I can recommend, sort of, that you read National Review’s recent cover editorial, “What Marriage Is For” (online, “The Case for Marriage“). It’s a good example of how not to make a case.
The article is a mass of non sequiturs. It assumes that if marriage is “for” something—regulating procreative sex—then using it for anything else must be “against” marriage, which is like saying that if mouths are “for” eating, we mustn’t use them for talking or breathing. It claims (conjecturally) that marriage would not have arisen if not for the fact that men and women make babies, from which it concludes that society has no stake in childless marriages.
It argues that marriage, and a culture of marriage, are good and important, a point on which thoughtful gay-marriage advocates enthusiastically agree. But, of course, our whole argument is that including gays won’t stop marriage from doing the good things it now does, and will probably strengthen marriage and the marriage culture. Maybe we’re wrong. But the editorial doesn’t even bother to engage. It proceeds as if “gay marriage is bad” follows obviously from “straight marriage is good.”
Confronted with the obvious fact that no society has ever excluded sterile heterosexual couples from marriage, and that excluding them would be absurd, the editorial simply baffles. “An infertile couple can mate even if it cannot procreate.” It can mate? If “mate” means “have heterosexual intercourse,” the argument merely assumes the conclusion, and “procreativity” has gone right out the window. The article notes that the inclusion of sterile straight couples does not prove that marriage “has nothing to do with” procreation. Right! But it also does not prove that marriage has only to do with procreation. In fact, it quite strongly suggests the contrary.
I could go on. The public, thank goodness, is thinking more seriously and clearly about marriage than are the editors of National Review, which is why the public is coming around.
167 Comments for “How Not to Write an Editorial”
posted by Jorge on
I agree.
And I read the article before reading the rest of this post.
posted by tim on
The article is an excellent example of rationalization 101.
posted by odinnite on
It’s actually an example of a great way to write an editorial when you have absolutely no case. Of course that begs the question; if you don’t have a case perhaps you should consider changing your mind instead of gushing non-sequiturs.
posted by BobN on
The article goes through all the idiocies, albeit with less vigor and venom than, say, Maggie Gallagher.
I suppose it’s an indication of our continuing success that no one was willing to stick his or her name to it….
posted by Throbert McGee on
Actually, this was the perfect way to write an editorial if the intent was to do a shout-out to NRO’s conservative Catholic base: if you live on a steady diet of Natural Law theology, then not only will this column make total sense, but after reading it you’ll probably be in a frenzy of self-congratulation about how marvelously logical your belief system is.
posted by Jorge on
No, I don’t agree. It has no citations or examples for the most important parts, it’s all thin rhetoric. I don’t think most Catholics would appreciate such a poor demonstration of understanding.
The threat of accidental pregnancy needs at a minimum a citation of the NY State Court of Appeals ruling. Problem is, doing that weakens the rest of the article’s disdain for the courts.
Much of the exclusivity attached to heterosexual “mating” requires either a spiritual explanation, which will disqualify this article from serious political consideration, or a more thoughtful exposition than we see here. An actual citation of natural law argument would have strengthened the article instead of a reliance on weak sociological arguments. Its platitudes would have been greatly strengthened by some actual historical or sociological examples proving that marriage is a socially stabilizing force. But do that and you set yourself up for the rebutting evidence that gay marriage is also a socially stabilizing force.
This is how strong the arguments in favor of gay marriage are, that opponents are too afraid to try the most basic and direct approach.
posted by Throbert McGee on
I wouldn’t attempt to predict how “most Catholics” would react — I’m quite aware that many lay Catholics think that the Vatican is full of BS on certain issues relating to sexual morality.
But I would say with confidence that theologically-conservative Catholics who do find the Church’s “Natural Law reasoning” to be rationally persuasive when it comes to such matters as forbidding married couples to use contraception (for example) would also find the NRO column against same-sex marriage to be rationally persuasive.
posted by John Howard on
Jonathan, I agree the article dropped the ball making the procreation argument. But let’s imagine that it made the argument that marriage has always allowed the married couple to procreate and affirmed and approved of the couple conceiving offspring together, and that society should not allow people to attempt to conceive offspring (to “mate”) with someone of the same sex because it might be very risky, expensive, unethical, and have all sorts of bad effects on things down the road.
How would you have responded then?
posted by William Quill on
Other than the miracles of Sarah and Abraham, of Elizabeth and Zachariah, what justification is there on their basis of case of allowing elderly couples to marry? No normal person begrudges the marriages of those who can’t or don’t have children, and wouldn’t have the intrusiveness as the only reason against this being reasonable grounds for preventing their marriage.
What I found interesting was how the relations of gay couples are completely ignored. They say allowing gays to marry may or may not lead to infidelity, without much basis, “we cannot say with any confidence that legal recognition of same-sex marriage would cause infidelity or illegitimacy to increase”. When I see the word infidelity in a discussion on whether gays should be allowed marry, I immediately consider how it would lead to less infidelity among gay couples. Not something these guys care about. Instead, let’s play around with the idea that some men who might otherwise think “I can’t cheat on my wife because this is about the children” will now feel freer to cheat.
One thing to consider about natural law arguments. While it might be sinful for a woman to remove her uterus for the purposes of being able to have sex without conceiving, it is acceptable then for her to have sex with her husband. But it would not be to occasionally use a condom for the purposes of family planning.
posted by Amicus on
Jon’s second paragraph is on point. Their argument doesn’t make it on face. More marriage cannot be bad for a ‘marriage culture’.
Elsewhere, they admit, “That does not mean that marriage is worthwhile only insofar as it yields children. (The law has never taken that view.)”
Last, they seem to seek input only from “proponents”, for some reason. As someone remarked, if my niece and nephew understand that their two uncles or two aunts are the same, but different, than their mom & dad, then why are the editors of the National Review so concerned?
Truly, they have to think more seriously about the real threats to marriage culture. They are not from lesbians who want to raise kids and have the backstop of a legal marriage to do so or from two guys who want to say, “I do”. Once they do that, they can probably make common cause.
posted by Jorge on
I wouldn’t attempt to predict how “most Catholics” would react — I’m quite aware that many lay Catholics think that the Vatican is full of BS on certain issues relating to sexual morality.
Bah.
But I would say with confidence that theologically-conservative Catholics who do find the Church’s “Natural Law reasoning” to be rationally persuasive when it comes to such matters as forbidding married couples to use contraception (for example) would also find the NRO column against same-sex marriage to be rationally persuasive.
The difference between the Church’s natural law reasoning and this editorial is like caviar and fish oil, and any theologically conservative Catholic would see it. But don’t take my word for it. Let’s see what the letters to the editor say in the next issue.
posted by John Howard on
Marriage is only worthwhile only insofar as it approves and affirms the right to conceive children.
Same sex couples should not be prohibited from conceiving children.
Deal with that.
posted by John Howard on
Damn it, I meant same-sex couples should BE prohibited from conceiving children.
Jonathan Rauch, can’t you address this argument? Or does it make you ashamed of yourself to admit you were wrong? Hey don’t despair, after all admitting you were wrong could help thousands of same sex couples all over the country.
posted by Amicus on
Marriage is only worthwhile only insofar as it approves and affirms the right to conceive children.
