It looks like Mr. Howard might be right. From the UK
Women might soon be able to produce sperm in a development that could allow lesbian couples to have their own biological daughters, according to a pioneering study published today.
Scientists are seeking ethical permission to produce synthetic sperm cells from a woman’s bone marrow tissue after showing that it possible to produce rudimentary sperm cells from male bone-marrow tissue.
The researchers said they had already produced early sperm cells from bone-marrow tissue taken from men. They believe the findings show that it may be possible to restore fertility to men who cannot naturally produce their own sperm.
Please share widely!
Poor wonderful John Hosty! People keep confusing him with John Howard, the green eggs ‘n ham guy. EaBo, I suggest two things if you want this diary to be taken seriously.
* Edit the title
* Clarify whether you think John Howard is right on a) technologies for s-s conception, b) that s-s couples must be forced to sign away their conception right, or c) both. I think a real discussion on the ethics of all forms of assisted conception could be very interesting. But if you plan to entertain the anti-gay angle John Howard insists on, the diary will be rightly ridiculed and largely ignored.
a) same sex conception should not be legal. It is perilously close to cloning and should not be allowed. It is not an anti gay thing. Because if a gay couple wants to adopt or go to a sperm bank, I have no problem with that.
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b) My anser to a) pretty much answers that.
should they be prevented from using this method too, or only if they are gay?
Restoring health is medicine, and people should be allowed to try to restore their gametes, just like they should be allowed to restore their spinal cord cells, etc. Gay or straight, people should be allowed to pursue medicine to restore their functional health. In principle, anyway. In practice, there might be delays until people feel it doesn’t have adverse health affects on other people. But in principle, it wouldn’t have adverse effects, because it restored health. Note that it doesn’t involve “coaxing” it into the “other” gamete, it doesn’t require manual and random stabs at genetic engineering in order to mutate the imprinting so that it might pass as the other sex gamete.
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People should only be allowed to join their gametes with a person’s of the other sex. If they use a process to produce their gamete, that’s their private medical business. We should not allow people to create people from engineered dna, including engineered haploid dna of gametes.
For me it is a fundamental ethical issue. It crosses a line, none of us should want to cross, no matter how badly we want children that are genetically ours. No matter what our orientation is.
…(and there’s always a but) let me ask you this.
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It crosses a line, none of us should want to cross, no matter how badly we want children that are genetically ours. No matter what our orientation is.
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Oh, and just what line has that crossed? A few scenarios:
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(i) Opposite sex couple. Male infertile (not enough sperm). Let’s assume the female can provide an egg. They impregnate one (or many) of the female’s eggs via IVF (in vitro vertilization) from a known or unknown sperm donor. Cross the line? If not, why not?
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(ii) Opposite sex couple. Male infertile (not enough sperm). Let’s assume the female can provide an egg. They impregnate one (or many) of the female’s eggs using genetic material from the husband. Cross the line? If not, why not?
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(iii) Female (whether or not part of a couple) who is probably infertile. She is 61 years old, and she, voluntarily impregnated with a fertilized egg from a 20somthingyearold. Cross the line? (It’s happened, They’ve brought babies to term.) If it doesn’t cross your “line,” why doesn’t it?
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(iv) Same sex couple (male, for simplicity; I don’t want to get into the Virginia/Vermont spat). Both males fertile, but they decide that one will be the sperm doner to a willing female after which the male couple will raise the child. Does that cross the line? If not, why not?
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And, finally,
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(v) Same sex couple (male or female) using technology that hasn’t been developed yet, are able through IVF-like technology to combine the respective parts of their genomes to develop a fertilized egg that includes both their genes.
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You and Mr. Howard suggest that that last crosses the line. But neither of you have adduced any argument to suggest why the last “crosses the line,” whereas you ignore the others.
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And, I will tell you, gentlemen, “I don’t wanna (allow this to happen), because I don’t wanna” is not an argument.
Anything that combines a man and a woman’s unadulterated gametes does not cross the line. The egg and sperm law would not prohibit any of those first scenarios, which all join a man and a woman’s gametes, creating a person just like would have been created if that couple had done it naturally.
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Anything that attempts to create a person using any other method is over the line. It’s not creating a person that is the concept of the man and the woman as child, but instead creating a person that could not have come naturally from the couple. Manipulating the genes so that SSC might work, or just manipulating the genes so that its smarter or taller or stronger, are all over the line and should be prohibited.
“that could not have come naturally” Exactly what that phrase entails is the matter of debate.
then it couldn’t have come naturally. If they aren’t altered by genetic engineering, then it is still the conceptual joining of a real man and a real woman into their child.
I mean, if it were possible to transplant genes from one egg to a spem which would then proceed to fertilize an egg (or vice versa) does that constitute alteration?
A male’s genes and a female’s genes are not interchangable, they are imprinted differently. That means that some genes are “turned on” and some are “turned off” as the embryo starts dividing into a blastocyst, depending on whether the embryo is developing as a male or female. So to get a sperm from a female requirers reversing the “epigenetics” or imprinting of the genome.
