists currently changing the sexuality of human beings.

;) Exactly they're not yet but that is the ultimat goal they have going on! They even have it stated in the first post. Its not right to screw with the sheep either its not fair to make a choice for something that can't & never will have a say. Also if they're just doing it for husbandry purposes they that means they'll do it to people using the same reasons

;) Exactly they're not yet but that is the ultimat goal they have going on! They even have it stated in the first post. Its not right to screw with the sheep either its not fair to make a choice for something that can't & never will have a say. Also if they're just doing it for husbandry purposes they that means they'll do it to people using the same reasons

;) Exactly they're not yet but that is the ultimat goal they have going on! They even have it stated in the first post. Its not right to screw with the sheep either its not fair to make a choice for something that can't & never will have a say. Also if they're just doing it for husbandry purposes they that means they'll do it to people using the same reasons

No, THEY didn't state it. The people conducting this research said they have NO intention of transferring this procedure to humans. They are experts in animal husbandry. You misread the post and the article. The scientists never claimed to have that goal and expressly stated to not have that goal.

Now, will this be applied to humans? Unfortunately almost assuredly. However, it's not the goal of these scientists so you are yelling at the wrong people. Also, I suspect that this goes just a bit too far into the designer baby column than the general public are willing to go. Keep in mind that if they can create heterosexuals, they can also create homosexuals, no?

I think that whether or not a woman chooses to "straighten out" her baby should be her choice as its her body, and the fetus isn't technically a person yet.

I think that whether or not a woman chooses to "straighten out" her baby should be her choice as its her body, and the fetus isn't technically a person yet.

The effect is on the child, not the fetus. The goal of the procedure is to alter the child. It's not her body she's changing. The fetus is simply the vehicle, the intent is to affect the child. You're argument is similar to saying she could inject the child once to born to change it, because the syringe belongs to her.

I'm pretty sure that abortion affects the child too, as in it doesn't get to be born. The point of my post was to make fun of people who are pro choice but become furious at this as one of the main pro choice arguments is that the fetus isn't a person.

I'm pretty sure that abortion affects the child too, as in it doesn't get to be born. The point of my post was to make fun of people who are pro choice but become furious at this as one of the main pro choice arguments is that the fetus isn't a person.

Um, no, it doesn't. No more than a condom does or choosing to not have sex. In both of those cases, the child doesn't get to be born either. The fetus is not a person, neither is the sperm, or the egg.

Meanwhile, the majority of abortions are performed prior to the fetal stage. No fetus.

So the fetus is not a person, but influencing the hormonal balance of a fetus is a crime?

Link for Pax Beardo (http://objection.mrdictionary.net/go.php?n=1643942)

So the fetus is not a person, but influencing the hormonal balance of a fetus is a crime?

No, so altering the child is unethical, in my opinion. We aren't discussing law or even something that is currently possible. It has nothing to do with the fetus. If a woman wants to have this procedure before she aborts then she may feel free. However, given the purpose of this procedure is to alter the child, I doubt that will ever happen. Pay attention. We are talking about the child. It has nothing to do with what happens to the fetus. It's very simple.

I have a gay child and a time machine.

My son is comfortable with his sexuality. I am not. When I suggest a procedure to "fix" him, he gets angry; he seems hurt. So I go back in time and tell my partner that she needs to have a procedure done so that our son will not turn out gay. And it's fine, I don't need his permission now--he doesn't exist yet, right?

Coming back to an altered future, I find my son happily heterosexual, with no idea that he ever "could" have been gay. Indeed, now he shares my personal revulsion for homosexuality. Oh, happy day.

.............

As an essentially Kantian ethicist, I think that treating a person as an end-in-himself means respecting him as if he were a willful creature of his own even when he has no possible means to express that will. If I am "designing" a child, I am making decisions about/for a PERSON who WILL EXIST. To treat that person as an end rather than a means, I must make some assumptions about the sort of alterations a rational person would will for himself.

This means that alterations to prevent birth defects, including physical and mental handicaps, are allowable because it is reasonable to believe that a rational person would choose such alterations for her/himself. "Design" elements, however--including such things as preferring an athlete to an intellectual, or vice-versa--are unethical alterations because it is significantly less reasonable to assume that a rational person would want to be "designed" according to the whim of parents. Real human subjects want to develop on their own terms; we don't want to be anyone's "pet."

It does not matter, for ethical purposes, that the person does not actually exist in the here-and-now. What matters, as others have already emphasized, is that the intent is to design a human being according to someone else's will; it is to treat a human life as a means to the parents' ends rather than as an end-in-itself.

Does this mean that all such alterations should be illegal? Not necessarily. Ethical behavior does often transcend the requirements of the law.

But it should make us think twice before acting on our preferences as parents.

Since there seems to be some confusion, let's put all the points together.

We are discussing the ethics of altering the sexuality of a child by a procedure prior to birth.

1) Abortion cannot be compared to altering a child.
1a) Abortion is to end a pregnancy, a condition of the mother. No child is involved in any way, because none exists.
1b) This procedure is to alter the child, the child is the point. The fetus is simply the vehicle by which the CHILD is altered. It definitely affects a child. Affecting the child is the purpose of the procedure.

They are not comparable by the very nature of the procedure.

2) Rights are eternal. They have no beginning and no end or they are not rights, they are priveleges. They only apply to persons. No person. No rights. However, once ther eis a person that person always had and always will have rights.
2a) This is evidenced by our respect of the will and the idea of next of kin which is equally applied when you are alive but unable to exert your will, like when you an infant or incapacitated.
2b) You may not do anything to your child via the fetus intentionally that would be illegal to do on purpose. For example, it is not rare to remove crack babies from their mothers.

3) There are only two things which create liability, intent or negligence. This is recognized both legally and ethically.
3a) It's the difference between an accident and manslaughter or murder.
3b) To decide the degree of liability generally the degree of intent, the degree of negligence and the degree of change in the injured party are all examined. One compares the injured party to the most likely outcome sans the intended or negligent actions.
3b1) In this case, minus the action the child would be born with a different sexuality.
3b2) If you are talking about diseases that occur simply as a result of two people having sex, the comparison would have to be to non-existence which can't be done. This is why it would be impossible to place a claim against one's mother for you being born with a disease unless one could specify and action that if not performed the birth would have still occurred but the disease would not have happened.

Let's accept that there is a debate as to whether changing the sexuality of a child is harming it. There is a debate as to whether or not a fetus is a person and, if so, when it becomes one.

However, these weak arguments that keep trying to claim that pro-choice people arguing that this unethical is inconsistent, because such an argument requires one to ignore reality.


1) At the time this alteration takes place there's no child

2)If you're evaluating the morality of the actions towards the fetus by its result on the child afterwards then abortion which makes it so that no child will exist is much more invasive than simply altering the child's sexuality.

3)Both Abortion and this procedure are immoral as they have a dramatic effect on the "child to be"'s life

I have a gay child and a time machine.

Dad?

Dad?Don't worry son, those feelings won't be with you for long... ;)

Don't worry son, those feelings won't be with you for long... ;)

Bollocks. I'll have to tell my ex-boyfriend that the other nights meant nothing.

Or maybe not, depending on how time works. (But lets not get into a philosophical/logical discussion about the ramifications of time travel, for the love of God.)

As an essentially Kantian ethicist, I think that treating a person as an end-in-himself means respecting him as if he were a willful creature of his own even when he has no possible means to express that will. If I am "designing" a child, I am making decisions about/for a PERSON who WILL EXIST. To treat that person as an end rather than a means, I must make some assumptions about the sort of alterations a rational person would will for himself.

This means that alterations to prevent birth defects, including physical and mental handicaps, are allowable because it is reasonable to believe that a rational person would choose such alterations for her/himself. "Design" elements, however--including such things as preferring an athlete to an intellectual, or vice-versa--are unethical alterations because it is significantly less reasonable to assume that a rational person would want to be "designed" according to the whim of parents. Real human subjects want to develop on their own terms; we don't want to be anyone's "pet."
I think this is quite a rational means of treating the subject. I'd imagine in a libertarian society, all contracts involving engineering the future child negatively would be vitiated and considered illegal (given that libertarian theory indeed is predominantly based on treating individuals as ends in themselves, as opposed to means). It would be up to the child to consider allegedly positive modifications as undesirable, and thus ground for a lawsuit (not that I could conceive of a rational person who'd want to suffer from defects such as mental retardation).

Amen!

;) Exactly they're not yet but that is the ultimat goal they have going on! They even have it stated in the first post. Its not right to screw with the sheep either its not fair to make a choice for something that can't & never will have a say. Also if they're just doing it for husbandry purposes they that means they'll do it to people using the same reasons

Animal husbandry doesn't apply to human beings - we don't breed human beings for specific purposes, and it is pretty close to universally accepted that we should not.

If you are opposed to animal husbandry, then you'll have to be opposed to hundreds - even thousands - of years of domestication and selective breeding of animals for human purposes.

If you are opposed to animal husbandry, then you'll have to be opposed to hundreds - even thousands - of years of domestication and selective breeding of animals for human purposes.

For the record, I am. ;)

Animal husbandry doesn't apply to human beings - we don't breed human beings for specific purposes, and it is pretty close to universally accepted that we should not.

If you are opposed to animal husbandry, then you'll have to be opposed to hundreds - even thousands - of years of domestication and selective breeding of animals for human purposes.