========
compare (thinking aloud):
The concept of marriage distinguishes a context in which sex is appropriate. For gays and nongays who seek children, it suggests a commonsense responsibility related to the substantial burden of child-rearing.
Otherwise, reduction of the concept of marriage to copulation is weak, if not absurd.
More broadly put, the challenge from gay marriage to the philosophy of so-called marriage “traditionalists” is not so much that an ideal is broken or bent, it is that more and more people see that resting the concept of marriage exclusively on procreation is too blunt and, thereby, leading to an unjust society.
posted by John Howard on
Unmarried people have never been prohibited from rearing children, and married people have never been forced to rear their children.
And are you saying that it doesn’t matter if marriage stops approving and affirming the right to conceive offspring together?
posted by Amicus on
People aren’t forced to get married to have children, either. So, it’s not clear how you intend to use “force” as a delimiter of what is meaningful or not.
What’s more, in times and places in which men had 4, 5, 6 or dozens of wives, it really looks plain that the purpose(s) of marriage went far beyond ‘the right to conceive offspring’, since that “right” is typically satisfied after the first marriage…(or sometimes and often with a nearby slave, who had no marriage rights).
Given the experience with gay marriage to date, it does seem as if it is entirely possible for nongays – at least those who believe it or have that interpretation – to continue to express a ‘marriage ethic’ that marriage is appropriate for those who conceive children (and even those who raise them, without conceiving, such as adoptive parents).
And, from the conservative perspective, the blindness on the Right has lead to a failure to express a relationship ethic for gays, when marriage is an entirely apt way to do it.
Indeed, the long delay to do so has had a price, arguably, in creating reactionary attitudes among youth, gay and nongay, about what is appropriate and what may not be.
posted by John Howard on
Again, are you saying that it doesn’t matter if marriage stops approving and affirming the right to conceive offspring together?
posted by J.Random on
@John Howard: Is marriage worthwhile insofar as it approves and affirms the right to *adopt* children?
If same-sex couples should be prohibited from conceiving children, should opposite-sex couples be prohibited from conceiving by the same means (surrogacy, etc.)?
posted by Chris Call on
To NRO and John. The State has no interest in PROCREATION! In fact, I might even go the extra step and say that the state has an interest in discouraging procreation. Civil benefits accorded to marriages are only accorded in the interest of child-rearing. Are states handing out subsidies for in-vitro fertilization? I certainly hope not given the eugenic applications of such a fraught policy.
Let’s make this clear, while many gay religious people might be discouraged and disheartened to know that their union is not recognized by their church, their willingness to advocate for marriage equality is centered more in the civil protections a marriage contract provides.
The fact that the NRO notes that it would be intrusive to regulate the affairs of non-procreative hetero pairings admits the fact that procreation is not even tangentially tied to civil benefits accruing to marriages. The interest is only in promoting a wholesome environment (with a stable relationship) for the nurturance of youth.
I am more than willing to continue engaging on the subject, but I think I’ve aired my specific rebuttal.
posted by David on
“Marriage is only worthwhile only insofar as it approves and affirms the right to conceive children.”
This is factually wrong. Marriage has many other beneficial functions that add to its worth. People who marry live longer, are healthier, are happier, and enjoy greater financial and social stability. Marriage is worthwhile for conferring these benefits, in addition to its benefits for children.
“Jonathan Rauch, can’t you address this argument?”
Well, he rather has. “The article is a mass of non sequiturs. It assumes that if marriage is “for” something—regulating procreative sex—then using it for anything else must be “against” marriage, which is like saying that if mouths are “for” eating, we mustn’t use them for talking or breathing.” The point being that marriage (much like a mouth), rather than having a sole beneficial function, can have multiplicities of them, all of them worthwhile.
One of the many tragic ironies in this debate is that the people so determined to “defend” marriage are also so determined to underrate its value as a social institution.
posted by Rob on
John Howard, I’m a staunch techno-progressivist and transhumanist who doesn’t understand why you’re so adamantly against artificial uterus’ and genetic engineering. How is it exactly unethical if all the precautions are being taken care of and sentient rights are enforced? In 30 to 50 years from now, I’m certain that we will be able to achieve the trial and error stages of via simulation. Sooner or later we will need to adapt to new environments (e.g space) and that will require different morphology and augmentations.
posted by demonyc on
just watch conservative american catholics if divorce was taken away from them.
posted by ex nihilo on
John Howard wrote, “…it might be very risky, expensive, unethical, and have all sorts of bad effects on things down the road. ”
The same things could be said for married couples having children in general, depending on the circumstances.
posted by biomuse on
John,
Obviously it “matters,” but the way you phrase the question makes it very unclear what you are actually asking.
Are you asking whether it matters that the law prohibit people who are incapable of conceiving offspring from getting married? If so, the answer is that the law, in fact, doesn’t do (and hasn’t done) that. No state tests heterosexual couples for fertility before granting a marriage license, and never has even if the couple is manifestly unable to conceive children.
posted by Amicus on
I think what I was saying is that marriage probably has more than one meaning in America. Certainly, the Catholic understanding of marriage is not the same as the athiest understanding, and it is different than Muslim understanding as well as various Protestant denominations, as well.
The “cultural benefits” of affirming marriage as appropriate are not obviously lost by sanctioning more marriage, by more loving, committed, responsible couples.
What’s more, those who want to imbue the meaning of marriage along particular ideological lines, as you seem to want to do, with procreation as a _necessary_ condition (something that the State has never done), seem to be able to continue to do so, _even while allowing gays to get married_; because the type of “mating” that gays do is “natural” to them, but is not implied to be generalized to everyone, simply because a gay couple gets married. In other words, gay and nongay married couples are two of the same kind, yet distinct, in ways that are ‘natural’ and ‘obvious’ to both of them.
Last, I was suggesting that there is a price, potentially severe, in the delay on the Right of failing in discernment on the issue.
posted by John Howard on
I’m talking legally, as in, blue flashing lights and judges and jails. No matter what culture anyone is or what their beliefs are, the law is the same for everyone. In the same sense that a driver’s license should affirm and approve of the person driving (subject to laws about driving of course), a marriage license should affirm and approve of the couple conceiving offspring together. Do you feel it doesn’t matter if it stops doing that?
posted by Amicus on
I don’t understand how an appeal to ‘the law’ helps with explanation or understanding of the issues.
As to the current state of American family law, as I understand it, and as much as it can be generalized, if you have children, you are responsible for them, regardless of whether you have a marriage license.
As for the history of American marriage law, I do not believe that marriage laws were ever enacted in order to “regulate” procreation. Their origin is more likely to be found in a simple civil accommodation of a religious bond/contract, not the other way around.
I’m not a scholar in the history of marriage law in America, but one reason to think that is correct is that I’m unaware of anyone passing out civil punitive fines or jail or prison for a woman or man who had an out-of-wedlock child, unlike what happens if you operate without a divers license.
Indeed, one would be ordinarily be wary of such authority at the State level. Afterall, it would “make sense” to limit the number of children people are licensed to have, no?
posted by John Howard on
Do you not understand my question? “Again, are you saying that it doesn’t matter if marriage stops approving and affirming the right to conceive offspring together?”
