ABORTING GAY FETUSES

Bryan muses as to whether we will soon be at the point where parents, armed with genetic testing and abortion on demand, will decide to abort healthy, gay babies.

Barring moral arguments about the right to life, I am curious how someone would deny this option? I’d appreciate any comments. Like I said, this is not something I would ever dream of doing. In fact, it’s something of a nightmare scenario to me. But it is something that I believe could happen. I think you can see how a selfish argument for aborting a homosexual baby could be advanced in the future. If it’s abortion on demand, what’s to prevent it? And I do not think these parents would make their decision necessarily on religious grounds, either.

Assuming abortion remains legal, which I do, I’m not sure why this wouldn’t be permissible. After all, it’s just a lump of cells with no human qualities, etc., etc. Indeed, since the state says this is not killing, I’m not sure why this action would have any moral significance whatever.

Now, if we assume abortion is immoral even if legal, then I’m still not sure that aborting the fetus because it has genetic predisposition to homosexuality is any more abhorent than doing so because the pregancy was unplanned and would interfere with the mother’s career or any number of other reasons people have for choosing abortion.

FILED UNDER: Open Forum,
James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. jen says:

    How odd that you have this post when I just read a comment earlier about this very topic. And I can’t remember where that was…

  2. Matthew says:

    I believe there was a play that touched on this, “The Twilight of the Golds.”

    Given that so many gay activists like to say “being gay” is like “being black” (i.e. that it is genetically determined), how long would it take them to start referring to “sex preference selection” abortions as the worst kind of discrimination imaginable?

  3. Incisive. Thanks.

  4. Juke says:

    Or, for the sake of argument, consider that “gayness” is believed to be a genetic disorder: clearly most parents don’t want gay children. If genetic engineering can be used to solve other disorders, say Tays-Sachs Disease, then why not cure “gayness”?

    Not promoting the idea, just pointing out a flaw in the argument about the inherent goodness of genes….

  5. Bruce Hayden says:

    One problem with this on the practical side is that the best explanation I have ever seen for gay males is that they did not have sufficient testosterone at one or more critical points in the development of their brains in utero. One apparent cause of this may be maternal stress at those times.

    One problem I have always had with genetic determination of homosexuality is that such is typically an evolutionary dead end. Of course, there is the possibility that such a “gay” gene may be on an otherwise very advantageous chromosone, but I still posit that this does not make much evolutionary sense.

  6. American Patriot says:

    Bruce?

    ………. that would be because the human race needs procreation by its example??

    Trust me, my man, there will always be enough “breeders” to populate the planet.

    Make “sense” of evolution… dude.. go right ahead. Like it matters………..

  7. American Patriot says:

    Matty?

    That’s really stretching it man….

    Give up the ghost. Homosexual men are no threat to you. (Unless perhaps you have latent interest) of course.

  8. Servant says:

    I know God places a value on life. Man looks at it as lumps of cells, God sees this as a human being in development. As far as homosexuality goes, The bible says man were created in God’s image. Meaning God was and never will be attarcted sexually, and lustfully to the same sex. WHY DID HE CREATE WOMAN FOR ADAM.