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If it were as simple as transfering the nucleus, they would have done it by now, right? Instead they’ve had ONE mouse survive out of 450 embryos created from two female derived gametes, and THAT’s IT. They haven’t been able to reproduce that “success” in any other species, as far as I’m aware.
And at least to an extent, I agree with him.
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I put (iii) and (v) beyond the pale. Maybe (ii) if they had to get his genetic material from his toenail or bone marrow, and somehow use that to create the split genome ordinarily found in reroductive cells, or not if they get it by distilling the swimmers.
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Seems to me that once you start messing around with the actual genetic material, rahther than just mixing a bit of this juice here with that juice there, that you open the door to true eugenics and other not-nice stuff. That is why the shiny happy face of the Huntington’s test discussed elsewhere here is nevertheless scary. Heck, people already selectively abort Down Syndrome babies. We’re already on the slippery slope.
You seem to be against any assisted reproduction. Or at least you are against this bone marrow sort. So why initially state that you are against only one population’s use of it, when you are actually against anyone using it? Why set yourself up for understandable accusations of homobigotry?
I’m agaisnt all non egg and sperm conception, as that is the best way to have a blanket ban on genetic engineering. I have always been clear that all non egg and sperm conception, all genetic engineering, should be banned. When we are discussing the rights of same-sex couples, I point out that same-sex couples should not have conception rights, and all marriages should have conception rights. Then I suggest the compromise I’ve been pushing to stop genetic engineering and enact equal protections for same-sex couples via civil unions.
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The first use of genetic engineering in humans may be same-sex conception, it may be presented as a rights issue, with the implication that we have to allow genetic engineering because it is the only way for a same-sex couple to have children. Then the floodgates would be open, because we will have crossed the line into genetic engineering already.
I would be stunned if this turns out to be true. I think it’s much more likely that the first instance will be something like making it possible for people who carry genetic diseases that are relatively localized on the genome (like Huntington’s Disease) to reproduce without risking transmitting the disease to their offspring. It’s got better PR appeal, and I would think (though I could be wrong) that it’s technologically easier.
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It’s so interesting that only now, in this thread, after months of debate on this site, you have finally explained a bit more clearly what your position is. I continue to be utterly baffled, though, as to why you focus so single-mindedly on same-sex conception, when what you’re really interested in is genetic engineering in general. You end up having to spend so much time explaining that you’re not a bigot that your larger point — which is, IMHO, a much more interesting one — gets lost.
It’s hard to get people to see why we should prohibit genetic engineering to stop Huntington’s disease from being passed to offspring. It doesn’t seem very urgent to stop genetic engineering if that’s the big problem, does it? Bill McKibben makes about as good a case as you can make in Enough, but that didn’t bring us any closer to banning genetic engineering. There is hardly any momentum there, and very little hope that we will ban GE on McKibben or Kass style arguments alone. Wesley Smith doesn’t think we can stop genetic engineering, and groups like Council for Responsible Genetics in Cambridge are also pretty much resigned to losing this battle.
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And meanwhile, state after state is passing marriage amendments that do absolutely nothing to stop same-sex conception, but there is lots of energy and momentum and action to be tapped into there. If those people could be brought to the genetic engineering battle, we might actually stop genetic engineering while protecting marriage, and doing it in such a permenant and principled way that they wouldn’t object to civil unions.
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And meanwhile, scientists are working very hard on same-sex conception, and LGBT groups are already claiming a right to attempt it. Some doctors think it will be tried in the next couple of years. And meanwhile, people are forgetting that marriage is supposed to guarantee conception rights, which means we are coming dangerously close to severing marriage from conception rights, putting all of our individual conception rights in jeopardy. Eugenicists can’t stand that people make individual decisions about who to conceive with, based on such silly things as falling in love with that person. They want to let us love who we want to, but get us to make reproductive decisions entirely seperately, using different genes, engineered genes. But as long as some of us are still having babies the old fashioned way, it won’t be fair. We should all be created equal, as the union of a man and a woman that consensually choose each other to marry.
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what’s wrong with using genetic engineering to prevent the transmission of Huntington’s, or to fix the defect in people who already carry it?
It’s basically the slippery slope argument, that it will start as innoccous little fixes that everyone agrees are fine, and move on from there. If it’s OK to prevent Huntington’s, then why not let them prevent obesity or tone-deafness, etc. That’s why McKibben called his book “Enough” – we are at the enough point right now, and the line is clear. We should not allow any genetic engineering, so that we are all the children of our parents, not of scientists and government beaurocracies deciding which changes are OK and which aren’t.
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Enough
on SS conception specifically rather than huntingtons disease because you see an opportunity to get momentum. That means you either really are concerned more with SS relationships than you are with GE and this is just a rationalization or this is really true and you are simply more willing to make your point by exploiting the bigoted feelings out there since they are more likely to get the momentum you seek.
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Thats why people find you hard to listen too.