I’m making two points: marriage should approve and affirm the couple’s right to conceive offspring together. People should not have a right to conceive offspring with someone of the same sex.
posted by Jay Dickenson on
None of you speak to the article’s persuasive logic that granting same-sex marriage will erase the fundamental, essential meaning of marriage, that removing its underlying procreative purpose, echoed in the complementary union of any man and woman, will make any pairing of people valid in claiming the benefits and title of marriage. It is, in fact, what Chai Feldblum has proposed in one of her earlier essays – four men or women in a platonic commitment, two relatives, three friends. So, if same-sex marriage is forced upon society by the courts, there is no logical barrier to eventually refusing that status to other types of unions. Nothing. But that hasn’t stopped the gay rights movement from vehemently denying its possibility – really, inevitability – years from now, or remaining silent about the question. It’s a denial borne of fear of losing the current same-sex marriage battle. Rauch and Sullivan are glibly dismissive of the piece, but really, it’s quite convincing. And I think the movement should start talking honestly about beyond same-sex marriage and everything it portends, which mostly is negative.
posted by Steve on
I am a conservative libertarian, which means I am old fashioned, know that I am old fashioned, but don’t wish to impose my beliefs on others. In that sense, while I think the idea of SS marriage is cockeyed, I don’t see it as my place to prevent it. So, let it be. However, when you write:
“It claims (conjecturally) that marriage would not have arisen if not for the fact that men and women make babies”
I think you are being absurd in calling this “conjecture”. I understand the argument that the marriage franchise can and should be extended because it’s a different world today. OK. But to argue that the institution of marriage derived from procreation “conjecturally” is to make one of those far out ivory tower arguments that turns people off towards equal marriage rights in the first place.
posted by Joe on
“But I would say with confidence that theologically-conservative Catholics who do find the Church’s “Natural Law reasoning” to be rationally persuasive when it comes to such matters as forbidding married couples to use contraception (for example) would also find the NRO column against same-sex marriage to be rationally persuasive.”
I’m astonished at your apparent ability to read our minds. Count this theologically-conservative Catholic out. The article hinges on the “mating” point, and in a way this is its virtue – it clearly shows that its position depends on privileging heterosexual sex as ‘ordered to’ procreation in a way that remains ethically significant even when that sex can’t in fact result in procreation. But it nowhere attempts to explain why this kind of ordering, which basically comes down to the idea of a natural function, is the place to hang an ethical norm. Prima facie there are lots of objections to hanging exceptionless ethical norms on natural functions – I don’t think the objections are fatal, myself, but they have to be addressed seriously. So if natural-law-loving Catholics find the editorial persuasive, it’s only in the sense that they already believe the necessary presuppositions to fill that yawning gap in the argument.
posted by Jonathan on
John,
I note that your repeated question has finally been clarified as a pair of assertions. Stating that “marriage should approve and affirm” something is quite different from asking whether it matters that “marriage stops approving and affirming” something, and the change is appropriate given that up to this point in the discussion, no evidence has been presented to demonstrate that the law ever did in fact approve and affirm a couple’s right to conceive offspring.
On the contrary, Amicus has provided evidence indicating that it never did any such thing, that the act of procreation itself has been been neither regulated nor sanctioned by American law. Do you have a response to this argument?
Regarding the second assertion, that “people should not have a right to conceive offspring with someone of the same sex,” as a biologist I would point out that this is technically impossible at the moment (although something resembling it might perhaps be possible someday in a distant future). I take it you do not mean to assert that same sex couples should be prohibited from adopting, nor from employing donor gametes and/or surrogacy in order to have a child.
posted by Rob Tisinai on
So let’s take those two points:
1. Marriage should approve and affirm the couple’s right to conceive offspring together.
That’s fine. Because approving and affirming a right to do something is not the same as making it mandatory.
2. People should not have a right to conceive offspring with someone of the same sex.
I’m not sure what this means, or how it’s physically possible at this point. Do you mean that two men should not be able to conceive together (i.e., a man should not be allowed to conduct a genetic experiment where he removes the genetic material from an egg, replaces it with his own, and then fertilizes it with his partner’s sperm)?
If that’s what you mean, I don’t see the connection. You could ban such an experiment and still allow SSM.
And if that’s not what you mean, then please explain.
posted by Amicus on
JH,
You keep shifting your frame of reference, so that even you seem confused now.
You said you were talking “legally”. I can say with some confidence that, legally, in America, marriage does not “approve and affirm” a right of conception. Do you believe it does? Can you point to a statute to support your position?
As for gay couples raising children, that is a different set of arguments. To make sense, you ought to clearly address couples without children and couples with children, because there are both kinds, gay and nongay.
If you want me to throw you a line on this new set of arguments, I will say that I believe that gay couples should have access to the same reproductive technology that nongay couples have access to.
posted by John Howard on
It’s not in the statutes directly, though it can be logically inferred from statutes like fornication and adultery that sex is perfectly legal if you are married. It is so universally understood anthropologically that married couples are allowed to have sex that no statute needs to explain that. It is also mentioned and inferred in many Supreme Court cases, which also establish law.
This blurb is from the new legal brief appealing Walker’s ruling:
Marriage has served this universal societal purpose throughout history by providing, in the words of sociologist Kingsley Davis, “social recognition and approval . . . of a couple’s engaging in sexual intercourse and bearing and rearing offspring.”
I don’t think any people should have access to reproductive technology that involves genetic engineering, and I don’t think people should be allowed to attempt to create offspring with someone of the same sex. It isn’t the same technology as IVF and artificial insemination, it’s a radical experiment in genetics and would be inherently unethical.
I am not talking about gay couples raising children, but for them I have proposed Civil Unions defined as “marriage minus conception rights”, which would be a much quicker way to get equal protections without taking away marriage’s meaning of approving of offspring.
posted by John Howard on
no evidence has been presented to demonstrate that the law ever did in fact approve and affirm a couple’s right to conceive offspring.
Jonathan (Rauch?), you have to present evidence of a marriage that was prohibited from conceiving offspring (not just prevented by incarceration or assumed unable to like old cousins, but actually prohibited from attempting to conceive offspring). I think there has never been such a marriage, because if a couple is not allowed to conceive together they aren’t allowed to marry each other.
I’m not sure what Amicus’s evidence or argument is. I pointed out fornication and adultery have been illegal for a long long time and are still illegal in Massachusetts, and they are laws to prevent procreation by unmarried couples. The only way to prevent procreation is to prevent sexual intercourse, and if you allow sexual intercourse like marriage always does, it means allowing procreation – you can’t allow intercourse but still prohibit procreation.
I take it you do not mean to assert that same sex couples should be prohibited from adopting, nor from employing donor gametes and/or surrogacy in order to have a child.
Right, that wouldn’t be prohibited by the Egg and Sperm law. I’m talking about conceiving offspring together. We shouldn’t affirm or approve of conceiving children with someone of the same sex, we should disapprove and jail anyone that attempts it.
posted by Amicus on
JH,
By bringing up adultery and fornication (prostitution), which may well be concepts that are not necessarily related to procreation, since sometime legal sanction applied whether or not a child is/was coincident to the act, do you mean to suggest that we should, as a matter of law, throw mothers with out-of-wedlock children into prisons?
