Whoa. This presents us with a real ethical dilemma:
SCIENTISTS are conducting experiments to change the sexuality of “gay” sheep in a programme that critics fear could pave the way for breeding out homosexuality in humans.
The technique being developed by American researchers adjusts the hormonal balance in the brains of homosexual rams so that they are more inclined to mate with ewes.
It raises the prospect that pregnant women could one day be offered a treatment to reduce or eliminate the chance that their offspring will be homosexual. Experts say that, in theory, the “straightening” procedure on humans could be as simple as a hormone supplement for mothers-to-be, worn on the skin like an anti-smoking nicotine patch.
The research, at Oregon State University in the city of Corvallis and at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, has caused an outcry. Martina Navratilova, the lesbian tennis player who won Wimbledon nine times, and scientists and gay rights campaigners in Britain have called for the project to be abandoned.
Navratilova defended the “right” of sheep to be gay. She said: “How can it be that in the year 2006 a major university would host such homophobic and cruel experiments?” She said gay men and lesbians would be “deeply offended” by the social implications of the tests.
But the researchers argue that the work is valid, shedding light on the “broad question” of what determines sexual orientation. They insist the work is not aimed at “curing” homosexuality.
Approximately one ram in 10 prefers to mount other rams rather than mate with ewes, reducing its value to a farmer. Initially, the publicly funded project aimed to improve the productivity of herds.
Would a mother be justified in wearing a ‘straightening patch’ to try to assure the heterosexuality of her child? What about patches to increase brain function or make other potential enhancements, like size or strength?
What moral principles would you appeal to if you thought it wrong to tinker with the natural process of pregnancy?
This is why the world needs more educated science reporters.
First of all, “homosexuality” is normal in normal wild populations. It serves a purpose, or it wouldn’t be perpetuated in our genome.
Manipulating the genes or embryological development of domesticated animals is as old as Mesopotamia; that doesn’t make it right…
…But it doesn’t make it a slippery slope that inevitably leads to humans, either.
I don’t know. You can debate the word ‘inevitable’.
But, if they develop a hormone treatment that claims to greatly reduce the likelihood of homosexuality, my guess is that most woman will want to take it. Especially for second third and fourth children, where studies show the likelihood increases.
I’d be interested to see the polling, but I’m guessing it would be quite popular.
As in “stupid things dumb people do”.
“oh dear, I am so worried that my child may be gay that I am willing to take supposedly preventative measures that could very well have other, more profound side affects, and, by doing so, risk the health of my unborn child.”
This may work in sheep, but what about humans? Would such measures produce an overly aggressive human, or one that is inclined to fight before thinking? Maybe short on deductive reasoning but long on punching others who disagree with them in the nose? Maybe they can take it one step further and develop a hormone patch that will result in the child being born a brainwashed religious fundie, the kind of person who would buy into this to begin with.
Any woman who even thinks of doing this is nuts.
I agree that any hormonal treatment that is strong enough to change sexual orientation will probably be strong enough to have other profound effects on personality. And aggression levels are likely to be involved, although not necessarily.
A decision to take such a treatment would have to be informed by the fact that you are changing the very character and make-up of your unborn child, and with unpredictable results.
I think the issue is a difficult one to work out ethically, and even more so legally.
If we think about sexual orientation it can become a political issue more than an ethical one, but if we just think about say, promoting athleticism…where do we draw the line?
Vitamins are okay, but a hormone patch is not?
As Anne Dicker said, it is pretty hard to keep parents from trying to improve the children’s prospects in life. Could we wind up with a black market for child enhancement drugs? Or could the rich wind up as the only people that can afford to enhance their children?
Lots of scary prospects and not a lot of easy answers.
Parents: your children are not your own, they belong to themselves.
I think this is the ethical principle that should be taken into account. It is profoundly wrong, IMO, for a parent to impose his own plans for the life of his child. Love of a child means working to foster HIS/HER life and development, irregardless of your desires. It is not very different from love in general: when you love, say, a girlfriend, you make HER wishes your own.