I’m trying to stop genetic engineering. Long ago I started warning people that gay rights would eventually be used to justify genetic engineering and eugenics, and people just laughed at me. I am embarrassed by lots of bigoted positions out there, but really, it is the gay rights side that relies on them much more than I do. Bigoted arguments just muddy the waters and allow all sorts of time to go sailing past, as well as hurt real people who do not deserve to be disparaged or hurt. So you should be thankful that I’m trying to convert these people to productive arguments.
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I think most of their ill-ease with homosexuality comes from a sense buried deep down that it will bring along a Gattaca-Brave New World style beaurocracy of eunochs and hatcheries. But because they don’t really know what they fear, they just spout banalities from the Bible and stuff like that.
then I think a lot of their distrust and anger will dissipate. Once we have firmly established the finishing point, and said that gay rights does not go so far as to require genetic engineering and a huge government beaurocracy telling us what genes will be in our children, then people might be more tolerant of people who are simply choosing how to spend their lives. Once we have established that there will be no sinister overthrow of natural conception and the right of people to have their own children, and once we have confirmed and respected the right of all people to marry and have children with someone of the other sex, then we might really see a dawn of new tolerance.
I think you grossly misunderstand the nature of the antithapy of “fundmanetalist” Christianists towards homosexuals.
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It isn’t distress that people might have cloned babies, it is distress that homosexuals are allowed to exist.
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These folks think the Bible is literally true, and for whatever reason are particularly fond of the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, the entire community is often held responsible for the sins of its individual members. The conquest of Isreal and the annihilation of Judea by Babylon and Assyria is believed to have happened because Isreal and Judea tolerated sin in their midst. What is the worst sin to tolerate in your midst? Well, just look at what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah. In other words, in their view, entire nations fall because they tolerate homosexuality.
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Maybe the ancients were afraid of Greeks, and needed their God to smite those sexually loose Hellenists.
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These guys could care less about whether homosexuals conceive, because even if they don’t, or can’t, they will continue to exist. They regard this as a mortal threat to our entire nation–because we are risking God’s vengeance– and their God ain’t no gentle New Testament neighbor-lover, forgiver and judge-not-er. He is a brutal and merciless killer to be feared. This is why they are so impervious to the obvious: “What do you care who someone else shtupps, when it has zippo to do with you?” argument.
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Your proposal is DOA because there just ain’t no compromise with these folks to be found. So why should anyone bother? Better to just defeat them.
you should really be harping on GE.
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I have actually allowed for the possibility that you may indeed be right in that the medical techniques for SSC could present health risks to a population. It is actually an interesting case because, ostensibly the risks would not be to indivituals but to the health of the population as a pool.
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I’d like to see some thourough evidence before condeming any potentially helpful medical technique to the forbidden zone.
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The problem is that even if you are right, the fact that you instead choose to harp on SSM and want to invent conception rights leads me to conclude you are either a bigot or a poor advocate against GE.
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It really isn’t a mystery that you would feel like you are fighting an uphill battle then, is it?
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The techniques of your argument make you very dismissable.
He doesn’t want a reasoned discussion about assisted reproduction, which would be useful. He hates gay people. He’s happy to take away one of the few human rights we have reasonably good access to – reproduction. Why BMG entertains this constatnt stream of bigotry he spews I do not understand. Take anything he says and substitute “black” or “mixed-race” for LGBT and it would not be tolerated. Why is the relentless homobigotry tolerated?
And in the course of teasing apart the actual argument in this thread, I think we’re getting quite close to finding out.
“one of the few human rights that we have reasonably good access to”
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This is a wee bit of an overstatment, and a dilution of the concept of human rights.
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That said, I agree with your overall point, as I have posted elsewhere in this thread.
Of course I want a reasoned discussion about assisted reproduction. I do not hate gay people. The law I am trying to get passed will not prohibit “assisted reproduction” if by that you mean anything that is currently possible, such as sperm donation, one night stands, divorce, etc. I’m not in favor of any of those things, but as they are here to stay and don’t involve genetic engineering, I’m not going out of my way to stop them.
As to you comments about substituting “black” for “LGBT”, well, that’s ridiculous, and shows how little effort you have put into actually understanding what I am talking about. Male and female genomes are complementary, both imprintings are required to jin together succesfully. There is no such distinction between people of different “races”, a black man’s sperm is imprinted the same way a white man’s is, and a person of any “race” can ethically conceive with someone of any other “race”, as long as they are a man and a woman.
That is, that you are opposed to what I will call genetic engineering or cloning, you sure choose a lousy way to go about it.
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It is as if you want to ban cloning, but only for black people, because you might be able to attach it to a reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act or something.
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I suppose that your position is: (i) Christianist voters are adamantly opposed to SSM; (ii) Christianist voters are adamantly opposed to stem cell research, which includes all of the cloning and genetic engineering that we have discussed. You say, hey, maybe these Christianist voters would take a loss on (i) IF they can get a for sure locked up win on (ii).
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Problem is, (i) nobody except you thinks the Christianists would accept SSM under any circumstances short of a memo from JC himself, and (ii) the Christianist objection to stem cell resarch goes way, way beyond same gender cloning/reproduction, so there is little liklihood that they would ever find your proposed compromise acceptable.