I bring it up because it does seem like you are shifting frames of reference too easily, mixing culture (social sanction/approbation) and law (criminal activity), coming close to suggesting that we *must* legislate morality, or a particular moral view.
To date, we have seen, even in the American experience, that gay marriage does not necessarily interfere with a broad marriage culture. So far as I know, nongays are not involved in more fornication or adultery, simply because two guys say “I do”. And, casting the net wider, to other country’s experience, we can visit ‘wacko socialist-rationalist’ Sweeden, the site of Stanley Kurtz’s great, shaking failure: rather than nongays replacing marriage with some ‘crazy, social progressive notion’, civil unions for all, they went the other way, in the end, re-affirming marriage. (Mr. Blankenhorn has yet to update his correlations, so far as I know. Not that it would matter, maybe, because his anxiety-o-meter appears to have hit a new high, with his appearance alongside the worst in defence of Prop8).
And, at this point, it is perhaps good and not tangential that you brought up reproductive technology. Consider a world in which only that technology is available and not ‘natural insemination’. It is a world without abortion, it is a world in which the social consequences of adultery/fornication could be inconsequential (at least as an obvious concern to the State), it is a world in which all kids are deliberate and desired, not “accidents”.
Indeed, it does seem that all of the problems that you are attempting to regulate with ‘marriage=procreation license’ are related to natural insemination. It seems mean spirited – mean spirited! – to deny couples who are not part of the problem, gay couples. Indeed, to the extent that the editors at NRO can make hay from putting down non-procreative sex _among gays_, we should be free to turn the argument around on them, to illustrate the nonsense in their view, no?
So, in theory, ‘gay people’ might shrug if nongays decided to throw each other in jail for non-procreative natural insemination. It’s not their practical problem, directly. What it is is a posture, a facile posture that makes moralizing about gays look like one is addressing the problems on nongay sex in society (at least as we have it, today)…
posted by Amicus on
“throw each other in jail for non-procreative natural insemination”
might be better written as “throw each other in jail for unlicensed natural insemination”.
posted by grendel on
“Jonathan (Rauch?), you have to present evidence of a marriage that was prohibited from conceiving offspring (not just prevented by incarceration or assumed unable to like old cousins, but actually prohibited from attempting to conceive offspring). I think there has never been such a marriage, because if a couple is not allowed to conceive together they aren’t allowed to marry each other.”
As I have pointed out to you before John, what about China? If two individuals already had children of their own from a previous marriage, they can re-marry but they cannot have any more children.
A quick google search didn’t turn up the actual law, but I did find this press release from the National Population and Family Planning Commission of China:
“Shanghai People’s Congress is debating changes to the city’s rules of the “one-child policy” that would allow some couples to have a second child without waiting for four years between births and divorced parents more opportunity to have a child in a second marriage.
The proposed changes to the draft provisions on the population and family planning in Shanghai would allow for the first time a re-married couple to give birth to a child even though both wife and husband have already had one child during their previous marriages.”
http://www.npfpc.gov.cn/en/activities/detail.aspx?articleid=090610160008591322
Which confirms the prohibition. Not that it matters much as your argument is specious anyway.
Factually inaccurate and specious.
posted by John Howard on
Come on give me a break. I brought up adultery and fornication (which is unmarried sexual intercourse) laws because you and Jonathan wanted some legal statutes that showed that marriage approved of conceiving children together. I’m not proposing that we throw unmarried mothers in jail, there wouldn’t be any change either required or desired.
I do propose that we throw people in jail (and fine them something huge, like $250 Million) for attempting to create a person by any means other than joining the unmodified sperm of a man and the unmodified egg of a woman. I think all parties involved should go to jail, the lab owners, the scientists, and the couple or individuals buying the service. And I do support jail for incestuous couples (even consensual incest), and I do support keeping fornication and adultery crimes and maybe enforcing them once in a while, but it’s not like my proposal requires enforcement of fornication or would result in it.
The main problems I am attempting to solve are these three:
1) Same-sex couples in committed relationships do not have equal protections, federal recognition, or any recognition at all in many states.
2) Marriage is in danger of losing its protection of the right to use the couple’s own genes to have children.
3) Crating children using genetic engineering and same-sex procreation are bad uses of resources and threaten human equality and put people at risk of new diseases and birth defects.
posted by John Howard on
Grendel, yes, but even China lets people marry and procreate once, and even that much of a restriction on additional children is considered a gross violation of human rights, precisely the sort of restriction on marriage rights that I am trying to prevent from happening here (or anywhere in the world). Forced abortion and sterilization is not a good thing, as Amicus seems to think it would be. It is a eugenic totalitarian nightmare and totally impractical to replace natural sex with lab created engineered children. I know lots of bitter people think human procreation is disgusting and ugly and bad, and that it would be much better if it was done in clean labs by experts in spaceships or something, but there are better ways to handle overpopulation and running out of resources, mainly by living more sustainably and locally and not trying to increase human lifespan. Trying to make more babies for same-sex couples doesn’t seem to help either problem anyhow.
posted by Regan DuCasse on
JH,
Every time marriage equality is debated, it comes down to some extremely reductive and simple minded rationalizations coming from the opposition.
The actual requirements and restrictions to legally marry, are themselves simple. And they ARE the same for ss and op sex couples.
You as do others arguing for the opposition to ss marriage, maintain the issue in the context of children.
Children are not part of the legal requirements, and restrictions in the marriage laws, vows and basic structure.
They are accepted as an option. But not as a requirement on any level. There are no moral, physical or relational tests for marriage qualifications.
Unlike the typical analogies to driver’s licenses, marriage licenses require no SKILLS to operate a marriage. There aren’t even any licensing or qualification tests for parenting, except for adults adopting other people’s children FOR the state.
What is going on with you, and every other person presumably, that opposes ss marriage, is YOU HAVE NO RATIONAL OR JUSTIFIED ARGUMENT.
You torture logic, make shit up that isn’t in the law at all and aren’t required for ANYONE, so therefore, gay people can’t be required where no one else is.
In other words, sometimes very stupid, illogical and impossible rhetoric comes out of your face, and there IS no answer that will satisfy.
No reason, intelligence or rational explanations are enough. It’s exhausting for us who support ss marriage, and it makes YOU look so intractably dumb, that in no way should you have any reason to demand that people who think like you should decide whether gay people ‘deserve’ or are ‘qualified’ to marry as equals to hetero people.
An extremely arrogant and bigoted expectation. A bigoted mindset IS what drives the objections. Not reason.
The proof is, that gay people are an unchanging constant in all human life and history.
Have no biological, cultural or ideological interests in their own perpetuation, in the way that’s obvious in heteros as the most common and dominant, but not BETTER aspect of human life. It’s impossible anyway. People with such a strong, distinct and morally neutral presence, shouldn’t be arguing their right to exist. And to exist peacefully under the SAME ACCEPTED STANDARDS other people with SIMILAR interests are allowed to.
We’re not talking just about marriage. But EVERYTHING. Just being believed, protected and supported within one’s family. Gay CHILDREN and gay people are not a THEORY. But a FACT of life as part of the human species.