I love this poem – think the whole thing bears repeating:
On Children
And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, “Speak to us of Children.” And he said:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.
Yes, surely this treatment would shift the entire distribution of personalities, changing the balance of society and causing more pathology* at whatever the other end of the distribution is. Regardless of the ethical issues raised by a hypothetical precisely targeted intervention, this real-world consequence is reason enough to reject applying this technology to human beings.
——–
* Oops — a value judgment here about what I suspect the other end of the distribution would be. (But then, is there someone here who’d like to stand up and declare that making value judgments is wrong?)
I agree with Martina. This is horrendous to say the least. So it seems we have Nazi scientist in Oregon who want to make damn sure there are no more Gays and Lesbians. I would not wish being Gay on anyone as it is a hard life to lead. No matter how things change we will always have people who are prejudice and hate Gays and Lesbians just for being different. This type of bullshit just keeps the prejudice level higher. As a gay man, I am livid!!!!
I think the funding would be better used to find a patch that would save newborns from some of the many birth defects or crippling disease that affect children.
what do you think about the original purpose for the research, which was to increase the value of farmer’s herds by making the rams more fecund?
I think it is total crap also. There is a matter of natural selection in nature regardless of which species. The i in 10 rams who did not mate mount females sounds like a natural selection process built into the sheep to keep them from over breeding.
so, do you think there is a moral principle being violated if farmers intervene to cut down on how many non-reproducing rams they have?
What if they identified a gene that caused low fertility in rams, and they came up with a gene therapy treatment that restored their fertility?
Would that violate the same moral principle, or a different principle?
I know these are pretty tough questions.
I don’t have an answer for them.
I have to say that I still think it is wrong. The sheep are not reproducing for the sake of saving the breed but making cash for the farmer. If you have a farm animal that is not “producing”, you have a choice. Turn it into a family pet or butcher it for meat. Sounds harsh but that is farming reality. To me, it is the same princible.
“The sheep are not reproducing for the sake of saving the breed”
This idea — that evolution commonly leads to individuals sacrificing reproductive potential for the group — was popular among evolutionary biologists decades ago, but it turns out to be wrong. Altruistic behaviors are real, but don’t exist for this reason.
This makes the rams more mysterious, of course. Perhaps they’re proof that evolutionary biology is wrong after all, that gay rams are creations of an intelligent Designer. Quick, alert the fundies!
which was to increase the value of farmer’s herds by making the rams more fecund?
It’s probably because I’m a liberal woman and thus overly sensitive to a politics in which self described ‘moral’ arbiters, secular and sectarian, take an unnatural interest in very personal aspects of my reproductive life but I’m deeply uncomfortable when folks start assuming the same tortured logic and dominion over humans that farmers assume over their livestock, so that’s one problem.
The second problem is that with livestock there are always an overabundance of males and these are culled (killed) when they are very young. Likewise the technique of artificial insemination has been perfected and so I would question the stated rationale. If heterosexual males had the sense God gave the rest of us they would be alarmed too.
A scary development. Don’t know if you read the second page of the Times story:
I wrote about animal homosexuality a couple of months ago.
This seems to echo the debate within the deaf community about using implants in young children so that they grow up more “normal”.
Groups that have developed a special community to combat discrimination tend to feel that their own personal struggles become invalidated if the exceptionalism is eliminated. We see the same effect with ethnic communities (especially among immigrants). The older generation always complains about the loss of cultural identity as the young adopt the dominant culture.
The ethical issue is that those affected (deaf, gays, minorities) don’t have any say in their being placed in the minority community. The decision (if possible) is being made by their parents and society. In general parents seem to want to make their children as typical as possible, why impose an extra burden? This is why genetic testing has become a hot issue.
The desire of parents to enhance, control, determine their offspring’s future is pretty hard to reign in.
to my husband and he referenced this movie too.