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The result is that you fulminate endlessly against the SSM folks on here, and look like a bigoted crank.
I’m not suggesting they take a loss on marriage! Equally important to stopping genetic engineering is preserving natural conception rights. All marriages must continue to allow the couple the right to conceive children together, using the marriage’s natural gametes. So there can’t be any same-sex marriages, since same-sex marriages would be prohibited from conceiving children together. So this solution would preserve marriage, and in a principled and permanent manner.
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I do think Christianists would support civil unions, as long as they are differentiated from marriage in a meaningful manner.
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The egg and sperm law woudn’t prohibit stem cell research, but it wouldn’t make it any harder to ban, either.
At least your position on SSM is clear. I suspect Laurel will feel vindicated.
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All this time you have been telling people on this site that “you can have your marriage if you agree to forever forgo same sex conception.” Then, when people are baffled, you demand why they “insist” on this right. So if I didn’t decribe your proposal, then I have no idea what it is.
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It sure sounds like this concept of “natural conception rights” is something that you have invented to rationalize allowing heterosexual couples who have, for whatever reason, difficulty in having a child, to utilize whatever means necessary to procreate. Which, once again, makes you sound like nothing more than a bigoted crank.
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Finally, and I hope this doesn’t come as a shock, but the ability to conceive is, both legally and biologically, entirely unrealted to one’s marital status.
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Single people shtupp. Single women get pregnant. Sometimes on purpose. Unmarried couples have children together, too. Also, married people occasionally may choose not to shtupp, or find themselves unable to conceive despite energetic attempts to do so. Yet, somehow they remain married.
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Homosexual people are, I think it is fair to say, unlikely to conceive via shtupping, at least not without some intervention by technology. I agree with you that this potential technology is creepy and dangerous. No more so, however, than for the disappointedly un-pregnant heterosexual couple.
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One is at a loss, then, to come up with anything other than a malign explanation for your decision to link the two so with such determination.
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All this time you have been telling people on this site that “you can have your marriage if you agree to forever forgo same sex conception.”
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No, I’ve been saying we can put together a compromise that gives same-sex couples equal protections via civil unions that do not grant conception rights. Right now same-sex marriages in Mass do not have equal protections, they do not have federal recognition or any security from abandonment. I’ve been as clear as I can that marriage must continue to guarantee conception rights.
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Not all marriages can, but they all have a right to try. Marriage means we allow the concept of children coming from this couple. We shoudl not have any marriages that are prohibited form attempting. But same-sex couples should be prohibited from attempting. It’s not just a question of technology, but of what is being done to the genes. Joining a man and a woman’s genes does not require random experiments to change the imprinting, but joining same-sex genes does. It is unethical in principle, even before we get to the specifics of how it might be attempted.
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Marriage is a license, it is a right to conceive. Not all relationships should have a right to conceive together, there are some relations where there is a supportable basis to prohibit it.
Regarding : John Howard @ Fri Apr 13, 2007 at 14:18:22 PM EDT I will merely point out that humans (and other animals, btw) have been engaged in “genetic engineering” since time immemorial. How do you think that the various breed of dogs came into being? They were bread from wolves. Cows, corn, and so-forth were genetically engineered. They were engineered using techniques that are different that we have today, by they were engineered.
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Where do you draw the “line”? Apparently, you really don’t understand the real question: Where is the line, and who drew it? You have drawn a line, but you have been completely unable and unwilling to explain why you drew the line where you did. Why should anyone toe your line?
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Explain yourself. And next question.
We should all have a right to conceive with someone of the other sex using our unadulterated gametes. No one should have a right to create a person that is not the union of a man and a woman. All we control is the choice of who to conceive with, we don’t control the genes of the person we are creating. See? It isn’t hard to draw that line. We choose out mate, not the genes of our child. We shouldn’t allow the government or other people to force us to make that choice, to use screened gametes or force us to choose certain mates like we do with animals.
not John Howard, who you have let answer it. Does he speak for you on this? He is clearly a homobigot, but EaBo, you claim to not be. So I’d like to hear your reasoning on this question:
You seem to be against any assisted reproduction. Or at least you are against this bone marrow sort. So why initially state that you are against only one population’s use of it, when you are actually against anyone using it? Why set yourself up for understandable accusations of homobigotry? Would you like to reframe your diary?
I’ve been away from the computer for awhile. I copied the first three paragraphs of the article. I was saying he may be right in regards to non egg and sperm conception, which no matter how you slice it is pretty much dangerously close to cloning. So no I won’t rephrase my diary.
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I’ve said here and elsewhere that his fixation on only same sex dilutes the real issue.
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Whether used by lesbian or straight couples, it would be egg & sperm reproduction, and it would involve zero genetic engineering.
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Maybe you will consider going to the source and reading up on the facts. Or do you consider pasting 3 paragraphs from an online paper exhaustive research?
It would require considerable genetic engineering to get a viable sperm using a woman’s stem cells. It would not require GE to get a sperm from a man’s stem cells.