This is the one part of human life that can be trusted to be the same EVERYWHERE, imprinted with the culture and family resemblance and interests, but beyond that, it’s out of everyone’s hands.
And all the punishment, brutality, unequal treatment and so on, hasn’t changed how many, who is or will be gay.
So, the issue here is, is our society going to continue telling itself that all the systemic bigotry has been justified and should continue?
Or are gay people going to be included in the expansion of equality and protection and opportunity, which has NEVER been a bad thing for otherwise minorities similarly maligned?
No one is forced to accept gay people. Any more than a racist is required to accept any group they don’t want to.
But our nation’s laws have to be valid and rational too. And continuing to KEEP an otherwise contributing and responsible minority FROM doing so, and making them vulnerable to losing their children, bequeathed property and their careers, is something anathema to the basic freedoms everyone has.
And with NO viable alternatives that are workable.
What ARE gay people supposed to do? Be wards of the state at taxpayers expense?
Gay people have all the responsibilities of the typical taxpayer, but with none of the same protections and equal access.
This is patently wrong on it’s face.
What laws make sense to KEEP adults FROM doing what’s right for their loved ones?
When it’s a conservative value to do just the opposite and be self reliant?
What IS it about gay people, just like women before them, to be subject to laws and social expectations that keep gay people in the status of children?
From all I have observed, the dominant culture IS trying to keep gay people dependent and fearful with a relationship that more resembles a child with an abusive parent.
So all your bullshit rhetorical questions get us nowhere in what the real meaning of equal marriage is about.
Adults being adults, being treated like adults.
The marriage bans don’t change the capacity for op sex couples to do what THEY plan, and want to do.
Nothing at ALL changes for straight people.
The bans have NO PURPOSE whatsoever, but to fuck with gay people and the quality of life THEY need for themselves and their loved ones.
And when they CAN’T marry and protect themselves, what can and does happen is the same as what slaves endured for their status and for the same reason.
Can’t be having that.
And why WOULD we be having that?
Nothing good has come from banning gay people from doing anything.
But a great deal of good HAS come from equality.
And always has.
posted by John Howard on
Were you crying when you wrote that, Regan? Do you feel better again now?
posted by grendel on
John, this is why it is useless to argue with you. You claimed “there has never been such a marriage [in which the couple prohibited from having children], because if a couple is not allowed to conceive together they aren’t allowed to marry each other.”
I showed your claim to be false. I have pointed out your error multiple times on this and other forums, and yet you continue to make the same claim. And now, when I again point out the falsity of your claim, you just shift gears and make a different argument.
You were arguing that as a matter of fact married couples cannot be prohibited from procreating. When that claim is proved false, you switch to “no married couple should be prohibited from procreating” Which is a not only vastly different claim, but also a claim that you have not proven.
Besides being factually wrong, your argument is specious: couples do not have rights, individuals do. The couple is not a separate legal entity, and no rights inure to it. So it makes no sense to talk about the rights of a couple.
And the sad thing is, in a week or two you will pop up in some other gay rights forum – or perhaps even this one – repeating your original argument as if nothing had ever happened.
You are a troll, and I’m done wasting my time with you.
posted by John Howard on
I never said that married couples cannot be stripped of procreation rights, indeed that is precisely what I argue would happen if we had same-sex marriage but prohibited same-sex procreation. I say we should not do that, and yes, I say that no marriages have ever been prohibited from procreating, knowing that China has indeed done this to second marriages. I could always write “no marriages have ever been prohibited from conceiving together (except second marriages in China where the spouses already have children)” but it’s easier to just respond to that objection if someone actually is dumb enough to bring it up. The One Child policy is draconian and a gross violation of human rights, but even it allows everyone to have one child, and it even allows two if a person remarries a childless person.
Again, I never said it cannot happen here, my whole alarmist point is that it can. That you cite it almost reverentially just proves my point.
I really don’t get how you think that citing China as an example of a marriage that was prohibited from procreating should somehow make me pack my bags and go home. I’m trying to stop genetic engineering and preserve everyone’s equal natural conception rights to have offspring with their spouse. I’m trying to stop same-sex procreation and get equal protections for same-sex couples. Reminding everyone that China forces women to have abortions doesn’t exactly present a compelling argument against anything I argue for. Is your point that we could prohibit same-sex conception and still have SSM? Then step out onto the limb and say that you think we should prohibit same-sex procreation and people should only have a right to procreate with someone of the same sex, and we’ll go from there to see if we can still call them marriages without making China’s policy possible here and stripping procreation rights from everyone’s marriage. Otherwise I’d say you are just trying to pretend to have dismissed my entire argument without actually addressing it at all.
posted by Jonathan on
John,
Nope, I’m not Rauch, just some other Jonathan, sorry for the confusion. Were Rauch to respond here, I suspect he would use his full name or otherwise be in some way identified as moderator.
There is a logical fallacy running throughout and undermining your arguments, which is a failure to distinguish necessity from sufficiency.
I would strongly recommend googling “necessary vs sufficient” before engaging any further on this topic. Distinguishing necessary from sufficient conditions, a basic tool of logic, undergirds a great deal of scientific and legal reasoning.
You wrote: “you have to present evidence of a marriage that was prohibited from conceiving offspring (not just prevented by incarceration or assumed unable to like old cousins, but actually prohibited from attempting to conceive offspring)”
Actually no, I quite distinctly do not have to do that. In asserting that the law omitting a restriction (married people are held immune from prosecution if they have sex) is identical with the law endorsing one possible outcome which can result from that omission (since they’re safe from prosecution, they should procreate), you have set things up so that you are now the one who needs to demonstrate that anything which the law does not prohibit, it endorses. Good luck with that.
There’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of law at work in your arguments. The law is a set of guardrails, a negative tool: it prohibits that which must be prohibited to maximize freedom without endorsing anything which it does not prohibit. This is the way the law is structured procedurally; it is why courts take great pains never to rule on any issue beyond that which the specifics of the case compel them to. It is why any assertion that the state has a “compelling interest” in an outcome is subject to strict tests (elevated scrutiny) of constitutionality regarding the rights of the individual.
All that which is legal is not right; and all that which is right is not legal.
If you want to argue that the *culture* does the things you’re saying the law should do, then argue that. I have a good deal of sympathy with arguments made on those grounds. But you’re going to want to leave the flashing red and blue lights behind.
Marriage culture, love-based relationships and their strong relationship to child-rearing are not weak cultural tropes, and they don’t need the specific kind of protection by the law that you and anti-SSM parties think they do. If anything, SSM will promote, not diminish them. That’s my cultural argument and predisposition.
posted by Amicus on
JH,
I won’t give you a break, given your snarky reply to Regan.
“The main problems I am attempting to solve are these three:
1) Same-sex couples in committed relationships do not have equal protections, federal recognition, or any recognition at all in many states.”
Solution: marriage, repeal of DOMA, enactment of UAFA
“2) Marriage is in danger of losing its protection of the right to use the couple’s own genes to have children.”
Incorrect problem assessment. It’s a fundamental truth, revealed over and over, that people want their own, biological kids. Therefore, while the danger is real, the threat is … not looming large, unless I miss something.