This would probably be o.k. IF homosexuality were a defect. We know it’s not. Therefore there is no moral dilemma. Ethics would not permit the alteration of what is considered normal growth and development. It is not ethical in the case of athletes taking steroids to gain an edge on their opponents. How then could it be considered ethical to give the pre-born the equivalent. If a patch arose to treat a true defect such as Down’s syndrome, it may not carry the same ethical questions.
“Defect” seems to be in the eye of the beholder. Parents in many parts of the world are now selecting the gender of their children.
Many feel that being a female is a “defect”…
Homosexuality may not be a “defect” but does it have any positive aspects that would make parents want to chose this for their child?
gender selection is also wrong in my book.
than women.
Once they found that they could do it, parents wouldn’t have to go through the shame of having only girls (they only allow one or two children) to carry on the family name.
And China would have a bigger army.
Result?
More males than females…and they can’t find enough women with whom to have children for the next generation. Which means that some Chinese men will not be able to marry or must find wives from other nations.
I look on these experiments as I do the FDA approving cloned animals being used for meat. These animals have been shown to die earlier. From what we don’t know yet.
No way I’d want to eat this thing.
NO WAY are these results going to help people as a whole.
In my view, it goes against the Constitution, and against human rights.
When people get this desperate, it’s about eugenics–keeping the ‘race’ pure.
Guess what?
The ‘race’ makes no sense and maybe it’s supposed to be that way. Making it pure…and perfect.
The whole reason behind Chinese orphans/adoptions is far more complex than the “shame” of having girls. There is of course the “one child” rule and the lack of a comprehensive health care plan, thus a lack of access to birth control. This lack of health care has also meant a large number of children abandoned due to birth defects and health problems(both genders).
China is still 70% agricultural, thus boys are preferred for heavy labor. Also, Chinese traditions hold sons as the parents’ social security pension, with elder parents moving in or remaining with sons.
I think that officials know they have a problem. The Chinese government has recently tried public relation campaigns to convince people to keep daughters. The government has also slowed down the rate of international adoptions by trying to increase the number of internal adoptions.
Having said all that, I can’t tell you how shocked people are that we have a son from China. Many N. American Chinese immigrants have told us how “lucky” we are (which we are). What I don’t know, of course, is what they tell the parents of daughters.
are who care for the parents in the Asian world. I got a very enlarged view in fact of a very gracious son/nephew doing this in Korea. They were remodeling all the living quarters at Camp Humphrey when we were there so we lived in the village next to camp Humphrey. We rented an apartment from a restaurant owner who ran his business on the first floor and had two apartments on the two additional building levels. He was doing well financially, his restaurant always had someone in it eating and two regular rentals that almost always had a soldier and family in them even when the housing on post was being used single soldiers live in most of those. He had a small courtyard across the street surrounded by sleeping quarters and there you would find his parents two Aunts and one Uncle, and he supported them in their old age. They worked with him in his daily venture as their health allowed and cared for and looked out for his children daily and hourly. He was handling more than his fair share of his family elderly.
Thanks for sharing this real life story Tracy. It certainly breathes life into a situation that could easily (particularly by a feminist like me) be dismissed as simply sexist.
The reason cloned animals die younger and have the diseases of old age has been discovered. Basically aging is as a result of each cell division causing the DNA to start to “fray” or “unravel” at the ends. They appear to be able to determine the “age” if you like of a cell by the amount of damage the DNA in it has sustained.
With a cloned animal you take a cell from an adult and inject the DNA into an egg which has already had its own DNA removed (this is very simplistic). So, for example, if you tried to clone a 20year old man, the cell you started with would be “20 years old” and the new born baby would have the same cell damage as if they were 21.