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It does show that the law can’t simply be an “egg and sperm” law, it has to specify that the egg comes from and would reproduce a woman, and the sperm from and would reproduce a man, and that they are unadulterated, they aren’t modified or coaxed in any way.
Sperm is created in a testicle. Not a test tube. So let me rephrase. I am for natural egg and sperm reproduction. Not egg and sperm reproduction created in some sort of Dr. Frankensteins laboratory. Is that more clear. I’m sorry but I don’t consider a “sperm” made from the inside of a bone a sperm. That’s genetic engineering of pseudo cloning. Not natural or even assisted reproduction.
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Am I more clear. No matter what those scientists want to call it. It is not sperm.
that if i showed you two sperm cells, one creted from bone marrow stem cells and one in a testicle, you could not tell the difference. however, if sperm provenance is important to you, that’s fine.
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but you need to be very clear about what you are saying, because your terminology has been completely off base with your intent. you are absolutely wrong to call sperm culture from stem cells “genetic engineering”, and you will be rightfully ridiculed for touting your engineering degree if you continue to fog the discussion by using improper terminology.
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so, let me summarize what i think you are saying: the only procreation you think is legit is via heterosexual fucking. all other types, whether using non-testicular sperm, or egg fertilization by testicular sperm outside of the uterus, or anything else, are disallowed. Do I read you right? If so, why not say so? why throw mud on gay couples by framing your discussion around a procreation technique that does not even exist when you take issue with procreation methods that heterosexual couples are using right now? are you heterosexist? your framing and sloppy rhetoric point that way. i hope you will prove me wrong.
A naturally produced sperm and a naturally produced egg, whether put together by intercourse, by test tube, by turkey baster, by any method, is ok with me. If you read my comments in the thread, without your pre-conceived notions a) of me and b) of my position you would see this.
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Taking bone marrow, extracting a stem cell from it, tricking that stem cell to grow into a “sperm cell” is exactly genetic engineering, and its wrong.
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I don’t know how much clearer I can be.
your insistance on rewriting the definition of genetic engineering is sad and laughable. your unwillingness to make a clear statement in the body of the diary that this is not about same-sex couples for you but about sperm provenance is telling. good luck being taken seriously by adults. i thought there was potential for rational conversation with you. guess i was wrong.
I don’t often change a blog posting if I make a comment in the thread that updates my point. You may, I don’t it’s a matter of style not “telling”. I posted the first three paragraphs of an article and provided a link to read the whole article. I do that often. No prejudice should be implied from that.
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On genetic engineering. How you can’t see that taking a stem cell from bone marrow, and guiding it to become a “sperm” cell is genetic engineering baffles me. This can only be done through manipulation of the stem cell on the genetic level. It is genetic engineering, perhaps your ignorance of the technology is clouding your view? All stem cell therapy is genetic engineering at some level.
genetic engineering is taking genetic material from one place and inserting it into another place to create a new trait. if they were trying to create weavil-resistant babies by inserting a Bt gene, yes, that would be genetic engineering. culturing a germ cell is not genetic engineering. it is merely changing the location of where the process takes place. i agree with you that it is very reasonable to ask whether there is a chance of genetic damage during the process of making sperm from bone marrow stem cells. however, any such damage would be random and not the deliberate splicing that is genetic engineering.
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you have already seen how every thinking person on this and your blog balk at John Howard because his message is intertwined with nonsensical ravings. Make the same mistake at your own credibility’s peril. (p.s. you may not realize it, but i’m being nice by pointing this out to you.)
exactly how they intend to get a sperm out of a woman’s stem cells. So far in an animal experiment they think they have gotten sperm out of a male’s stem cells. They use the word “coax” in this article, and in the other article I’ve been linking to about Dr Richard Scott in NJ, they say
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So, there they use the word “engineer changes” (my emphasis, and I corrected the PGC acronym where the suthor wrote PCG, these are “Primordial Germ Cells – aka gamates in an early stage of development)
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Laurel, why is it so important to you? Who cares what anyone’s motives are? Whether your motives are so that you can have a daughter that is half you and half another woman, or whether it is to open the door to other forms of genetic engineering, or whether it is so that same-sex couples have the same rights in principle as a man and a woman, it doesn’t matter to me. What matters to me is that we stop genetic engineering and preserve natural conception rights. Yes, that will effect same-sex couples more than a man and a woman, but that would be a really stupid reason to oppose banning genetic engineering. Unfortunately, it seems to be working as a reason, it is the eugenicists ace in the hole, it is what they are counting on to get their foot in the door. They;re counting on people being stupid ideological zombies that are so afraid of being called homophobes that they stand aside while genetic engineering is introduced. It will be really hard to stop it after it has already been going on for a while, as we’ve seen with IVF, it just picks up steam.
Did you read it. It had Stem Cell research linked as a subset of Genetic Engineering.
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How do you think a stem cell from bone marrow becomes the start of a sperm cell. Through magic.
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No, they engineer it so that the genes that are present in it to create any cell are supressed and the genes that will create a sperm cell are dominant. If that isn’t genetic engineering I don’t know what is.