“3) Creating children using genetic engineering and same-sex procreation are bad uses of resources and threaten human equality and put people at risk of new diseases and birth defects.”
Solution: shut down the use of reproductive technology, except for couples who cannot conceive via ‘natural insemination’.
This way, the use of this technology is the exception, never the rule. Gays, in this calculation, are considered an ‘exception’, because the population of gays seeking to use this technology appears to be naturally limited and is so very small (at most 2.5% to 5% of all couples, cut in half again, or by more, to get to the smallish number of gay couples who seek children, maybe 1% of the population, based on our experience to date).
Q.E.D.
posted by John Howard on
you have set things up so that you are now the one who needs to demonstrate that anything which the law does not prohibit, it endorses.
OK, so, so far I’ve shown that marriage makes sex legal, based on fornication not being fornication if the couple is married, right? How about adding in the laws that require consummation (intercourse, potentially procreative intercourse) in order for the marriage to be binding? That would seem to “endorse” sex, wouldn’t it?
And we need those flashing blue lights to arrest people who try to conceive offspring of two people of the same sex. They aren’t cultural police, they are regular police, aka, “the law.”
posted by John Howard on
Amicus, if we don’t prohibit genetic engineering and same-sex conception, we will waste tons of money and resources and energy on research, cruelly confuse millions of young people about their futures, and continue to cause angst and grief and depression about the right to use our own genes to conceive children. And that’s right now, that’s not even ten years from now when new problems will mushroom when labs start actually offering the technology to the public. At that point, we’ll also have the problems of people being born from these experiments and needing medical care and monitoring, and if it works, of people losing their right to use their own genes due to better genes being an “option” forced on them.
So your position is unacceptable. It takes too long to get equal protections in all the states, it doesn’t stop genetic engineering, and it doesn’t preserve natural conception rights. Fail fail fail.
posted by Amicus on
How about adding in the laws that require consummation
—
Whatever, just don’t exclude gays and pretend you are making progress toward this goal for nongays.
Amicus, if we don’t prohibit genetic engineering …, we will …
—-
All interesting concerns, but not a “gay issue”. Again, if you want a general and absolute prohibition on genetic engineering, on so-called “designer babies”, then the place to start or get traction is not by putting down the Jews … er, I mean, by scapegoating gays. As I pointed out, the problem will not “mushroom”, your term, if it is kept as an exception, not a rule.
posted by Amicus on
JH, Can I ask you a question in passing? Would you put your money where you mouth is? You are asking parents to accept the vagaries of the genetic roulette wheel, that may give them a disable / differently abled child. Do you support Federal funding to help families who end up with children with costly genetic or other disabilities? (Yes, this is a trap question…).
posted by Jonathan on
John wrote:
“OK, so, so far I’ve shown that marriage makes sex legal based on fornication not being fornication if the couple is married, right?”
How about adding in the laws that require consummation (intercourse, potentially procreative intercourse) in order for the marriage to be binding? That would seem to “endorse” sex, wouldn’t it?”
Formally, it would suggest that, i.e., it’s internally consistent. So you’ve at least recognized the initial flaw in your reasoning.
The problem now is that you’re invoking historical (which fornication laws are well on their way to being) and non-civil “law” (consummation law, which is either sectarian or purely historical) to try to argue that American law in the 21st century “approves and affirms” reproduction, whatever that might mean. The lack of a *positive requirement* by law for reproductive acts or capacities in marriage is what dooms your argument.
“And we need those flashing blue lights to arrest people who try to conceive offspring of two people of the same sex. They aren’t cultural police, they are regular police, aka, “the law.””
Your concern with outlawing an act which is at this point and for the foreseeable future is true science fiction is odd to say the least. The law never gets out in front of future problems like that.
Not to mention which you haven’t even tried to show why this should be outlawed.
posted by John Howard on
Labs have already created gametes from stem cells, a law is needed right now make sure no one tries to use them to make an embryo. I’ve made many lists of reasons why it should be outlawed, why it is bad public policy to allow it to be done, briefly they’re cost, risk, harm, waste, and many more long term effects that might be bad.
And marriage doesn’t have to require procreation in order for it to legally protect the right to attempt it. By allowing and expecting sex, it obviously allows procreation, and that’s what we shouldn’t do fog same sex couples.
posted by Jonathan on
“Labs have already created gametes from stem cells”….
Labs have done so from induced pluripotent cells in mice. The distance between that and getting approval even to conduct trials for something so cutting edge in human beings is vast. As for your reasons why it shouldn’t be done, none of them make much sense, at least inasmuch as they all take care of themselves: Only techniques with scientific interest are funded; only those that are demonstrated to be safe are attempted in humans; only those with a market are privatized. But for sure, none of this has a single blessed thing to do with gay marriage.
“And marriage doesn’t have to require procreation in order for it to legally protect the right to attempt it.”
Wrong. Marriage incontrovertibly must require sexual procreation in order to deny people the right to it on the basis of an argument that gay marriage cannot result in such. This has been pointed out to you four different ways now, and you have yet to mount a logical response to it.
“By allowing and expecting sex, it obviously allows procreation,”
That is a functional tautology and doesn’t advance your point. As I already pointed out to you above, the law allowing something is logically distinct from the law endorsing something, much less requiring something. You haven’t mounted a successful response to that, either. I’m not sure you plan to try.
posted by John Howard on
Amicus – I support providing assistance for families with sick and disabled members, of course. I don’t know how it is done now, if it is federal or state money, but one of the good things about banning genetic engineering is that there would be lots more money available to help care for people. That’s been one of my arguments against GE research and same-sex conception research, that it would divert too much money from real medicine for existing sick people.
posted by John Howard on
Jonathan, a license give permission to do something, it doesn’t require it. James Bond doesn’t have to kill anyone even though he has a license to kill; a hunter doesn’t need to bag a deer just because he has a hunting license, but he needs a license if is going to hunt, even if he isn’t successful. In the case of permission to marry, it requires sex to be binding, and it makes sex legal. If sex is legal, procreation is legal, because we know that sex might result in procreation, and it is too late to stop it once it started (unless we adopt China’s forced abortion policies like Grendel wants us to do, but that’s unacceptable to me and a violation of basic human rights).
A marriage license gives permission to procreate with each other, and even requires that the partners be willing to have intercourse together and actually do it for it to be a binding marriage. Obviously due to biological factors, not every act of sex and not every marriage is going to result in a child being born. That is OK, marriage never required a child to be born for the marriage to still be binding and valid. In fact the possibility that the marriage will be barren is perhaps the main reason to bind the spouses together before finding that out, so that people aren’t abandoned if they are infertile.
Our disagreement is that you don’t think there is any reason to ban same-sex procreation, you would refuse to consider any objections, you’ll gloss over everything just to keep it from being banned. It will cost too much, be too unsafe, use too much energy, these are all reasons not to allow it. Everyone that wants to allow it is crazy and is harming the entire population. It’s such a stupid thing to insist on. Think of the thousands of families that really need equal protections, and you are tossing them under the bus because all you care about is a right to try to procreate with another man, which probably can never be done and in thirty years you might just give up, but meanwhile you’ll have wasted billions of dollars and harmed families and the environment and the health care system. Utterly selfish priorities.
posted by John Howard on
And Jonathan, human germ cells have been made already from stem cells, though they haven’t gotten them to viable gametes yet. here is an article.