Some days I'm ashamed to be human, let alone homosexual. Then again, it has less to do with me and my upbringing than my compatriots in the human race.

With, of course, some exceptions.

Animal husbandry doesn't apply to human beings - we don't breed human beings for specific purposes, and it is pretty close to universally accepted that we should not.
I am pretty sure though one day it will come to just that, be it ethical or not. Eugenics nowadays connotes upsetting ideas. However, one day it may well become something no one thinks anything of. What would be a most chilling prospect would be for certain humans to engineer themselves into something superior to humans, and therefore argue that as they are superior that they may put us to whatever end they please, much like we do with animals.

Some days I'm ashamed to be human, let alone homosexual. Then again, it has less to do with me and my upbringing than my compatriots in the human race.

With, of course, some exceptions.
I've come to the point where I've realised that nihilism is just not worth my time. It's counterproductive for oneself to be overcome by vexation due the inevitable weaknesses of the human race I reckon. Better we try and make the best we can with what we've got.

For the record, I am. ;)
I suspect more so due to your anarcho-primitivist leanings than anything else. ;)

I am pretty sure though one day it will come to just that, be it ethical or not. Eugenics nowadays connotes upsetting ideas. However, one day it may well become something no one thinks anything of. What would be a most chilling prospect would be for certain humans to engineer themselves into something superior to humans, and therefore argue that as they are superior that they may put us to whatever end they please, much like we do with animals.

Personally, I'd love to have a body that was sexless and mechanical. However, knowing my own self, I'd be very much like Asimov's three-law robots - except that I'd be acting out of love rather than programming.

For the record, I am. ;)

Well, if you are also opposed to the use of animals for studying biology, then you have a clear reason to oppose this research. =)


I am pretty sure though one day it will come to just that, be it ethical or not. Eugenics nowadays connotes upsetting ideas. However, one day it may well become something no one thinks anything of. What would be a most chilling prospect would be for certain humans to engineer themselves into something superior to humans, and therefore argue that as they are superior that they may put us to whatever end they please, much like we do with animals.

I don't think it will ever come to that. Unless the human race were to somehow lose empathy, individuality, and emotion, we simply aren't going to see human beings as nothing more than assets to be used. In truth, many even have trouble seeing animals this way (although it seems to get easier for people the less cute and cuddly the animal).

I don't think it will ever come to that. Unless the human race were to somehow lose empathy, individuality, and emotion, we simply aren't going to see human beings as nothing more than assets to be used. In truth, many even have trouble seeing animals this way (although it seems to get easier for people the less cute and cuddly the animal).
I would certainly hope we didn't. The thing is, humans often see their evolved mind as the defining trait which renders them superior to other animals. Based on such a logic, a genetically-engineered breed of transhuman individuals would advocate that we too should be used as animals, perhaps just ones of above-average intellect. An unlikely scenario though in my books.

I don't think it will ever come to that. Unless the human race were to somehow lose empathy, individuality, and emotion, we simply aren't going to see human beings as nothing more than assets to be used.

The real possibility is far more insidious than that. If genetic manipulation or cybernetic implants are allowed to become part of a competitive marketplace, the competitiveness of a few will drive increasing numbers of people into modifications they would not otherwise will for themselves. If corporations find that people with chips in their brains are better workers, then people will start putting chips in their brains to compete for scarce jobs. If well-meaning parents want their children to succeed in a world of genetic super-people and half-robot cyborgs, then at least a few (on the margins) will succumb... and this will make it even harder for the holdouts to resist.

The real-world example is SUVs in the United States. Ten years ago, large majorities despised them because they are inefficient, environmentally poor, and (in themselves) not particularly safe. For the last reason, parents in particular avoided them.

But what happened? More and more SUVs made their way on to the roads, and those very same parents--who, when surveyed, still admit that they hate the machines--realized that as unsafe as an SUV might be, it was even WORSE to be in a smaller car with SUVs barrelling around the roads. They just crush smaller cars in a collision. What parent will stand up on the basis of environmental or economic (or even aesthetic) principle when she feels like doing so might risk the safety of her child?

Thus, voluntarily but against their wills, soccer moms now drive SUVs.

(It is one of the deepest philosophical problems of libertarian thought that it fails to recognize the distinction between voluntary behavior and will.)

The real possibility is far more insidious than that. If genetic manipulation or cybernetic implants are allowed to become part of a competitive marketplace, the competitiveness of a few will drive increasing numbers of people into modifications they would not otherwise will for themselves.
That is one possible way it may enter into the equation. The other is countries such as Norway, where the governments would begin to suggest genetic manipulation to better the lives of its citizens (this struck me again recently as I watched Ultraviolet, where the totalitarian State is in fact established on the basis of protecting its citizenry's health and safety). This could slowly turn into a Brave New World scenario, much like the one you outlined would. Either way, it may be a far more realistic prospect than we care to think it is. It might not necessarily be so though. A few months ago the Focus had an article in it titled "Human 2.0 (http://www.focusmag.co.uk/viewIssue.asp?id=648)" examining the various paths human evolution may take, one of which being that GM will be a mass-consumption good eventually. It's all conjecture, naturally, but makes for interesting reading.

Full Article (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2524408,00.html)

Do parents have the right to choose their child's sexual orientation by this so called straightening process? Should parents have the right to design their babies the way they want them or should parents be made to live with what nature has given them?

It's not str8ining out because the article says "...rams so that they are more inclined to mate with ewes..."
So it's bisexualizing. I think this is great. I hope in future they find conversions from gay to str8. From gay or str8 to bi. From bi to gay or str8. From str8 to gay. So anyone can choose their sexuality depending on their mood or when they are bored or when they want to try something new or when they break up with their gf or stuff...
However, this may not be possible since sexuality may not be that simple.
I also think gay people reacting against this research strongly is stupid because it proves that homosexuality is biological and not a choice. This is a irrefutable evidence against some religious/extremist people....

The real possibility is far more insidious than that. If genetic manipulation or cybernetic implants are allowed to become part of a competitive marketplace, the competitiveness of a few will drive increasing numbers of people into modifications they would not otherwise will for themselves. If corporations find that people with chips in their brains are better workers, then people will start putting chips in their brains to compete for scarce jobs. If well-meaning parents want their children to succeed in a world of genetic super-people and half-robot cyborgs, then at least a few (on the margins) will succumb... and this will make it even harder for the holdouts to resist.

The real-world example is SUVs in the United States. Ten years ago, large majorities despised them because they are inefficient, environmentally poor, and (in themselves) not particularly safe. For the last reason, parents in particular avoided them.

But what happened? More and more SUVs made their way on to the roads, and those very same parents--who, when surveyed, still admit that they hate the machines--realized that as unsafe as an SUV might be, it was even WORSE to be in a smaller car with SUVs barrelling around the roads. They just crush smaller cars in a collision. What parent will stand up on the basis of environmental or economic (or even aesthetic) principle when she feels like doing so might risk the safety of her child?

Thus, voluntarily but against their wills, soccer moms now drive SUVs.

(It is one of the deepest philosophical problems of libertarian thought that it fails to recognize the distinction between voluntary behavior and will.)

Oh please. The new trend is being more healthy. Eat better. Etc...This is the thing that'll sell. Besides, with such an advanced tech, why would cooperations want humans whom they gotta pay salaries? Robots and computers will do fine. Future will not be a 3rd rate sci fi movie....

No, so altering the child is unethical, in my opinion. We aren't discussing law or even something that is currently possible. It has nothing to do with the fetus. If a woman wants to have this procedure before she aborts then she may feel free. However, given the purpose of this procedure is to alter the child, I doubt that will ever happen. Pay attention. We are talking about the child. It has nothing to do with what happens to the fetus. It's very simple.

Duh...Parents already alter their childs. It's called raising a family. They basically try what they think is best for the child. I think altering children is not unethical, given that there is a screening process for parents. For ex:

Class A: People who can breed and alter their childs.

Class B: People who can breed and alter their child's serious health problems.

Class C: People who can breed and abort if they dont like the child.

Class D: People who can breed and abort if they dont like the child. (only serious health problems are told to these people)

Class E: People who are allowed to breed but not raise children. They gotta give it to adoption or something. These people are physically healthy but not mentally good.

Class F: Not allowed to breed.

So basically good parents who only think for the good of their children should be given permission. However such a screening process is as sci fi as the process itself....

For the same reason that it is different when nature causes a rocks to fall on you and crush you and when another person intentionally does so.

The difference there is the cause, obviously.

If I purposefully drop a rock on your head, or I accidentally trip and knock it on your head, is the harm to you not the same?

Translation: "I was wrong"?

(Obviously, with a "but the law should agree with me, dammit" rider...?)

Translation: Eternal rights are far from universally applied, otherwise our property rights would extend on for infinity regardless of whether we made a will. We would never lose patents. Mothers who drink and have children who are malformed would be held liable. This is simply not the case, check the law.

The only time rights are applied for any time after or before death is when it is protects some stupid religious belief or protects the money of dead rich guys.

We are appalled at grave robbers, so we sanctify graves. Rich guys don't want their legacies to be lost, so we establish a descent of inheritance.

The difference there is the cause, obviously.

If I purposefully drop a rock on your head, or I accidentally trip and knock it on your head, is the harm to you not the same?

Changing a child's sexuality in-vitro would be like changing the child's physical features in-vitro. The child, after finding out, wouldn't know what they were supposed to look like. It would be a reoccurring source of stress for most people, knowing that they weren't 'who they were intended to be'.