They probably have to do things to change the imprinting. I don’t know if the imprinting is different for different types of cells, or if the difference comes from somewhere else. If it takes random experiments trying to change the imprinting to turn a male’s stem cells into sperm cells, then I would say it is too risky and unethical to allow, since it will be the child that assumes the risk. I do think that there is a principle of medicine and medical privacy and marriage that makes it hard to rule out in principle any method of regenerating sperm cells or egg cells for people that are not healthy and cannot produce them in their gonads. We might be able to prohibit the general procedure, but a married man and woman will always have the right in principle to try and conceive, because in principle their genes are complimentary and they can choose each other to conceive with.
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But we shouldn’t be allowed to choose someone whose genes are publicly not complementary and who publicly would have to do genetic engineering, someone who in principle should not be allowed to conceive with.
If you are against the procedure, be against the procedure. If you want to stop Gay people from having children just say so.
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I’m against the procedure.
It has nothing to do with gay people, or any specific procedures. It is about genetics, privacy, and marriage rights. I want to stop genetic engineering, and preserve marriage rights. I am certain that stopping genetic engineering would prohibit same-sex conception in principle. I am not certain that stopping genetic engineering would prohibit growing new gametes for a person that could not produce them in their gonads. Even if it did require genetic engineering to do that, there is a fundamental basic civil right to marry and procreate, and a zone of medical privacy that allows people to seek assistance from a doctor in order to be able to do that. So it might prove impossible to ban creating replacement gonads in principle. But there is no basic civil right to do genetic engineering, and same-sex conception cannot be kept private or between a person and their doctor, and we do not have to give marriage rights to all couples if there is a supportable basis to deny that kind of relationship. And there is, we should not allow people to try to create offspring from two people of the same-sex, or three people, or one person, or a man and his dog. Only from a man and a woman, over 18, consensually, not married to someone else, not too closely related.
John,
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I’m not missing the point. I’m being steadfast in my principles. If it is wrong to artificially create sperm, then it is wrong. Plain and simple. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. It is wrong for Gay, Straight, Black, White, Asian, or whomever. It is not a reproduction right to create a sperm from bone marrow. It is wrong. If your argument was truly against genetic engineering you’d see that.
That’s where we seem to disagree. I don’t know that it is obviously wrong, I think it could be seen as a legitimate medical procedure, at least in principle. I’m not against banning it, or IVF for that matter, I just see that it will be problematic to ban it from a civil rights stand point. It is proving to be difficult to even regulate IVF for these reasons. There are lots of people, myself included, who think IVF should be banned, not just because it is risky, but because of how it affects our attitudes about children being blessings that come on their own accord and our priorities about protecting people’s natural fertility.
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But just because it might (might) be legitimate to help a diseased man produce sperm, does not mean that it is legitmate to help a woman produce sperm. One is a private medical procedure, the other is a public act of genetic engineering that can and should be prohibited in principle. It’s not about gay or straight. A gay man could privately use medical help to produce sperm so he could mate with a female, but it wouldn’t be private or medical to produce an egg so he can mate with a male. Straight men shouldn’t be allowed to mate with males either.
Quick question are you against gay adoptions, or a lesbian conceiving a child through a sperm donor? I’m not.
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If you are pro-life, as I am, that is a very tough argument to be for adoption over abortion and against gay adoptions.
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On the other hand, as a private organization, I think Catholic Charities should be able to not facilitate gay adoptions if that is their wish. Even thought they may not be consistent.
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(Surprising you yet Laurel?)
Do you think IVF is ethically wrong? I do, but I think that privacy rights trump my opinion about it in the courts. People have a right to try to procreate using their own genes.
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I think gay parents would often be the best home for a child, and would be excellent, caring and loving parents.
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Regarding adoption agencies, I think that if someone who is trying to find a home for a child sees a gay-friendly household as being not in a child’s best interest (even if the prospective parent is not gay), they should be allowed to follow their judgement, whether it is about sexual attitudes or politics or anything, even ethnicity or race. And I think a birth-mother ought to have her preferences respected. I should add that I’m opposed to adoption in general, and think that foster homes and legal guardians are more truthful and respectful of a person’s dignity. Adoption is a legal lie that harms society. And placing kids in homes should be driven by the need to find a home for the child, not by a desire to find a child for a home. Birth certificates should not be changed, they should list the biological parents and maybe even require paternity and maternity verification. A different document should record legal guardianship.
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I am against conceiving using unmarried gametes, intentionally creating a broken home. I think it should be a crime to intentionally join unmarried gametes. I feel that way regardless if there will be a mother and father in the home or two mothers, even if the bio father stays in the picture. I do not think that it is OK for heterosexual or gay couples. Marriages only have a right to conceive using their own gametes, not using gametes from outside the marriage, and unmarried couples do not have a right to conceive.
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I’m not pro-life, but I am against legal abortion because it creates unequal conception rights for men and women. Men should have the exact same control over their reproduction that women have, no one should have control over another person’s reproduction.