There is a broader question nobody seems to have asked yet. They seem to have convinced themselves that firstly they have found a “cause” for homosexual rams and secondly that the “remedy” they propose will be equally applicable to humans. Flip into their imagined future where every pregnant woman dutifully wears her patch if they are having a boy. All the boys turn out to be butch red bloodied heterosexuals. What are the scientists doing about lesbians?
I’m talking about true genetic defects. There is no “eye of the beholder” in strict scientific ethics.
I’m not sure what you mean by “strict scientific ethics”. Science is a powerful tool for learning facts, but facts are merely one input to ethical decision-making: Different values can lead to different decisions in response to the same facts.
Some parents prefer defects:
I’d call this wrong, and for fundamental reasons, but I wouldn’t call those reasons “scientific”. Facts cannot imply the rightness of values (and this is OK).
I guess what I was getting at more than ethic was method.
Parents already have their extremely short children given hormonal treatment to make them taller. Is being short a defect? Hardly. It is, however, something that puts a person at a great social disadvantage. Short people are paid less, less often selected for jobs, etc.
We may define homosexuality as not a defect, but that will not stop many persons from doing just that. And I am certain that hormone therapy has been given to gay and lesbian persons to try to “convert” them into “normal” human beings. From the standpoint of the folks thinking about fetal alteration, this is just starting out a bit earlier in the process.
Still, do any of those things make it ethical. That is the question.
Making judgment of what is normal (and what isn’t) has been a sad fixture in human behavior for some time. Hormone adjustment is already being done in an effort to avoid stillbirths. Lessing the number of stillbirths is one thing, changing a fundamental part of one’s self is another.
Christian “ethicists” heads explode.
Let’s see, homosexuality is evil…but if we have a hormone that will prevent it, that’s messing with God’s creation…but that means that God creates homosexuals…which means that either God creates evil…or that homosexuality is not evil…
Might be worth it just to see how they paint themselves out of that corner… 🙂
I’m OK with doing the research. Knowing why things happen is a valid scientific goal. It could help put the whole “nature vs. nurture” debate to rest, although in an era where people believe Noah’s flood caused the Grand Canyon and there are still real live Flat Earthers running around you will be able to find people who refuse to believe valid scientific research in spite of any and all evidence supporting it.
Putting that knowledge to use . . . well, that’s quite different. For all our scientific advances and everything we think we know about zoology, especially in humans, we still run up time and again against the Law of Unintended Consequences. Mothers once thought thalidomide was a good idea, for instance.
The real problem is that there are those who see homosexuality as a “problem” that needs to be “solved.” Those who do will probably want to use this to create a “solution.” I think this would be a questionable solution to a non-problem. I doubt that I’m alone in thinking this.
Now, actually if I had the morals of your average neocon I’d take a look at this, hear a cash register go off in my head, and create a “straight patch” designed for mothers-to-be to wear on their skin. I’d say “Research has shown blah blah blah” and get as close to making specific claims as I could without actually making them or mentioning hormone therapy. I’d then take out ads in the National Enquirer as well as magazines that specifically target the religiously credulous, and I’d sell a patch that does little more than leach vitamin C and folic acid into the skin. Then in about 15 years, just before it becomes evident that this patch does little more than make me money, I’d fold up operations and go live like a king somewhere with a nice warm climate to go along with their lack of extradition treaties to the United States.
Good thing I’m relatively honest.
Yeah, me too. Omir, I never dreamed you were such an evil genius – didn’t we meet once at Slytherin House? I suspect you are already “relatively” wealthy.
I don’t know about this ridiculous research. But it’s for sure that if there had been a patch to make children right-handed back in the fifties, after a few years with me, my mother would have been forced to wear it for her next pregnancy. Luckily, certain differences don’t show that early.
People never change – good thing we’ve abandoned the dunking stool.
One of my favorite polo shirts proclaims my membership in the “League of Evil Geniuses.” I come up with ideas like this once in a while, but I don’t act on them. It’s just as well. There are laws against some of them.
Hey, here’s another idea. Let’s do some research on what causes people to be neoconservative assholes. Maybe we can create a patch for that.
