If society could detect and prevent kids from becoming gay during pregnancy, should we?

Question

Assuming that it's something that starts and could be prevented during pregnancy - should society try to eliminate it?

What about:

Gay culture today?
Benefits to society of diversity?
Overpopulation?
Slippery slope concerns? (Eliminating short/ugly/female babies?)
Gay people saying they wouldn't want to be straight if given the choice?

It would be really interesting to get the perspective of gay people on this question.

Answer 1

No, and I say this for two reasons:

1) The only thing that should be changed in the womb is removing genes that cause or might give rise to diseases (which I hear they're very near to doing). Homosexuality is not a disease, therefore we shouldn't.

2) Even if someone believed it were a disease, since it's not proven to be harmful to the people involved (quite the opposite!), to do so would be to rob the child of its freedom of choice, which is not cool at all.

That's it.

Answer 2

The eugenics comments aside, this is a good question. I don't think that you meant it offensively. It's something we should all think about- I mean, you can detect now if a child has downs syndrome and decide whether or not to terminate the pregnancy, why is being gay any different? A mother wouldn't necessarily be doing this to "cure the world of gays" but simply to be sure their child had an easier life.

What if a lesbian couple conceived and wanted to have a gay child? Would they do that?

Of course this would have a terrible negative effect on gay culture, and society would miss out on the diversity lesson. As for overpopulation, I doubt it would make much of an influence. The number of parents who would go have prenatal tests done, if this could be detected that way, most likely wouldn't be that large. Most new parents are thinking "Is it a boy or a girl?" not "who's my child going to sleep with later??"

Any sort of genetic selections in pregnancies leads to a slippery slope. And, by the way, we can already specify the sex of our children- they can sort out male from female sperm, and through IVF only impregnate with one sex sperm. Luckily these procedures are so expensive, that most cannot afford to do them.

I don't know of any gay people who would want to be straight if given the choice, but if this is all happening in the womb, no one really gets a choice.

Answer 3

The reason, sir, for more LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) identifying youth is because of increased freedom. These kids are not "becoming" lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, they are simply being allowed to express themselves more than they used to be. For example: 300 years ago, a gay man would be disowned, committed, and lynched if he was discovered. This meant that LGBT persons did not come out in fear of being killed, committed to an asylum, or disowned by their parents. In the modern age, children are free to be themselves. Personally, I think you are not here to ask questions anyway. You just want the world to know that you are a closed minded, hateful bigot. I am sorry for you, I am sorry that you are trapped in the dark ages.

Answer 4

This is an interesting question. Changing the way people are. Lemme see if I understand this. So...altering the way people are gay.
So if you had a child. The doctor came in and said...your child is going to be gay, can we do experiments to make sure that your son doesn't play with barbis' and your daughter doesn't play with trucks, would you let him?
Assuming that your not gay, I would assume that you don't understand that you cannot determine if a child is going to turn out gay or not.
Just FYI, it comes with character. It comes with who we are as we grow up.
Its like almost saying..let every child have both a mother and father to prevent a child from being in a single household, maybe then he/she won't turn out gay.
That is my observation to it. You cannot fix the obvious. Just not possible. Even it was, would you want to have someone poking and proding at you to determine why you came to this earth the way you did? If you wouldn't why would you want our future sons or daughters to be?

Answer 5

You must be kidding. Why would people want to get rid of the most creative folks on the planet? A society where everyone looks, thinks and acts the same is one definition of Hell.

Only ignorant bigots would support such a plan. I'm not saying that you are such a person merely for bringing up the question.

Answer 6

What?? No. Just leave it all alone. Thats why the world is all ******* up in the head now because of all these scientific experiments trying to alter NATURE. Just let it all be. God knows what he is doing. Man does not. So why should we alter what we dont know???
And im perfectly happy as a lesbian. If i would've been "altered" i think i would have been highly pissed.

Answer 7

Eugenics was last practiced by the Nazis to eliminate "undesirables". Homosexuality has not ever been proven to be detrimental to society or the individual, therefore there is no reason to abort/change/cure such a fetus.

Answer 8

No way!
It's not a disease!
You can't cure nature!!
I'm proud of being gay, I'd never change my way of living!
I'm in love with my boyfriend and i really love him...if I wasn't gay I'd never have felt all this...
Thanx God for made me who I am today!

Answer 9

ooohhh i think these are topics u are better off leaving alone. No one should play god, I mean I am sure people think oh wouldn't it be great if we could... but thats where it should end, thought not action.

Answer 10

I think it would be unethical to do so. Eugenics was last tried by the Nazis.