If I found out tomorrow that I was 'supposed' to be heterosexual, I'd wonder who my first girlfriend was going to be, if I'd be married by now, would I have children... Things of that sort.

It would be like finding out that you're adopted, but far, far worse.
Instead of 'your parents weren't able to care for you, so we gave you our love over the years', it becomes 'we changed you before you were born because we weren't happy with the person you were supposed to be'.

Duh...Parents already alter their childs. It's called raising a family. They basically try what they think is best for the child. I think altering children is not unethical, given that there is a screening process for parents. For ex:

Class A: People who can breed and alter their childs.

Class B: People who can breed and alter their child's serious health problems.

Class C: People who can breed and abort if they dont like the child.

Class D: People who can breed and abort if they dont like the child. (only serious health problems are told to these people)

Class E: People who are allowed to breed but not raise children. They gotta give it to adoption or something. These people are physically healthy but not mentally good.

Class F: Not allowed to breed.

So basically good parents who only think for the good of their children should be given permission. However such a screening process is as sci fi as the process itself....

Um, I know in your head this all made sense....

As to the point of already altering children, we are talking about intent again and about alterations that are irrevocable. We're talking about making a choice for your children you didn't have to make and shouldn't have made, and not just your children, but your children's children, etc. And in most cases, such behavior is already illegal. Sexualizing them too early. Tattooing their faces. Etc.

The difference there is the cause, obviously.

If I purposefully drop a rock on your head, or I accidentally trip and knock it on your head, is the harm to you not the same?

Yup. However, according to the idea of ethics, the ethics are not the same, which is what we're discussing. Nor are these things the same under law. That's the point. It's not complicated. At all.

And the difference there is intent. That's why it's relevant.

Translation: Eternal rights are far from universally applied, otherwise our property rights would extend on for infinity regardless of whether we made a will. We would never lose patents. Mothers who drink and have children who are malformed would be held liable. This is simply not the case, check the law.

Again, you ignore the fact that we lose patents while living (you're attempting to refer to copyrights, I believe, but unfortunately, you're not keeping your argument straight). Mothers who drink and have children are sometimes held liable and we are moving in that direction. The problem currently is proving intent. You know, that thing you claim wasn't relevant. Well, to the law, it is. We already remove children from mothers who addict them to drugs. And property rights do extend on into infinity. However, without a will, they choose a proxy to administer them just as they would when you lapse into a coma. Again, it's not complicated.

(And the alcohol effect is a terrible example, because it's an example of one set of rights, a mother's right to decide what happens to her body, trumping another, the child's right to not be born malformed. It's a raging debate and one not just a little bit affected by abortion. Most people agree that it is unethical to drink during pregnancy. And we are talking about ethics, not legality.)



The only time rights are applied for any time after or before death is when it is protects some stupid religious belief or protects the money of dead rich guys.

Some stupid religious belief? Now, why is that? Oh, right, religious rights. Hmmmm... again, you give an example of how you're wrong. And protects the money of some dead guy? You mean property rights. Yet another. You want me to just stop typing and let you show why your argument is wrong all by yourself.


We are appalled at grave robbers, so we sanctify graves. Rich guys don't want their legacies to be lost, so we establish a descent of inheritance.

Yep, religious freedom applied after death and property rights applied after death. Some rights are abridged because there is a compelling public interest or because there is a conflict of rights (I can give numerous examples of this occurring during the lifespan), but you've given examples of where they are applied both before birth and after death. Pretty much proves that we already accept that a person has rights that extend beyond the lifespan. Pretty much shoots your claims to hell.

Jocabia, I've seen you debate a lot, but I still haven't quite been able to infer where you stand in terms of political ideology. Mind sharing?

Jocabia, I've seen you debate a lot, but I still haven't quite been able to infer where you stand in terms of political ideology. Mind sharing?

What do you mean? On specific issues or broadly? Specific issues... I think you've seen many and the ones you've not seen are too wide a scope to cover here, or anywhere, really. Broadly, I don't think I can really answer. I think a person has to decide things individual based on their merits. I find nothing more frustrating than my fellow Christians supporting unChristian actions simply because they think one party is more Christian than the other.

I've voted Libertarian in last few Presidential elections. I've lived a lot of places and who I voted for in terms of the Congress or more locally varied depending where I was. I've never chosen a candidate according to the party to which they belong, though admittedly I give more credence to Libertarians than pretty much any other group and I favor third parties in general. I'm often accused by so-called conservatives of being a dirty liberal and by so-called liberals of being a crazy conservative. I think both the title of liberal and conservative while convenient are oversimplifications.

Quick rundown - I think programs like welfare and medicaid should be administered and legislated locally as it brings the power closer to the people and makes it more flexible and harder to exploit. I think, however, it should be funded more federally. I think the programs should be limited and that partial reliance should be allowed. (For example, my sister attempted to just use medicaid so her child would have coverage when she was unemployed but still living at home with my parents. They told her she either had to go on welfare and get on medicaid herself or that she couldn't use it.)

I think both major parties are corrupt and look out for a small but powerful percentage of the population. I think both parties favor the rich, big government and a violation of rights.

I think that anything one wants to do to their own body should be permitted, harmful or not. Suicide. Drugs. Smoking. Tattooing. Any kind of sex act. Riding a motorcycle without a helmet. Playing with lawn darts. Prostitution. These things should only be allowed as long as they don't affect anyone who is not a willing participant. Driving under the influence is illegal and should be.

I think that we have to strike a balance between environmentally friendly business and international competition. We don't operate in a vacuum in terms of the environment nor in terms of capitalism.

I think that we should have finished in Afghanistan prior to doing anything else. I believe and always believed that Sadaam should have been removed from power. I think the way it was done and the reasons given were both disasters.

I dislike Clinton and dislike Bush more. I think they are both criminals. I thought the attempt to impeach Clinton was a farce and I think that an attempt to impeach Bush would not be. Clinton deserved impeachment, but I think it was for violating the law by using the standing military for police actions and by writing the DOMA. I admit I wanted Bush to win both elections, but only due to what I thought was basically a ridiculous effort by the democratic party for highest office in the land.

I believe that religious freedom should never be abridged and support a complete and clear seperation of Church and State.

This quote suggests that the scientist has no better understanding of biology than your average high school student. I'm hoping that this was taken way, way out of context by the article's author. Otherwise, it casts all sorts of questions on the competency of the researchers.

Even if a genetically acquired trait makes it impossible for the animal to mate, that does not preclude genetic causes. There are all sorts of genetic possibilities. It could be a recessive trait that must be acquired from both parents. It could be some combination of genes that, in other combinations, do not lead to the trait. It could be any number of things.

The research in question certainly suggests that hormonal balance contributes to sexuality, but this researcher would have to ignore quite a bit of research to suggest that he is finding the single cause of homosexuality.

This is exactly right, you now apparently recognize the significance of the researcher’s claims. How then can you entirely forget this and then move on and say…


It doesn't attack anything. The general consensus among scientists who study sexual orientation has been, for quite some time, that sexuality is a complex trait that is most likely affected by a number of factors. There is evidence for genetic contributions and hormonal contributions in utero. There are even a few studies that very early psychological clues might contribute.

You entirely discard what the researchers say about their own research, never considering the researcher’s claims and instead revert to your own beliefs immediately after reading and attacking what they say, and then you transpose your beliefs into every aspect of every study that you are exposed to. Afterwards you end up claiming that everyone agrees with you. But that’s not right. I don’t have to agree with the researchers in the article to see that what they are claiming is entirely different that what you are claiming. IF they are right it changes everything about your understanding of physiological sexual orientation…


Skin color is something we think of as being fairly simple, but it is controlled by at least five different genes, as well as being affected by diet, hormones, health, and environmental factors. Why would we expect sexuality, a much more complex trait (and one that also exists along a spectrum) to have a single cause?

I’m not the one making the claim, these scientist are.


By "not fully develop," you mean "not become straight." You have already shown your bias here. I have read some of the research in this area. Strangely enough, the researchers don't claim that this is a defect, or that the brain "doesn't fully develop." It quite obviously does fully develop. Homosexual rams (or people) have perfectly functional brains.

The research does not suppose that the brains are not fully developed. It simply works on the knowledge that hormones affect the development of the brain and takes that further, to realize that changing the hormone balance could also change the development. It does not, like you, assume that homosexuality is a defect caused by a malformed brain.

Yes, the researchers DO claim that the brains of the rams do not fully develop during gestation if the hormones are not present for them to do so… Roselli believes that the same-sex attraction in male ram brains is directly related to the exposure to hormones while still in the mother's womb and may be a cause and affect in the brain’s hypothalamus size differences and in sexual preferences between different male rams, and his experiment aim to show whether or not that is true.

"Interestingly, this bundle of neurons is smaller in ewes and in rams with same-sex preferences than it is in rams that prefer ewes," said Kay Larkin, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in physiology and pharmacology in the OHSU School of Medicine, and lead author of the paper. "We also determined that the volume of the sexually dimorphic area is approximately the same in rams that prefer rams as it is in ewes."

The sexually dimorphic nucleus was measured by examining the extent and level of expression of aromatase, a key enzyme in a hormonal pathway that is involved in the development and maintenance of masculine characteristics. Additional groups of neurons within the hypothalamus thought to be involved in other aspects of sexual behavior were analyzed for size differences. These groups of neurons were shown to be different in rams and ewes, and not different in the two groups of rams.