There’s the Naturals and the Enhanced.
Natural kid’s parents screaming to their child they cannot marry an Enhanced “You never know their real genetic code!”
But loves conquers all and their firstborn is a gay satyr who they name Salvador Dolly.
And there are sitcoms and McDonald’s/McDonalds (“Over 5 billion cloned!” )spin-offs.
And in the former country of Paraguay…..
___
all I can say is “ewe!”
This reminds me a little bit about the debate on whether or not to feed a pregnant German Shepherd glucosamine and chondroitin so that almost none of her puppies will have chronic hip dysplasia. Now the debate has been transformed from “hiding bad genes” to dogs don’t eat the natural glucosamine and chondtroitin that they would be eating if they hunted us all down and ate us nice and raw and tasty so all that we are doing is giving them what we took away and now oddly enough they are healthy. It gives me a giant headache too!
I remember a very popular story back in the late ’60s describing how the Rockefeller (Foundation?) provided a free transistor radio to literally millions of males in India who agreed to having vasectomies. Imagine if those disgusting Rockefeller folks had had the opportunity to use a reverse version of this treatment about preventing gayness. Imagine if they deployed a treatment to make people gay as a mechanism for population control.
Ghastly, all of it!
But will the patch “protect” the kids if they eat soy as they grow up?
The problem I have with this is that as it relates to humans it presupposes that there is something wrong with homosexuality and that it is normal to want to eradicate it. (Unlike the farmers’ rams I don’t think we need to worry about increasing the human population.)
If there was a patch that adults could take if for some reason they wanted to change their orientation that might be okay. Just like transgendered people pursue medical procedures that make them happier and truer to themselves. Although given societal pressures, even an adult patch would present problems. Look at all the stupid medical procedures people go through to make themselves more culturally ideal.
I have to laugh Kali. If what you ate made a difference, I should be a gun tooting staright redneck. I grew up on meat and potatos, very few veggies unless fried or seasoned with meat or fat. I never had gourmet food or vegetarian food of any kind until I was an adult.
I know, but the diary that Booman posted a week or so ago about soy making men gay was one of the weirdest/funniest things I’d read in a long time.
Crazy, huh?!!
Click here to go to the story–I think the wingnut in question posted on WorldNetDaily, if I’m not mistaken.
Of course, now inquiring minds want to know if this “straightening” drug is made available, will soy cancel out its effects? This isn’t me being funny–it’s just pointing at the absolute absurdity of it all.
Really, this is chilling. This “research” serves no purpose but putting the lie to sexuality being a “choice.” Folks can’t go around saying “God doesn’t make mistakes.”
Actually they’re right, ya know. God doesn’t make mistakes–THEY do.
The hormones have been tried. Did affect the superficial sex characteristics. Didn’t affect the person’s sexual desires.
My thought on genetically modified anything remains the same, be it this latest crap or cloning cows to eat…
Nature is a balance and is so utterly complex in the inter-relations of everything organic and non-organic that to abitrarily change DNA could have disasterous consequences for the long term sustainability of the planet.
Billions of years of evolution turned on its head by arrogant people who play at being God.
Well speaking as a newly discovered pregnant woman, there’s no way in hell that I myself could make a choice like that. I couldn’t even circumcise my son! That was something I decided he would have to choose later on in life…most especially when he could get at least some local anestetic. (sp?) I am not really religious person per se, but to me it would be wrong to tinker with things like that.
I dunno…I find myself at a loss for words…I have typed and re-typed…
A difficult that you have posed this morning Booman…
Congratulations!
Thanks for well wishes guys!
Congrats for being a great MOM!!!!!!
Me too, Cake. 🙂
Are there homophobic sheep funding this research?
These “scientists” sound like people with way too much concern for the sexuality of sheep.
Beutique baby design. Just hope they don’t get their human and sheep genes spliced.