Laurel-
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Perhaps this narrow definition of “genetic engineering” is true. It is interesting, however, that it neatly exempts wholesale removal and replacement of the genome–cloning.
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What was described above– the making of a reproductive cell from a somatic cell– is pretty darn close to cloning. Trying to distinguish it from the bad things Monsanto does in order to make it sound peachy keen misses the point.
This difficulty with defining exactly what constitutes “genetic engineering” is why it is much easier to make a blanket ban on all attempts at conception that do not join a living (married*) man and a woman’s own gametes. So that law would ban cloning as well as genetic engineering and designer babies and also same-sex conception.
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*I suspect this would make it harder to pass this law, so we should leave out the “married” part. That way the law only prohibits things that no one has even done yet, which ought to make it easier to pass. Besides, we’ll never be able to stop all unmarried conception, it happens every day. But ideally, the best way to stop unethical conception experiments is to prohibit all intentional unmarried conception and just prohibit same-sex marriage.
It is his focus on the single sex conception that is bizarre.
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Eaboclipper is right that single sex conception, as evidenced above, is an awful lot likie cloning or extreme genetic engineering. The real problem with cloning and some of the more extreme forms of “enhanced” reproduction, regardless of whether it is done by single sex couples or otherwise, is that it drops massive risk of life and heath threatening consequences on an innocent, largely for purposes of self-indulgence.
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There is no right to conceive, and more than there is a right to have two functioning hands. Some people can, and some people–arbitrarily chosen by forces not within our control– can’t. Whether the person can’t because problems with the swimmers or eggs, because they’re 60, or because the thought of sex in the manner historically likely to result in conception is not appealing to them is no matter.
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Eabo’s latter comment about “restoring” health, to me, highlights the inherent self-indulgence of the issue. A fella doesn’t need sperm cells to be healthy. The only reason he wants the sperm is to make another person genetically related to him. In order to do this, he is willing to risk all manners of horror for that other person resulting from the process by which that person was made. Exposing that innocent to those kinds of risk because it will make him feel better about himself in some way is the height of unethical behavior. Adopt, for goodness sakes.
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I feel the same way when aging couples use IVF to have septuplets that are all born months premature, or the occasional 70-year old mom that makes the news.
I wouldn’t even begin to say you could do this to “restore health”.
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It is wrong on every level. Straight, gay, black, white, on every level this is wrong.
I knew who wrote it, yet the question was posed to you, and I typed ypour name. My bad.
I mean, guyals, what if the baby grows up STRAIGHT?!?!?
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Bummer, huh?
we love them anyway. after all, they couldn’t help it, they were born that way, poor dears.
…that speculated (these were knowledgeable scientists who were doing the speculating) that within 50 years or so, same-sex couples could actually produce a genome that, after being impregnated into an egg, would be able to bear fruit. As far as I can tell, that is the root of Mr. Howard’s really rather silly non-problem.
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The (rather right-wing) London Independent, from which you got your column is really rather silly. The issue that they are describing is the disambiguation of chromosomes from two separate parties to be implanted in an egg. Females have two X chromosomes*, and males have an X and a Y.
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*Actually, it’s substantially more complicated than that. It is known that there are persons who have XXY, XXYY and so forth chromosomes, but they usually exhibit female characteristics. Biology isn’t as clear-cut as some people like to believe.
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I have no particular opinion on this particular issue, but I’ll just remind you that one of the Southern Baptist theologians has recently suggested genetic engineering to get rid of gay people.
Eventually, during the study of the human genome or in some other way, someone is going to stumble on a “gay” gene or some other biological phenomenon that differentiates hetero from homosexual.
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When that happens, it will pose a thorny issue.
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Someone should ask that Baptist if he is advocating abortion of a fetus if it can be determined that the fetus will develop into a gay person. Either his head would asplode, or he will be revealed to be thoroughly unprincipled in his absolutist morality.
that if a prenatal test is found for sexual orientation, the straight fetuss could just as easily be aborted as the gay ones. Does he really want to lead us down that road?
I’m agreeing with you a lot today.
CentralMassDad @ Fri Apr 13, 2007 at 13:20:36 PM EDT
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Eventually, during the study of the human genome or in some other way, someone is going to stumble on a “gay” gene or some other biological phenomenon that differentiates hetero from homosexual.
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It is probable that there is a genetic background noise for homosexuality. Twin tests suggest an increased likelihood of homosexuality, but, like twin tests for left-handedness, the correlation is not perfect (actually, it is far less than 50%).
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Cut to the chase. I actually raised this question on a conservative web site message board about 8 years ago–would anti-abortionist christian conservatives remove their opposition to aborting fetuses if there was an enhanced likelihood that the baby might turn out to be gay. The resounding answer was no.
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The interesting thing was, at about the same time, I read a commentary on a NYTimes gay rights board that indicated that a liberal would seriously consider aborting. The reason that was given was that gay kids and gay people have too many crosses to bear (my euphemism) and the liberal wouldn’t want to have his/her child have to bear the crosses.
