Sunday, December 31, 2006

Anti-Gay Patch for Mothers-to-be to Ensure Babies Born Straight?

Here's an article about the concept of having an anti-gay patch similar to a nicotine patch for Mothers-to-be to ensure that their babies be born straight (or how about a patch to ensure babies born hearing instead?):

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.
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Potentially, the techniques could one day be adapted for human use, with doctors perhaps being able to offer parents pre-natal tests to determine the likely sexuality of offspring or a hormonal treatment to change the orientation of a child.
Interesting concept there.

Now, do parents have the right to ensure that their babies be born straight anymore than the right of a parent wanting to kill an unborn child because of a handicap issue? Or the right to an abortion just because one simply does not want a child? Isn't that also playing God, too?

Peter Tatchell, the gay rights campaigner, said: “These experiments echo Nazi research in the early 1940s which aimed at eradicating homosexuality. They stink of eugenics. There is a danger that extreme homophobic regimes may try to use these experimental results to change the orientation of gay people.”

He said that the techniques being developed in sheep could in future allow parents to “play God”.

Deciding the life of an unborn child because they don't want a child in the first place? Wouldn't that be considered an unnatural act, too? What about choosing the color of the baby's eyes? Or hair color? etc? How far is going too far in designing your own baby?

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