The goal of these studies is to further understand the biological basis of sexual behaviors. More specifically, researchers are trying to determine the role of brain anatomy and physiology in the expression and development of sexual behaviors and traits. The researchers believe the sheep animal model may also help provide answers about other brain-linked sexual functions. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-11/ohs-bdi103102.php

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=PureSearch&db=PubMed&details_term=roselli%20c[Author]"

http://euston.ohsu.edu/physpharm/faculty/roselli.html

And as for what I believe, I have been saying from the beginning that it is absurd for a person to say that it is unethical to balance hormones during a mothers pregnancy and THEN claim that they are not now gay and wished they were. If they wished they were gay, then they CAN participate in homosexuality, nobody is stopping them. Hormones or not.

What all of this DOES change (if it turns out to be right) is YOUR preconceived notions of what are the biological homosexuality causes. Environment Hormone deficiency during gestation instead of genetics. That’s what it attacks, not what I attack.

Yes, clearly that post was more about attacking me than anything else. Even PootWaddle knows better than thinking that what that scientist said makes any sense in the context it was offered. It denies not just the genetic link but the existence of diseases like progeria. It denies the difference between genetic and heriditary. I'm certain that had PW searched through the bile, he'd have noticed how nonsensical what he was quoting was. However, the attack was clearly more important.

And I'm certain that if you weren’t so self-absorbed with your own position every once in awhile you would bother to read what the actual arguments are. I HAVE accurately reflected what the researcher claims. I have not made these claims myself. The researcher makes the denials of genetic and hereditary, the bile comes from them, and THAT was my point all along, that the OP’s and the journalists opinion from the OP’s article are simply a ridiculous misunderstanding of what the researchers are doing and claiming. However, there IS a real discussion to be had about the research and homosexual orientation in mammals, but that topic is not the ethical question of the research but the possibility that the researcher might be right and if so how that affects our understanding of homosexuality and the social and political ramifications of that change, from the status of hereditary traits to a birth defect…

And I'm certain that if you weren’t so self-absorbed with your own position every once in awhile you would bother to read what the actual arguments are. I HAVE accurately reflected what the researcher claims. I have not made these claims myself.

You're right. You didn't make them. You regurgitated them. They were so blatantly ignorant that one has to suspect they were either out of context or the researcher was unqualified to comment. Regardless, you posted claims that don't make any sense to anyone with a working knowledge of genetics and that are completely ignorant of the actual known functions of genetics. I suspect that if you'd actually paid attention you'd have realized they hurt the credibility of both the researcher and the writer of the article you quoted.

The researcher makes the denials of genetic and hereditary, the bile comes from them, and THAT was my point all along, that the OP’s and the journalists opinion from the OP’s article are simply a ridiculous misunderstanding of what the researchers are doing and claiming.

English is your friend. I suspect it was not your intent to say the bile is coming from the researchers, but this is exactly what you are saying here. The article is a reflection of the journalist's opinion of how the research will be used, nothing more, nothing less. It does not claim that it is currently being used that way. Much like the assumptions you made about how they would be used despite the claim of the researchers that they had no intention of transferring this process or the fruit of the research to humans.

Meanwhile, the researcher denies genetics, not heredity. They are not the same thing despite the ignorance of your and the researcher's statements. His basis (based on the out of context quote) for claiming it is not genetic has no basis in reality or science. Many traits are genetic and not hereditary, such as progeria, which is passed from the parents but caused by a genetic mutation in both parents.

However, there IS a real discussion to be had about the research and homosexual orientation in mammals, but that topic is not the ethical question of the research but the possibility that the researcher might be right and if so how that affects our understanding of homosexuality and the social and political ramifications of that change, from the status of hereditary traits to a birth defect…

No one is asking if the research is ethical. Try reading. We are asking if the process of changing the sexuality of human offspring is ethical. That's called a strawman. Dem, who you were responding to, never, not once, suggested the research should be stopped or that it was unethical. You made that up and even though corrected you've continued to lie about her position and the position of the OP.

Meanwhile, this research nor it's fruit has NOTHING to do with establishing it as a birth defect. You keep making that leap in logic, but you've got NO basis for it. First, nothing about the research or any information we have suggests that it stems from any unhealthy levels of hormones, only that it's related to hormones. It says nothing about those levels being unhealthy in any way. A leap of logic you've made continuously. Second, there is no classification anywhere of it being a defect of any sort and there is no pathological reason to categorize it as such. This research can never establish it be a defect of any kind, despite your attempts to place your politics upon the research.

I find it more than amusing that Dem and I have managed to seperate the research from politics and both have suggested that it continue and at no time have suggested the research is unethical or attach any politics to it at all. You have been unable to seperate and are so desperate to use it in your quest to force your sick little issues on us that you continue to suggest it makes conclusions it hasn't made, like that it's related to unhealthy hormone levels, or that it could lead to homosexuality be called a birth defect.

This is exactly right, you now apparently recognize the significance of the researcher’s claims. How then can you entirely forget this and then move on and say…



You entirely discard what the researchers say about their own research, never considering the researcher’s claims and instead revert to your own beliefs immediately after reading and attacking what they say, and then you transpose your beliefs into every aspect of every study that you are exposed to. Afterwards you end up claiming that everyone agrees with you. But that’s not right. I don’t have to agree with the researchers in the article to see that what they are claiming is entirely different that what you are claiming. IF they are right it changes everything about your understanding of physiological sexual orientation…



I’m not the one making the claim, these scientist are.



Yes, the researchers DO claim that the brains of the rams do not fully develop during gestation if the hormones are not present for them to do so… Roselli believes that the same-sex attraction in male ram brains is directly related to the exposure to hormones while still in the mother's womb and may be a cause and affect in the brain’s hypothalamus size differences and in sexual preferences between different male rams, and his experiment aim to show whether or not that is true.

"Interestingly, this bundle of neurons is smaller in ewes and in rams with same-sex preferences than it is in rams that prefer ewes," said Kay Larkin, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in physiology and pharmacology in the OHSU School of Medicine, and lead author of the paper. "We also determined that the volume of the sexually dimorphic area is approximately the same in rams that prefer rams as it is in ewes."

The sexually dimorphic nucleus was measured by examining the extent and level of expression of aromatase, a key enzyme in a hormonal pathway that is involved in the development and maintenance of masculine characteristics. Additional groups of neurons within the hypothalamus thought to be involved in other aspects of sexual behavior were analyzed for size differences. These groups of neurons were shown to be different in rams and ewes, and not different in the two groups of rams.

The goal of these studies is to further understand the biological basis of sexual behaviors. More specifically, researchers are trying to determine the role of brain anatomy and physiology in the expression and development of sexual behaviors and traits. The researchers believe the sheep animal model may also help provide answers about other brain-linked sexual functions. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-11/ohs-bdi103102.php

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=PureSearch&db=PubMed&details_term=roselli%20c[Author]"

http://euston.ohsu.edu/physpharm/faculty/roselli.html

And as for what I believe, I have been saying from the beginning that it is absurd for a person to say that it is unethical to balance hormones during a mothers pregnancy and THEN claim that they are not now gay and wished they were. If they wished they were gay, then they CAN participate in homosexuality, nobody is stopping them. Hormones or not.

What all of this DOES change (if it turns out to be right) is YOUR preconceived notions of what are the biological homosexuality causes. Environment Hormone deficiency during gestation instead of genetics. That’s what it attacks, not what I attack.

Here's the part you're not getting. It has long been believed that environmental hormones (not deficiency) during gestation are related to sexuality. You cannot establish that this is a deficiency because you can only do so with conclusion in hand, that heterosexual hormone levels are normal, which has not been established. Even when their research bears out, and I happen to believe it will, that does not change that this is already accepted. It does change the possibility of a genetic cause. At all. In any way. And the researchers aren't doing anything that could isolate the hormonal cause as the only cause, and for them to suggest that it is requires them to ignore much research, as Dem points out.

Now, it should be pointed out that they are not claiming the brain is malformed. They are claiming that the brain of the homosexual ram resembles that of a heterosexual ewe. (Hardly a new concept. I personally have written on this repeatedly.) It's known that brains tend to exist on a spectrum from what we find more often in females to what we find more often in males with brains that go from all the way "male" to all the way "female" and everything in between. This is already known and studied. You can't claim the brain of the homosexual ram is malformed unless you can show that the brain of a heterosexual ewe is malformed.

You are placing your own beliefs onto the research and then claiming they make the claim. They aren't judging the differences with words like malformation and deficiency (or not that I saw and they certainly shouldn't be). You are. These are judgements and are not objective.

Meanwhile, you keep making the claim that it would be balancing the hormones, but you still have not shown there to be an imbalance. That is an imbalance begins with the assumption that if it causes the mother to produce a gay child that it must be abnormal.

Full Article (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2524408,00.html)

Do parents have the right to choose their child's sexual orientation by this so called straightening process? Should parents have the right to design their babies the way they want them or should parents be made to live with what nature has given them?

Of course they do! It is the parents right to choose when and what they want to give birth to. I want to have perfect children. I want to have my child have the best shot of having a healthy happy life. I would abort a homo or a retard or a blind or a cripple or whatever cannot be cured with a quick surgery shortly after the birth.