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I found the distinction (conservative Christian no/liberal yes) to be quite telling. And I am neither.
I would have assumed that conservatibes would have welcomed the ability to, well, decrease the liklihood of having a child come out. I guess NARAL is worse than gay rights for them.
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The liberal response is troubling if true. It really is a slippery slope. The rationalization you cite is a true slipperly slope. First, severe birth defects. Then, Down Syndrome. Then, maybe adult-onset disease like Huntingtons. Then, homosexuality, hair color, height.
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Yeesh, what a thicket.
are you seriously going to believe that all liberals think that way? one person was quoted in one purported article from the 1990s. bfd. it means nothing. you are not that gullable, are you CMD?
First, I said “if true.”
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In any event, I didn’t intend to commit some ideological heresy by suggesting a liberal did something wrong. Rather, I thought the hypothetical did a neat job a capturing the potential evil power of this particular technology.
The liberal response is troubling if true. It really is a slippery slope. The rationalization you cite is a true slipperly slope. First, severe birth defects. Then, Down Syndrome.
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A couple of months ago, I saw an article that noted that the percentage of births of babies with Down syndrome was markedly reduced over what, historically, would be expected from previous decades. There has been recently a dearth in Downs syndrome babies. Make of it what you will, but some have speculated that aborting of fetuses who show an enhanced likelihood (I use that term for a reason) of Downs syndrome are more likely to be aborted.
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We can discuss whether or not that is ethical–and it would make for an interesting question. I actually do have a familial interest in this issue, but it involves my long dead grandmother.
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As far as I can tell, one of the reasons that there has been little interest in seeking a “gay gene” is the fear that there would be a lot of abortions of fetuses that would, after birth, be more likely to be gay.
of the reasearch done thus far in this area (an understanding that is admittitly limited to my laymens attemept to be informed about such things) is that the important factor that seems to predict orientation is the level of testoterone the fetus is exposed to and its effect on brain development.
of the science is also incomplete. but what i’ve taken away from it is that there is no “the important factor” that has yet been identified. only possible variables. also importatnt to keep in mind is that lots of this research has been done on just men. is it applicable to women? no one knows.
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my personal stance is: who cares if it’s nature or nurture or both? who cares if it is biologically mandated or an actual choice? because no matter how you slice it, it is normal, happy and healthy. all animals display traits within a range. biological beings are not binary. most species have homosexual individuals (see Bruce Bagemihl’s book Biological Exuberance). some species have individuals that change sex with age or social position. it’s all good. it all works. we’re all surviving and reproducing. determining the biological underpinnings of sexual orientation is interesting, but totally frivolous and beside the point.
…and I probably don’t understand it, because it is unlikely that he doesn’t have the slightest idea what he’s writing about.
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My last comment on the subject. The comment is as follows.
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The only issue regarding “sperm” and “egg” is the set of nuclear chromosomes that are introduced into the egg. (Let’s ignore the mitochondrial DNA for the moment). The egg comes from somewhere. The egg will have a set of nuclear chromosomes that may (or may not remain) in the egg. The source of the nuclear chromosomes may be from opposite sex couples, same-sex couples, the same individual (a clone), whatever. The combination of chromosomes is introduced into the egg, the egg is implanted (somewhere), and a being may, or may not, be produced.
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I seriously do not understand Howard’s “egg and sperm” silliness. Substantially, the same procedure is used in virtually every IVF (in vitro fertilization) procedure since Baby Louise was born thirty (or so) years ago and in any IVF procedure used in farm animals decades before.
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Howard’s conflating this scientific issue with same-sex marriage is just silliness. And I’m done with dealing with silly.
But with IVF, they put the egg and sperm together and let the sperm fertilize the egg. They also have a method now where they inject an individual sperm into the egg. It is natural conception, it is a woman’s egg being fertilized by a man’s sperm.
Genetic engineering is totally different, read Enough to understand the issues surrounding why we should not allow anything but natural man woman conception. We can’t do same-sex conception without genetically engineering one of the parent’s genes so that it is genetically imprinted like the other sex, like they did to make Kaguya the mouse. They need to “coax” the genetics to get a sperm from a woman’s genes. That is where the huge risk comes from.
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Raj, do you think a same-sex couple should have a right to create a baby together? Probably, like Laurel, you do. In which case, why do you care if it has anything to do with marriage? It’s only if you agree that same-sex couples should have the right to conceive children together that it makes a difference, because all marriages must continue to guarantee conception rights. We can’t have any marriages that do not have a right to conceive children together, because it would create a Gattaca type world where people were not allowed to have natural children.
I keep leaving out the “…not!”
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It’s only if you agree that same-sex couples should NOT have the right to conceive that it matters what it has to do with marriage. If same-sex couples have the right to conceive together, then we would never notice a conflict with the rights of a same-sex marraige. Though surely in that situation, you would use the opposite argument to argue that SSM should be allowed since they are allowed to conceive together, but right now that is a verboten argument to bring up, the current strategy is to cover up same-sex conception and hope no one knows it is a demand of gay activists.