And, they wouldn’t have to get approval in order to “conduct trials for something so cutting edge in human beings”, a group like the Raelians or Dr. Zavos could try to do it for a same-sex couple today and it wouldn’t be a crime. It should be a crime right now, before someone does “human trials” – this isn’t a cure for cancer, this is something totally unnecessary and there is no justifiable reason to subject a person to such an inhuman manner of creation.
posted by Jonathan on
John,
This is unfortunately becoming tiresome, because I can no longer tell whether you’re willfully ignoring others’ arguments or not.
You write:
“Jonathan, a license give permission to do something, it doesn’t require it.”
Yes, John, that is precisely my point. Yet for some reason you either fail to understand, or want to pretend that you don’t understand, that any argument (i.e., yours against SSM) which depends on a law positively requiring something (procreation) in order to make the point that the law therefore prohibits anything (such as SSM) which does not or cannot include that something (procreation), **fails outright if the law does not positively require that something (procreation).** Therefore, in a state like California and most other states, where the law, in fact, does not require sex, much less procreation, for a marriage license to be valid, this argument fails lock, stock, and barrel.
“A marriage license gives permission to procreate with each other, and even requires that the partners be willing to have intercourse together and actually do it for it to be a binding marriage.”
No. In nearly every state in the United States, consummation law has been repealed as a requirement for marriage. It is universally recognized as vestigial and on its way out of existence entirely. In nearly every state in the union, the couple is married when the ceremony ends. In the few states where consummation law is still on the books at all, it has been enforced literally a handful of times within the past 30 years, and invariably where the additional issue of the relative youth of one of the “offenders” has been in play. And even in those states, it goes presumptively unenforced where marriages between the elderly are concerned; i.e., nobody is rude enough to ask if they’re capable of having sex before they get hitched. So if consummation law, an all but vanished legal custom, is the thin reed that you want to use to rescue your argument, you are going to want to admit that that argument is extraordinarily weak even on first inspection.
But let’s assume for the sake of argument that we live in the United States of Arkansas, and consummation law is the law of the land (instead of the unenforced and unenforceable law of a tiny fraction of it). Your argument still fails, because what is required is sex, not procreation. Again: what would be required would be intercourse, not a fertility test nor any other test of the capacity to reproduce. Gay people have plenty of sex. The fact that it is nonreproductive sex is, apparently, immaterial before the law, *since no test of reproductive capacity is applied to nongay marriage candidates.*
Everyone of common sense knows that procreation and sexual intercourse are “related.” That is not sufficient logical grounds, from a legal precedent standpoint, to infer any requirement for either sex or procreation under the law when the law is never interpreted or enforced as if they mattered. And it is definitely not sufficient grounds, therefore, to conclude that existing law can be used *positively to deny* a subset of the population civil marriage rights.
“Our disagreement is that you don’t think there is any reason to ban same-sex procreation”
Our original disagreement was over same-sex marriage rights. I take that now to be a settled matter.
“And Jonathan, human germ cells have been made already from stem cells, though they haven’t gotten them to viable gametes yet. here is an article.”
Yes, I’ve worked with Reijo-Pera in a consultative capacity. To put it mildly, I’m aware of all this. You’re arguing with someone with a doctorate in molecular biology. Regarding that paper, it would take me more time than i have to explain to you why it does not mean what you think it means, but i’ll just say that unless deceased embryos (as opposed to gay couples) plan to have children, we are still a very very long way from what you are worrying about, and it is something so remote in its threat that it really has no place in a discussion about marriage on IGF.
posted by John Howard on
Jonathan, you’re crazy wrong about licenses needing to require the holder to achieve what the license licenses. A hunting license doesn’t require anyone to bag a deer, but it does allow it, and if anyone were prohibited from hunting, they would not be eligible to get a license. The idea that a person could get a hunting license but still not be allowed to ever go out and hunt is illogical. There can be restrictions and seasons of course, but there can’t be insurmountable obstacles that totally make it impossible to hunt. That’s not a license to hunt.
A marriage license is supposed to approve and allow the couple to conceive offspring together, it is not supposed to require it. We should not approve or allow same-sex couples to conceive offspring together. QED
What did you consult with Reijo-Pera about? And if you knew all about her human germ cells, why did you assert that germ cells have only been made so far in mice? And it is not too soon to prohibit it, it is cruel to keep it legal and then maybe take it away later. If it is going to be prohibited it can and should be prohibited right now, before we waste too much time and money and energy and ruin people’s lives.
posted by Don’t Let Paraplegics Marry! — IGF Culture Watch on
[…] Or something like that. No, it didn’t make sense to me, either. […]
posted by Amicus on
A marriage license is supposed to approve and allow the couple to conceive offspring together, it is not supposed to require it. We should not approve or allow same-sex couples to conceive offspring together. QED
=======
That’s not an “argument”, that’s just mean.
What you’ve said is this:
Because they _can’t_ have offspring, we can’t approve or allow them to have offspring.
If you can make so-called ‘humane exceptions’ for the sterile and the elderly and so on, you can make one for the 1% of the population of couples who are gay.
Amicus – I support providing assistance for families with sick and disabled members, of course.
====
“of course”?
you g-d big government, marxist-socialist, liberal, athiest, redistributionist, elitist-rationalist, non-Patriot, anti-American, tree-hugging pig – if you get the intent of my humor trap
Right now, in WV, the GOP Senator is campaigning on eliminating the Department of Education, where a significant portion of this current “bleeding heart” funding comes from.
posted by Jonathan on
John, you’re not even doing me the simple courtesy of reading what I write. Sorry, but there’s no point in having a back and forth with someone who won’t do that.
I’ll repsond regarding the stem cells because I didn’t explain myself. I consulted with RRP and coworkers on induced pluripotency technology unrelated to reproduction. The reason I pointed out that the state of the art regarding gametes related to same-sex reproduction is currently in mice, is because the gametes that in my opinion have the best chance of use in such an application will result from induced pluripotent stem cells, not from existing embryonic stem cells (nor from cells reprogrammed by older in situ injection techniques), which was the origin of the gametes in the paper you cited. If deceased embryos want to conceive children, we can get them from existing human ES cells (what’s in the paper). If gay couples want to conceive children using their own genes, however, that will require that one set of gametes derived from a parent, which will need to come from a reprogrammed adult cell. Currently, the technique with what appears to be the best chance of reliably and reproducibly achieving that is in mice.
posted by grendel on
John Howard = “Ferrous Cranus”
http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warriorshtm/ferouscranus.htm
posted by John Howard on
Amicus, I’m not trying to be mean. I’m also not saying that same-sex couples _cannot_ have children, I’m saying that attempting to create genetic offspring would be unethical and should be prohibited. Infertile people and paraplegics are people like everyone else and should have a right to attempt to procreate, perhaps even access to medical assistance and reproductive technology (though they don’t have a right to any and all techniques). Both-sex couples have gametes (if they have them, which we publicly assume they do or might) that have complementary genomic imprinting and do not need any engineering or tweaking to get their gametes to mate. They aren’t required to do it, they might not be able to do it, but they are all allowed to do it. Same-sex couples shouldn’t be allowed. Without engineering, their children would lack placentas or spinal cords or something like that and not make it very far. To make them viable requires unethical experimentation and engineering genomic changes.