Genetic research can benefit the human race in amazing ways. We no longer have any real evolutionary presure since medicine can save so many lives and just about any genetic failure (including myself) can get their spawn on. Genetic screenings and strategic abortions are a blessing.

Of course they do! It is the parents right to choose when and what they want to give birth to. I want to have perfect children. I want to have my child have the best shot of having a healthy happy life. I would abort a homo or a retard or a blind or a cripple or whatever cannot be cured with a quick surgery shortly after the birth.

Genetic research can benefit the human race in amazing ways. We no longer have any real evolutionary presure since medicine can save so many lives and just about any genetic failure (including myself) can get their spawn on. Genetic screenings and strategic abortions are a blessing.

Wow, just wow.

No. No, no, no, no.

You have no right to choose "the sort of children [you] want to raise." The human rights of the child are not shoved to the side just because the parents are bigoted assholes.

Imagine this in the hands of Iran? Fuck, imagine this in the hands of the Christian Right right here....


Oh we're not that bad.....

http://ic1.deviantart.com/fs6/i/2005/040/6/0/We_Want_Your_Soul_by_kolosomo.jpg

Besides, with such an advanced tech, why would cooperations want humans whom they gotta pay salaries? Robots and computers will do fine. Future will not be a 3rd rate sci fi movie....First of all, there are still plenty of tasks that require a human mind, and that does not seem likely to change in the foreseeable future--and "better" humans will sell better than natural ones.

More importantly, you're missing the point: even if the market shifts so that THIS PARTICULAR development won't occur, it is a feature of competitive markets that they can drive unwilling majorities to keep up with the "latest" new enhancement, whether they want to or not. I've already mentioned the real-world example of the SUV market. In some industries (entertainment especially) the same is true of cosmetic medical procedures. (And not just entertainment--recent research has shown that physical appearance affects performance evaluations and salaries in a wide range of service jobs, including teaching.)

People used to praise the advancement of civilization and technology because they free human beings from the clutches of nature: we have more choices, fewer necessities.

If competitive markets increasingly thrust constructed "needs" upon us, then in what sense have they made us more free? Have we not merely traded one set of necessities outside of our individual control... for another?

This is exactly right, you now apparently recognize the significance of the researcher’s claims. How then can you entirely forget this and then move on and say…

Well, maybe because the two quotes are completley and entirely consistent?

Maybe you should actually try to read what is written, since you've just said, "This is exactly right," to the exact position you have been arguing against....

I pointed out that the researcher, if he truly claimed that this research precludes a genetic cause, either has a seriously impaired understanding of biology or was misquoted. I then move on to state a position backed up by ALL of the relevant research, rather than just one study.

As I already pointed out, I have, for quite some time, recognized the significance of in utero hormone balance as a possible contributor to sexual orientation. But nothing in this research supports the idea that it is the sole contributor, as you and possibly the researchers would like to claim.

You entirely discard what the researchers say about their own research, never considering the researcher’s claims and instead revert to your own beliefs immediately after reading and attacking what they say, and then you transpose your beliefs into every aspect of every study that you are exposed to.

It has nothing to do with beliefs, my dear. I am interpreting this study in light of the rest of the relevant research. Believe it or not, these researchers are not the only ones studying sexual orientation and its possible causes.

And I don't entirely discard what the researchers say about their own research. I only discard that which is not backed up in biology or in the data. They have no evidence whatsoever that genetics do not contribute to sexual orientation. Thus, if they try to say that their research suggests this, they are wrong.

Afterwards you end up claiming that everyone agrees with you.

No, I mentioned a general consensus in the scientific community. It is pretty much widely accepted that, while there is evidence for genetic, hormonal, and even environmental contributors, no "magic bullet" cause for sexual orientation has been supported.

I don’t have to agree with the researchers in the article to see that what they are claiming is entirely different that what you are claiming. IF they are right it changes everything about your understanding of physiological sexual orientation…

I am discussing what their research actually demonstrates. If they would like to make a claim that extrapolates it further, that is fine, but it isn't scientifically supported.

Any person who says, "They can't/don't breed so it can't be genetic," is ignorant - plain and simple. They might have a high school understanding of biology, providing that they went to a pretty poor high school.

I have all ideas that the quotes in the story were largely taken out of context, both because the alternative is that the researcher doesn't understand fairly basic biology and because the publications on this research never make such a claim. It is most likely that the researcher was trying to convey that sexuality is unlikely to be completely genetic than that he was trying to rule out genetic contribution.

I’m not the one making the claim, these scientist are.

Not in their publications, they aren't. Which makes you wonder if the article's author may have misunderstood or misquoted....

Yes, the researchers DO claim that the brains of the rams do not fully develop during gestation if the hormones are not present for them to do so…
Roselli believes that the same-sex attraction in male ram brains is directly related to the exposure to hormones while still in the mother's womb and may be a cause and affect in the brain’s hypothalamus size differences and in sexual preferences between different male rams, and his experiment aim to show whether or not that is true.

Nothing in the text you quote suggests that the brains are not fully developed. It simply suggests that the rams' brains develop more along the lines of a female brain than a male one. This is hardly the same thing as not developing fully, unless you think women are underdeveloped because their ovaries never became testes and dropped. And women's brains, in general, are simply not fully developed.

And as for what I believe, I have been saying from the beginning that it is absurd for a person to say that it is unethical to balance hormones during a mothers pregnancy and THEN claim that they are not now gay and wished they were. If they wished they were gay, then they CAN participate in homosexuality, nobody is stopping them. Hormones or not.

We aren't talking about balancing hormones. I asked you once before to provide evidence that the hormone balance that may contribute to homosexuality is unhealthy for the mother or the developing fetus. You have yet to do so. As such, we aren't talking about a health issue. We are talking about nothing more than an issue of sexuality - and whether or not it is ok for a woman to take steps to ensure a specific sexuality in her children.

What all of this DOES change (if it turns out to be right) is YOUR preconceived notions of what are the biological homosexuality causes. Environment Hormone deficiency during gestation instead of genetics. That’s what it attacks, not what I attack.

No, that is what you attack. What this research does is point to a hormonal contribution. It does not, in any way, get rid of the evidence that genetics also contributes. This isn't a matter of preconceived notions in anyone but you. You want homosexuality to be "curable", so you jump onto this research, even though it does nothing to demonstrate a single "magic bullet" cause of sexual orientation.

Someone without preconceived notions would do exactly as I have done: look at ALL the evidence and draw conclusions from that, rather than choosing a single pet study that supports one possible contributor.

And I'm certain that if you weren’t so self-absorbed with your own position every once in awhile you would bother to read what the actual arguments are.

I have. I have read quite a bit of research in this area, including the studies in rams. I have drawn my conclusions from that research - the actual research, rather than claims made or not made by researchers with no actual evidence to back them up.

I HAVE accurately reflected what the researcher claims.

According to the article, yes, you have. Of course, if the researcher actually claims that, he doesn't understand biology beyond a simple high school course. To make that claim, he would have to deny the existence of recessive traits, of traits controlled by more than one gene, of genes that affect the sexes differently, and of the shared genetic background of siblings/cousins/parents/etc.

I highly doubt that he is actually denying the existence of these things, so any comments he makes stating that his research somehow disproves the possibility of genetic contribution are, frankly, idiotic.


Of course they do! It is the parents right to choose when and what they want to give birth to. I want to have perfect children. I want to have my child have the best shot of having a healthy happy life. I would abort a homo or a retard or a blind or a cripple or whatever cannot be cured with a quick surgery shortly after the birth.

I pray that you never have children, or, if you do, you have no part in raising them.

First of all, there are still plenty of tasks that require a human mind, and that does not seem likely to change in the foreseeable future--and "better" humans will sell better than natural ones.

More importantly, you're missing the point: even if the market shifts so that THIS PARTICULAR development won't occur, it is a feature of competitive markets that they can drive unwilling majorities to keep up with the "latest" new enhancement, whether they want to or not. I've already mentioned the real-world example of the SUV market. In some industries (entertainment especially) the same is true of cosmetic medical procedures. (And not just entertainment--recent research has shown that physical appearance affects performance evaluations and salaries in a wide range of service jobs, including teaching.)

People used to praise the advancement of civilization and technology because they free human beings from the clutches of nature: we have more choices, fewer necessities.

If competitive markets increasingly thrust constructed "needs" upon us, then in what sense have they made us more free? Have we not merely traded one set of necessities outside of our individual control... for another?

I think we should avoid going to far down this path in this thread, but I do agree with much of what you say. If you asked people what falls on basic needs and then examine what they have while struggling to put food on the table, they will rarely match up. I've met "poor" people with cable, multiple televisions, computers, game systems, a car per person in the household, etc. And that's not even getting into the constructed needs of the job market.

When I was a child, we quite literally had to live in a house that was near refrigerator levels of heat in the winter and had no air conditioning. Now, that's unheard of and could even be deemed to be dangerous. Cost of living goes up. People are expected to be tech savvy, which means owning some tech. Cost of living goes up. People are expected to be mobile while at work. I've shown up on sites (I'm a consultant) with no vehicle because it made more sense to take a shuttle to the hotel and around the city and people look at me like I'm crazy even though it saves the shareholder or taxpayer money and limits evironmental footprint. I've had project managers order me to rent a vehicle or even for each consultant to rent a vehicle (when there are many of us all staying at the same hotel and going to the same site) so that we'll have mobility that might matter two or three times a month. I've always gotten a little farther in life because of how I look. The vast majority of consultants in my field are of above average height and I've not ever had a project manager under six feet. They are almost always large, imposing individuals, even the women.