Um…. how did they determine that a few Rams not wanting to impregnate ewes equals “homosexual rams”
did these sheep express sexual attraction to other males?
If not – aren’t they really just trying to stamp out abstinence?
Heh.
why isnt someone working on a patch to make sure children dont grow up to be assholes?
of Anna in Philly comments.
Hmmm…and could it be retroactive for adults?
cause they would have to shove the entire supply up George Bush’s ass to see if they worked. LOL
Personally, I think we should try scalding hot coffee.
Administered as an enema.
it’s a bad idea, but science will go forward, where ever the money pushes it. sci-fi writers have seen this particular development coming for years, and i agree with those who believe that some governments/groups will probably make this widely available when it is a technology for humans, if not outright require it.
but that will be a dark, sad day for humanity. think of all the gays who’ve made tremendous contributions to human society. i mean, take away gays, and you lose practically all of our arts. (ok, being a little dramatic, but you get my drift). being gay means you have a special perspective on the world, one that has led to great contribution in the arts, science…it would be a shame to lose that part of what we are.
but like i said: i expect the human version to be availble and plenty of people to buy it and use it, soon. but, you know what will cause real trouble?
when they have a patch that will make your kids “white.” then you’ll see some fireworks.
over populated areas could have governments choose to make the majority of children gay instead to cook up some population control. Once you open pandora’s box it’s open. I wonder if the Fundies ever think about such things?
for implying that they would ever actually think about anything.
that will marginalize families like mine. I have zero idea of my son’s genetic make-up. I don’t know if he is likely to be tall, fat or even have a major case of acne as a teenager. Naturally imperfect children will be ridiculed by their rich, unnatural counterparts.
But we all know your child will be loved not only by you and your fanily but by your extended family here no matter what his sexual orientation, looks or any of the other crazy things the conservative creeps worry about.
My son will have plenty of love. But let’s just go worst case scenario –
a parent-to-be (old-fashioned breeder) decides to not test for potential health problems. Because the science is available, would insurance companies refuse to cover any medical bills related to the “preventable” condition?
Or, a family like mine, with a child whose health conditions were not detected before birth, how will those children be cared for?
If homosexuality can be eliminated, can it than be made illegal?
for wealthy fundies.
they discover the wool of gay sheep has superior qualities.
Hey, if they want to use hormones to get rid of gays, let’s suggest doing the same to get rid of the “God” gene (research showing genetic predispositions to believe or not believe in God). Give them a taste of their own medicine.
My first thought was that this is just downright creepy then when you start thinking about it even more it only gets creepier and more scary.
I don’t recall reading anywhere that gay sheep were some massive problem for those poor farmers-has anyone?
No this little research project sounds like it has a lot more nefarious underpinnings-as yeah lets get rid of all those homosexuals and make the world a better place, right.
If they want to research hormones as to doing some good I’d suggest putting lots of money into post partum depression. That becomes very dangerous to the women and her children in far far to many instances. We really need to know what causes that(and no Tommy Cruise I don’t think vitamins are gonna do it).
Way back in 1932, Aldous Huxley published his impression of a chemically altered society that seems in many ways quite similar to some of the ideas being tossed about today. He followed up in 1958 with Brave New World Revisited. Interesting reading in light of recent developments.
“Would a mother be justified in wearing a ‘straightening patch’ to try to assure the heterosexuality of her child?
How long will it take for the Dobson’s of America to try to write this into law, for the “good of the children”?
Jim Newman here again from the university actually conducting the research.
In regards to the Sunday Times article which is he source of all these wild conspiracy theories, I am pleased that a writer has thoroughly investigated the article. As he reports, the Sunday Times article is filled with major errors and false claims. His analysis also raises important questions about the timing of the article which comes almost five years after the research was actually conducted.
Here’s a link to that analysis that anyone who is interested in this topic should read:
A wolf in gay sheep’s clothing: Corruption at the London Times
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/1/4/134158/4348