The "I have faith in humanity" part of me wants to disagree, but we've come a long way from being focused on our basic needs first and we've allowed a lot of very shallow needs to be placed in front of such things.

*snip*


Dem, the part I find odd about this whole discussion is that the research isn't new at all. And not just in relation to homosexuality, but the nature of the brain in general. Hormonal effects on the development of the brain have long been accepted and that different levels of hormones cause a development more similar to a heterosexual male or heterosexual female has also long been accepted (or at least we've been suspecting it for some time).

It's really strange to me that anyone, let alone the researchers, would claim that discovering the existence of hormonal contributers during gestation would change the current understanding of sexuality. This is simply more evidence for the concensus. It doesn't address genetics in the faintest way.

This was actually interesting information when I encountered it the first time and it says a lot about the old guard way of viewing sexual orientation and more importantly (in my view) gender. It leads us down the path of discovering that rather than a 1 or 0, that we actually exist on a colorful spectrum of genders and sexualities, something that was obvious to greeks millenia ago, but to us had to be proven through scientific examination of our anatomies, since apparently the existence of people throughout that spectrum was not enough on its own.


You want homosexuality to be "curable", so you jump onto this research, even though it does nothing to demonstrate a single "magic bullet" cause of sexual orientation.


Oh, and to address one of your points that I have to disagree with, it is true that PW is letting his bias affect his hopes for the research and this is why he uses terms like underdeveloped, hormonal imbalance, and defect, but even if you look at this objectively and with an understanding that it would not address genetic contributers or the lack thereof, it is clear that if they are correct, that changing the hormonal balance would "cure" homosexuality if one was looking to do so. You are clearly correct about what the research does and the current concensus, but the "cure" would still avail itself.

I declare that the people who are supporting the idea that breeding out homosexuality is unethical are in fact the winners of this thread. Congratulations, everybody!! To the losers, I say, Better Luck Next Time. Now, I'd like to ask the winners of the thread: How does it feel and what are you going to debate next?

it's okey as long it doesn't harm the child.
As long you don't harm any actual grown ups with those genetical inferiorietes it is good.
Life is all about breeding the strong and not breeding weak.
Everyone are not equal.

If the qualites the parents desire would somehow be harmfull to the child then it would be bad
but at largue it should be the parents right and freedrom to do genetically alter their offspring within reasonable limits.

I doubt there should be an extensive set of rules regulating exactly what the parents could do.

Also I don't think homosexuality or any other small "deviances" will die out
unless some fool actually create rules for what genes you can or can't modify.
To politically control genemodification in an extensive way is just as bad
no matter what the purpose is.
Many biological features can't be clearly defined as bad or good just defined as different.
Parent with such features, with mental or physical deviances that are not drawbacks may also desire to genemodify their offspring without intensions of disfavoring such qualites.
Genemodifications should not be a sign of intolerance.

However if taken to extremes it wouldn't really be their offspring in a biological
sense and thus it would encourage adoptations.

I declare that the people who are supporting the idea that breeding out homosexuality is unethical are in fact the winners of this thread. Congratulations, everybody!! To the losers, I say, Better Luck Next Time. Now, I'd like to ask the winners of the thread: How does it feel and what are you going to debate next?

Thanks. That made me laugh. It makes me feel tickly, and next I'm going to debate about where we will eat lunch. Wanna come? If it helps, I doubt I'll win that one because everyone I know knows that I'll eat a pile of roach droppings if you present it right.

Dem, the part I find odd about this whole discussion is that the research isn't new at all. And not just in relation to homosexuality, but the nature of the brain in general. Hormonal effects on the development of the brain have long been accepted and that different levels of hormones cause a development more similar to a heterosexual male or heterosexual female has also long been accepted (or at least we've been suspecting it for some time).

Indeed, that's why it seems so obvious that PW is simply trying to attack me here. One could go back through numerous threads on homosexuality and find that, in just about every one in which I have contributed, I pointed to hormonal balance in utero as a contributor to sexuality. Why? Because this research has been out for quite some time and has already been incorporated into the overall view of sexuality and gender in the medical and scientific communities.

Oh, and to address one of your points that I have to disagree with, it is true that PW is letting his bias affect his hopes for the research and this is why he uses terms like underdeveloped, hormonal imbalance, and defect, but even if you look at this objectively and with an understanding that it would not address genetic contributers or the lack thereof, it is clear that if they are correct, that changing the hormonal balance would "cure" homosexuality if one was looking to do so. You are clearly correct about what the research does and the current concensus, but the "cure" would still avail itself.

Ah, I didn't mean to suggest that it wouldn't, although it wouldn't really be a "cure" at that point. Homosexual males (in human beings, at least) have perfectly healthy levels of hormones already. To try and use a treatment similar to the one here to change their sexuality would be altering their hormones well outside of normal levels.

And, unless PW would like to provide evidence that the hormone balance in utero that may contribute to sexuality is actually causing harm to the mother or the fetus, alterations in those levels that would alter the development of the fetus to an alternate sexuality would likely also be abnormal - especially if there were genetic contributions that would strongly push the developing fetus towards homosexuality.

It could possibly get rid of the homosexuality, but at what cost?

Thanks. That made me laugh. It makes me feel tickly, and next I'm going to debate about where we will eat lunch. Wanna come? If it helps, I doubt I'll win that one because everyone I know knows that I'll eat a pile of roach droppings if you present it right.

How about Tibetan? It should encompass your desire for roach droppings while also presenting foods a bit more in the realm of what I find suitable to my palate.

How about Tibetan? It should encompass your desire for roach droppings while also presenting foods a bit more in the realm of what I find suitable to my palate.

There is an excellent Thai place actually that my girlfriend I wanted to go to last night, but it was "night out" so it wasn't dressy enough. Maybe I can get them to think they came up with the idea. Always the best way to win an debate.

EDIT: We are going to Thai. I got him to suggest it. I'm going to have to test these mental powers on my girlfriend. Wish me luck.

i feel very strongly that it should be breed out of existence completely. and every advocate for it should be shot(:sniper: ) and that all knoledge about it should be wiped out. It is not what is meant to be!:upyours:

There is an excellent Thai place actually that my girlfriend I wanted to go to last night, but it was "night out" so it wasn't dressy enough. Maybe I can get them to think they came up with the idea. Always the best way to win an debate.

Are you sure you aren't married to your girlfriend? For you are wise in the tactics of true marriage...

i feel very strongly that it should be breed out of existence completely. and every advocate for it should be shot(:sniper: ) and that all knoledge about it should be wiped out. It is not what is meant to be!:upyours:

You like it. You know it. You have all that lesbian porn...

Indeed, that's why it seems so obvious that PW is simply trying to attack me here. One could go back through numerous threads on homosexuality and find that, in just about every one in which I have contributed, I pointed to hormonal balance in utero as a contributor to sexuality. Why? Because this research has been out for quite some time and has already been incorporated into the overall view of sexuality and gender in the medical and scientific communities.



Ah, I didn't mean to suggest that it wouldn't, although it wouldn't really be a "cure" at that point. Homosexual males (in human beings, at least) have perfectly healthy levels of hormones already. To try and use a treatment similar to the one here to change their sexuality would be altering their hormones well outside of normal levels.

And, unless PW would like to provide evidence that the hormone balance in utero that may contribute to sexuality is actually causing harm to the mother or the fetus, alterations in those levels that would alter the development of the fetus to an alternate sexuality would likely also be abnormal - especially if there were genetic contributions that would strongly push the developing fetus towards homosexuality.

It could possibly get rid of the homosexuality, but at what cost?


Yes, obviously he is starting with conclusion in hand. It's clear that one can't use terms like abnormal and the like without suggesting that you feel that the condition needs a cure. And then he uses the terms he uses as evidence that a cure is not unethical. It's all very circular.

Back on point - Actually, even in those cases where we were disagreeing (like our early debates on the paper abortion), I recall you being remarkably consistant in your comments on such things. At the time, I was not that familiar with the idea so I'll give you the credit of being one of the first people to explain that to me. I've since read several books on the subject, none written by these researchers or referencing them.

However, the books were focused on the development of the entire body and the relationship to gender. I wrote a thread about it nearly a year ago about how women actually see more color than men, both in width of spectrum and in intensity, and they have a greater peripheral range. Also, areas such as communication, a variety of intellectual capabilities, smell, taste, touch, coordination, etc. are all appearing to be affected by one's place on this spectrum. And the spectrum seems to be largely effected by the hormonal balance of the womb. This "cure" would also be altering the child in almost every way imaginable.

Clearly there are genetic components to many of these things, but the hormonal balance seems to greatly effect the way we operate. It also seems that when the hormonal balance changes can affect which traits would be affected so such an alteration would have a variety of possible side-effects and a great potential for reaching a completely different outcome than intended. When sheep start playing basketball and solving equations then I'll except that such experiments will be of use as a precursor to such experimentation on humans.

What I would be curious about is what exactly defines the normal gestational hormones according to PW? Is it that which produces a heterosexual? Just how heterosexual must they be, since sexuality is also a spectrum according to the current wisdom?

EDIT: I mean, wait, you are obviously biased and you hate any research that would suggest a gestational hormonal component for homosexuality. The FACT that you've been suggesting that it is a contributor for years is simply an elaborate coverup meant to confuse PootWaddle.

i feel very strongly that it should be breed out of existence completely. and every advocate for it should be shot(:sniper: ) and that all knoledge about it should be wiped out. It is not what is meant to be!:upyours:

Advocating the slaughter of people is frowned upon on this forum. I'd tread lightly if I were you.

Meanwhile, since you feel like it's acceptable to murder people for disagreeing with you, do they have the same right?

I told my Mom about this business with the gay sheep. She could not believe that there were gay sheep.

I told my Mom about this business with the gay sheep. She could not believe that there were gay sheep.

There are gay everything. Gay is a perfectally natural phenomena in nearly all intelligent animals. There is much to suggest it has a value for herd survival in herd and pack animals, like, you know, humans.

There are gay everything. Gay is a perfectally natural phenomena in nearly all intelligent animals. There is much to suggest it has a value for herd survival in herd and pack animals, like, you know, humans.

What is the value of gayness to herd survival and pack animals?

What is the value of gayness to herd survival and pack animals?

Well, since it seems to be more common in animals with siblings, it would appear that it has value in that you an animal with the similar genetics that rather than compete for the survival of their offspring which might result in neither brood's survival, the adult animal helps to provide for an raise its 'nephews and neices'. This allows it to pass on its genetics by giving the offspring an extra assurance of survival while limiting competition. Far more effective than simply eating one's young or the like.

It's like this. Your mother has four siblings that survived to reproduction age, let's say. Let's also say that, in general, there is a 17% of our species that does not make adulthood, so your mother had one sibling that didn't make it. Let's also say resources are limited and can only sustain 20 children. Each of the adults in your family (your mother and her siblings) has 6 children just like their parents did. One is going to die just by regular attrition. You have 25 left to compete for the resources of 20. A couple things can happen. All survive but are weakened and less prepared to compete in the world because of malnourishment. They all compete and fight until only 20 are left but some are crippled in the battle leaving them less prepared to compete.

Or one of your mother's siblings turns out to be gay and has not offspring thus leaving her to help care for and provide resources for the offspring while the same number survive without damage, without malnourishment and without harm.

In the solution where there is a homosexual sibling, you have a better chance of healthy survival to reproduction. That's just off the top of my head. There is also the possibility that the gene that would make a male gay, would make a female stronger, and the gene that would make a female gay, would make a male stronger. In which case, it's the genetics themselves that have the value.

What is the value of gayness to herd survival and pack animals?
If you want an example for social animals, I'd suggest you read up on bonobo chimps. Among these apes, the most common form of sexual contact is female-female.

Yes, you read that right. "Lesbian" sex is more common among bonobos than "heterosexual" sex.

Among bonobos, as with humans, sex serves many functions beyond reproduction. Sex is used to resolve conflicts and promote bonding within the social group. Sex helps to solidify the social structure of a bonobo group. Bonobos also appear to have sex simply for fun sometimes.

Sex is also used to avoid physical fighting (which helps reduce injuries and increase group fitness). For example, when you provide food to a group of chimps, this will normally create a high-tension situation because everybody wants to grab the food for themselves. Among common chimpanzees, there will commonly be physical fights over the food. Bonobos, on the other hand, have sex. They have male-female sex, female-female sex, male-male sex, group sex, oral sex, pretty much any combination and type that you can think of. Then, when everybody has had some sex and is feeling calmer, they all have some food to eat.

Homosexual sex also appears to encourage shared brood care, which means having multiple adults help take care of babies that aren't biologically their own. Females who couple with each other sexually are also more likely to help take care of each others' babies, which improves the babies' chances that they'll be safe and healthy.

What is the value of gayness to herd survival and pack animals?

Bear cave:
http://www.ncentral.com/~dlove/bearcave.gif

Gay bear cave:
http://www.interior-design.us/interior-design.jpg

This may be my longest post ever.

Alright, there are two central justifications for the protection of the fetus from eugenics via in vitro genetic manipulation. While I will address the second of the two eventually, the focus of this discussion has been on the first justification I will address: a natural right to self-determination/self-ownership.

Now, while there has been no justification rendered for this natural right (outside of my brief attempt to address homesteading and the conscious will), it has been stated that there exists a natural right to self-determination that extends infinitely into the past and infinitely into the future.

So let us attempt to address this idea of natural rights first. To do this we must first determine what constitutes a right. Merriam-Webster's Dictionary offers us two similar definitions that are relevant to our discussion:

2 : something to which one has a just claim: as a : the power or privilege to which one is justly entitled <voting rights> <his right to decide> b (1) : the interest that one has in a piece of property -- often used in plural <mineral rights> (2) plural : the property interest possessed under law or custom and agreement in an intangible thing especially of a literary and artistic nature <film rights of the novel>
3 : something that one may properly claim as due <knowing the truth is her right>

In other words, a right consists of two things, a claim and a justification. This seems obvious (at least to me); for someone to have any meaningful right, they must first have a will to act in a certain way and that the claim have merit, with merit typically determined by those who the claimant interacts with. This is demonstrable in many ways, to own property a person must first make a claim for the property and then have those around him recognize his claim, if a person has a right to life, he has a claim to his person that is not to be infringed by any person that he interacts with. Generally rights are thought of also as being universal, in that a right can only be a right when extended to all.

Now we can extend this definition to that of natural rights. The term "natural" is a very difficult term to use as it is probably the most widely used source of equivocation in any discussion of ethics or politics or what have you. To avoid this I will define it as I believe a general consensus would. So for our discussion we can from here on refer to this usage of the word natural to imply an inherent quality. So "natural rights" would imply a claim that is justified as an inherent quality within us.

Now we bring this back to the natural right of self-determination/self-ownership. Typically all natural rights base rights in the rational resolution of competing claims. The right to self-ownership is no different. The claims to the ownership of the individual are weighed and the individual claiming himself is deemed most appropriate, any other result would lead to a logical contradiction. Now what is important here is the not the rational resolution, but the claims themselves. When we argue for abortion, we argue that there is no person to claim themselves, and therefore they cannot claim their right to life, their right to self-determination. The claim is dismissed because there is no claim and because there is no life to claim.

Now when we consider our current discussion, we ask what claim is being made: the child is making a claim to determine his own sexuality, or alternatively he is seeking to claim his in vitro self-determination. The problem is not that there is no claim, but that there is nothing to claim. There never existed an ability to determine your own sexuality (as far as genes are concerned) and there never existed an ability to determine your in vitro development. If he claims a right to being a properly developed child, that is also dismissed because there never existed a properly developed child.


Now there also exists those universal legal entitlements that we rightly refer to as rights. Now these rights don't bear those objective themes, where we have rights because we are people and all people deserve them. These are rights that we get together and agree upon. These are rights that we want, not that we have ingrained upon our personhood. This, of course, really devalues rights, (the reason they have been and are still argued against vehemently) and brings them down to the nihilistic level that I like. We are now dealing with your emotions and rationale versus mine. We now begin weighing how much we value the ability for parents to choose their children's sexuality against how much we appraise the harm to be to the child. In this situation, while I don't greatly value the ability of the parents to choose the traits of the child (the mother's ability to control the pregnancy and what her body produces is the only value), I see absolutely no loss to the child in being born homosexual or heterosexual. If we are to assume that no benefit is gained from being born heterosexual, then we can consider no harm from being born homosexual. From the perspective of the child, there is no harm from the parents choosing the sexuality, as it had no control in the first place.

This brought us to the part about intent, and there are two reasons why it is irrelevant. One, the consideration of the child is one of harm alone, and intent is never measured in harm, I am harmed as much from the accidental rock to the head as I am by the intentional rock to the head. Two, intent is considered when there is an intent to do wrong, since the argument is whether this is wrong or not, intent is irrelevant.


I'm well aware of yours, it simply not founded in reality. You claimed that legal wills do not recognize rights after one is dead, but if they didn't they would be unenforceable, because the contracting party no longer exists. It's a view not founded in reality.

I claimed nothing of the sort, I agree that will address your property rights after you are dead, and are perfectly viable in that. My counterpoint was that individuals without wills lose their property rights without prior consent.

You claimed that the handling of the body doesn't recognize this, but it does, of course. Another of your views not founded in reality.

Never said this either. It is quite obvious that we observe the last wishes of the living and permit their bodies to go undesturbed. My counterpoint was that the laws on this were based in our desire to see the dead go undisturbed, not some ridiculous eternal right. If our rights were eternal then we obviously would not see bodies exhumed and moved.

You claimed the reason a woman can't sign her unborn into slavery is because there you're missing a contracting party, but again that's untrue. She can sign contracts that are legal. That happens to not be. Another argument of yours not founded in reality.

You are correct.

Of course the child experiences slavery in one situation, but never experiences the change in sexuality in the other.

Oh, look more ad hominems.

Yes, Jocabia, you as a person, and not your arguments, are of poor consistency.

My argument is consistent. Rights extend forever in both directions, but they can only be applied if a person existed at some time to apply them to. None of my arguments ignore that, ever. What would be illegal to do to a birthed child should be illegal to do to a child you intend to birth. That is completely consistent.

I do have a question, how are these rights established, what is the method?

Except intent is not irrelevant. Intent is everything. It's the difference between something that involves a person who has harmed you and something that happens naturally. You're failure to address intent does not make it irrelevant. The law finds it relevant. Pretty much every legal and ethical force considers it relevant except you.

The law finds it relevant because it punishes people who do wrong, since we have not determined that it is wrong, I don't think we should be bringing the law into it.

Really? So no patents or copyrights ever expire while I am alive. I think you better research that again. Even if I lived forever, those patents and copyrights would expire.

You are correct patent rights can be lost while you are alive, although I think copyrights extend 30 or 70 years after death. I guess you were right that rights were eternal.... oh wait.

No, because your estate must be cared for, and your will cannot be known, so the law handles your estate in the most logical way possible. You're not there to exert your will so a proxy is chosen. Either you choose that proxy by assigning a lawyer or family member or the state will, just as it does when you lapse into a coma or when you are brain-damaged.

By who's decision must your estate be cared for?

And if you have no eligible heirs?

What if you specifically designate that no one gets your property. I am not sure of the law on this, but can you designate that your property never gets touched again?

1) Abortion cannot be compared to altering a child.
1a) Abortion is to end a pregnancy, a condition of the mother. No child is involved in any way, because none exists.
1b) This procedure is to alter the child, the child is the point. The fetus is simply the vehicle by which the CHILD is altered. It definitely affects a child. Affecting the child is the purpose of the procedure.

So abortion should never be considered the prevention of the birth of a child? The potential child is never the point?

2) Rights are eternal.

I have seriously never heard this before you mentioned it earlier. Could you link me to something that states that rights are eternal?

As an essentially Kantian ethicist, I think that treating a person as an end-in-himself means respecting him as if he were a willful creature of his own even when he has no possible means to express that will. If I am "designing" a child, I am making decisions about/for a PERSON who WILL EXIST. To treat that person as an end rather than a means, I must make some assumptions about the sort of alterations a rational person would will for himself.

This is contradictory, if genetic modification deminishes the person's will, then we are genetically determined and any discussion of free will is mute, due to our inability to control our own genes.

This means that alterations to prevent birth defects, including physical and mental handicaps, are allowable because it is reasonable to believe that a rational person would choose such alterations for her/himself. "Design" elements, however--including such things as preferring an athlete to an intellectual, or vice-versa--are unethical alterations because it is significantly less reasonable to assume that a rational person would want to be "designed" according to the whim of parents. Real human subjects want to develop on their own terms; we don't want to be anyone's "pet."

You are bound by your genes no matter who chose them.

And it is the subserviency during life that designates a "pet", a genetically altered animal can be as wild as any.

It does not matter, for ethical purposes, that the person does not actually exist in the here-and-now. What matters, as others have already emphasized, is that the intent is to design a human being according to someone else's will; it is to treat a human life as a means to the parents' ends rather than as an end-in-itself.

No human is an end-in-itself as far as genes are concerned.


All of this thread has been my argument against the belief that we are something special, that our natural development is somehow special and we are entitled to it, when, in the end, there is nothing special about what is natural.

I think this is quite a rational means of treating the subject. I'd imagine in a libertarian society, all contracts involving engineering the future child negatively would be vitiated and considered illegal (given that libertarian theory indeed is predominantly based on treating individuals as ends in themselves, as opposed to means). It would be up to the child to consider allegedly positive modifications as undesirable, and thus ground for a lawsuit (not that I could conceive of a rational person who'd want to suffer from defects such as mental retardation).

Considering that many prominent libertarians consider children to be property until they say no, then that is in question.

But I wouldn't disagree with what you have said, I just don't think that it is possible for changing the sexuality to be a negative.

The difference there is the cause, obviously.

If I purposefully drop a rock on your head, or I accidentally trip and knock it on your head, is the harm to you not the same?Not at all. Assuming I survive the incident, if you did it on purpose, there is the psychological harm of worrying that somebody is trying to kill me, or at the very least that there is some crazy person out there.
Nonetheless, we don't just consider the harm to the person directly affected. People who hear about it would likely be affected by the same psychological harm. And, of course, the grief that a family goes through when a loved one dies from accidental causes is different than the grief that they go through when a loved one is murdered.

In other words, a right consists of two things, a claim and a justification. This seems obvious (at least to me); for someone to have any meaningful right, they must first have a will to act in a certain way and that the claim have merit, with merit typically determined by those who the claimant interacts with. How does a person go about making a claim? Would it simply be limited to physical or verbal claims, or are there other ways?

Not at all. Assuming I survive the incident, if you did it on purpose, there is the psychological harm of worrying that somebody is trying to kill me, or at the very least that there is some crazy person out there.

That is a stretch. In the possibility that it is never known whether it is purposeful or not then there is no difference. It is also impossible to know whether the fear of falling rocks might outweigh your fear of a psychopath.

Nonetheless, we don't just consider the harm to the person directly affected. People who hear about it would likely be affected by the same psychological harm. And, of course, the grief that a family goes through when a loved one dies from accidental causes is different than the grief that they go through when a loved one is murdered.

Considering the person making the decision is the only one with whom the fetus has had contact, is the legal guardian, and the closest relative, I don't think this is that big of a factor in our situation.

How does a person go about making a claim? Would it simply be limited to physical or verbal claims, or are there other ways?

There are many, many legal ways of making a claim, but the principle way is to simply will it. To make the conscious thought, "this is mine". If someone else happens to think the same, then there will be a rational discourse to determine the owner.

...
And, unless PW would like to provide evidence that the hormone balance in utero that may contribute to sexuality is actually causing harm to the mother or the fetus, alterations in those levels that would alter the development of the fetus to an alternate sexuality would likely also be abnormal - especially if there were genetic contributions that would strongly push the developing fetus towards homosexuality.

It could possibly get rid of the homosexuality, but at what cost?

You speculate. They speculate. Yours is somehow more valid because you repeatedly claim that they must only have a high school level understanding of biology? I think not.

And BTW; my initial attack on you was nothing more than a mild reprimand, and that was merely for the fact that you were feeding the anger frenzy of the misinformed and ignorant masses of this thread, that like the OP's article’s journalists were, they don't even understand the questions being asked in the proper manner and they are supporting OP's article as in being full of people that want the research itself stopped. And I reprimanded YOU because of all the people here that look up to you in that aspect and you should not be actively supporting those that oppress research of any kind... THAT was my original point when I addressed your post, that you should have commented on the actuality of the study and not that ridiculous false facsimile of it.

As to all of this defending what Roselli wrote and studied about, whether you like him or not is irrelevant to me, but I've had enough of defending someone else’s beliefs. So I’ll leave it with this article, it is a good summary of the events and studies and opinions of opposing points of view, a few years old but not too bad.

http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/view.php3?language=english&type=article&article_id=218392238


Additionally, you asked for proof that anyone is claiming that prenatal hormones might ‘cause’ sexual orientation in the fetus later in life as adults… Here is another study about female same sex attraction that suggests that hormones may cause a change in fetal development… This is in addition to the fact that Roselli is currently testing the theory by testing to see if the male ram fetus' can be turned homosexual by blocking certain androgens during their fetal stages (if that works, unknown, not my test, not published yet to my knowledge, then genetics would serve no purpose in the explination of the low growth of that section of the ram brain, but that study is not yet completed so I will link to this one about women)...

The use of Thyroxine, a synthethic hormone, as well as amphetamine-based diet pills has been linked to influencing a higher rate of homosexuality among child-bearing women and their offspring -- prominently females -- according to a new study.

Mothers of homosexuals were at least five times more likely to have taken synthetic thyroid medications during pregnancy than mothers of heterosexual women and eight times more likely to have used amphetamine-based diet pills such as Dexedrine and diethylpropion. The effects were felt the strongest among women whose mothers took these drugs during the first trimester of their pregnancies.

Scientists studied more than 5,000 mothers of U.S. and Canadian students and members of gay and lesbian support groups, searching for links between prescription drugs taken during pregnancy and the sexual orientation of their children. Conversely, some drugs have the opposite effect during pregnancy, according to the study, reducing the probability of homosexual offspring. In fact, mothers of heterosexual males were 70 percent more likely to have taken drugs to combat nausea than those of male homosexuals.

It's important for me to emphasize here that the link was connected with synthetic thyroid hormones and NOT natural hormone therapies like Armour thyroid. Although conventional physicians use the excuse that synthetic hormones provide steadier levels, they forget the vast majority of people cannot convert the T4 to the active form of thyroid which is T3. (This is easy to confirm by measuring the free hormone levels, but very few doctors use these tests.)

A 1999 study demonstrated a natural hormone was far better at controlling the brain problems commonly found in hypothyroidism. Nearly all natural medicine doctors tend to use Armour thyroid which is a mixture of mono and di-iodothryonine and T3 and T4, the entire range of thyroid hormones.

http://www.mercola.com/blog/2004/dec/7/hormones_influence_sexual_orientation http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/12/05/ngay05.xml


Again, I'm not saying they're right or wrong, I don't think we can know yet. Unlike you, you've already made up your mind about what they can or cannot possibly be able to discover or prove... Or so your past few posts and tone would indicate about your opinion of their opinions.

I don't see how it makes much difference.

But I wouldn't disagree with what you have said, I just don't think that it is possible for changing the sexuality to be a negative.
I agree - I'd consider impairments such as mental retardation as negative in nature. Another problem is that unlike with the option of being an athlete or intellectual etc., homosexuality is not a choice. You'd never have a choice in the matter to begin with. This is why in this case I said it'd more likely be up to the child to consider it a violation of itself, or not (context would be important in this case - to claim being engineered to be homosexual is negative in a highly tolerant society would indeed be dubious).