Oh, and to Amicus’s first comment, I’m not sure what the argument is, because surely he realizes that such a test would be unconstitutional and impractical and arbitrary and draconian and nightmarish, and that we shouldn’t adopt China’s forced abortions and mandatory contraception, especially based on such authoritarian thought control. Also I’ll note that marriage doesn’t give a couple any right to abuse their children and that the state does take children away from abusive homes every day. If they are married they are allowed to procreate again, but the state might take those away too, sometimes even locking up the woman in the hospital if they think she will try to hide the baby (see Attleboro cult).
posted by John Howard on
Jonathan I did read what you wrote, I think it was an attempt to confuse other readers and fake like you have defeated my argument, and I thank you for ceasing and desisting from that now.
posted by John Howard on
Regarding stem cell derived gametes, wouldn’t they most likely come from cloned embryos? The research getting gametes from human embryos is only research, so they use discarded IVF embryos to practice. The key to creating gametes for a person to reproduce is creating cloned embryos from that person, using denucleated egg cells, and then derive gametes somehow from that embryo. In theory both sperm and eggs could be created, but in practice it’d be unsafe and unethical.
posted by John Howard on
Oops, Amicus’s first comment on the other thread Jonathan Rauch just started, I mean. I forgot I was back on his old thread.
Funny, two huge threads about the procreation argument and mating, but no comment from him on whether it’s important to be allowed to procreate with your spouse. Maybe in the next thread?
posted by Amicus on
John,
What is happening is indeed mean spirited, whether you intend it that way or not.
Gays are denied access to reproductive technologies while nongays are not, in quite a few jurisdictions. The last place I recall it being done was Austria, as best memory serves. There ethics that supports that, to the extent an ethics is even offered, is hopelessly thin.
The “ethical harms” of these technologies are to be judged on their impact on society and the intent of their use. Keeping the technologies confined to the gay community as an exception rather than a rule, skirts all those harms and objections and “naturally” limits the use / intent / scope of the technology.
We aren’t ill informed here. We know the syllogisms:
Marriage = reproduction, “in concept”, “with practical exceptions”
Gays cannot reproduce, biologically
Therefore gays cannot be allowed civil marriage, morally
We already know all the modus in which this argument fails and is hopelessly narrow.
We also know that the detour into reproductive technology is not much different than trying to scare people with the “horrors of gay sex” – it’s specious, a tactic.
posted by Jonathan on
John,
I sincerely apologize for “confusing the other readers” (i.e. you).
Let’s see how simple I can make this. I’ll just ask you a series of questions, ok?
1. Do you think that the words:
“allow” and “require”
are different words with different meanings?
2.a. If you do think that they are different words with different meanings, what do you believe those meanings are?
2.b. If you think that they have the same meaning, what do you believe that meaning is?
posted by John Howard on
1. Different words, different meanings.
2.a.”Allow” means to not prevent it, to let people do it. “Require” means to demand it or insist on it.
2.b N/A
posted by John Howard on
We aren’t ill informed here. We know the syllogisms:
Marriage = reproduction, “in concept”, “with practical exceptions”
Gays cannot reproduce, biologically
Therefore gays cannot be allowed civil marriage, morally
If that is intended to be a good faith restatement of my argument, then I’m not doing a very good job. Allow me to fix it:
Marriage [allows, approves, affirms] reproduction, “in concept”,
“with practical exceptions”[“with no exceptions, except in China where the notorious One Child policy prohibits second marriages from procreating if both spouses already have one child, and while a spouse is incarcerated”]Gays[Same-sex couples] cannot [ethically] reproduce, biologicallyTherefore
gays[Same-sex couples] cannot be allowed civil marriage,morally[legally]posted by Jonathan on
1. Do you think that the words:
“approve” and “affirm”
are different words with different meanings?
2.a. If you do think that they are different words with different meanings, what do you believe those meanings are?
2.b. If you think that they have the same meaning, what do you believe that meaning is?
posted by John Howard on
Those ones I use fairly synonymously, together they cover the range of ways unmarried procreation is treated by the state, sometimes marriage is required before a couple is allowed to procreate, other times the couple is already allowed to procreate and the marriage is more just affirming that the couple is allowed. It always does both, and either term would stand alone, but sometimes people get hung up on procreation already being allowed, as far as not going to jail for it, so we add that it also affirms that right formally.
So the difference is indifference vs approval.
posted by Jonathan on
We’re not talking about procreation or marriage or anything else right now. Just definitions of words. These are simple questions:
1. Do you think that the words:
“approve” and “affirm”
are different words with different meanings?
2.a. If you do think that they are different words with different meanings, what do you believe those meanings are?
2.b. If you think that they have the same meaning, what do you believe that meaning is?
posted by John Howard on
Darn I thought the words were “allow” and “affirm” but they were “approve” and “affirm”. Perhaps it’d help to describe the opposite status, being prohibited from creating offspring together.
posted by John Howard on
Phone ate previous reply!?
posted by Jonathan on
All of my replies are here.
Simple questions:
1. Do you think that the words:
“approve” and “affirm”
are different words with different meanings?
2.a. If you do think that they are different words with different meanings, what do you believe those meanings are?
2.b. If you think that they have the same meaning, what do you believe that meaning is?
posted by John Howard on
I had pecked out a long reply but maybe didn’t hit send. But this gives me another change with the correct two words, “approve” and “affirm”.
Yes, different words and slightly different meanings, “approve” connotes that without the approval the thing is forbidden, and one must not act without approval to do so, or face certain consequences. “Affirm” connotes that one is already allowed to do it without consequences, but affirming it acknowledges that one is doing it and that it’s indeed approved. We use them both somewhat synonymously to account for the varying degrees of punishment or disinterest in pre-marital sex. Where there is only disinterest, marriage only “affirms”, where there is more prohibition, marriage would “approve”.
This is from the recent opening brief by the proponents of Prop 8:
I see now he used “social recognition” rather than “affirm” (I think “affirm” was Blankenhorn’s word choice, or maybe it’s just mine) but the combination of social recognition and approval is the same thing as affirmation of it being right by society, by the state and everyone subject to the state’s decisions and authority. The point is, marriage says go ahead and conceive offspring, you two! Yay! And we should not say that to same-sex couples, because it would be bad public policy to allow people to be created that way. There is no need and it wastes resources and harms the environment, etc…
I’m dying to know where you are going with this, can you go there now?
posted by John Howard on
Oh, I see my lost comment now, you confused me with the repeated question, I thought it didn’t get through. Have I given you enough to go on now? I mean, there is the dictionary, it usually can answer these sorts of questions.
posted by Jonathan on
Since you’re getting all antsy and jumping out of format, I’ll fill things in for you based on your reply:
Affirm: to denote that an action is positively perceived or welcomed; does not connote the possibility of disapproval if omitted
Approve: a positive response to an action which connotes disapproval if withheld.
So, when you formulate a sentence such as:
“A marriage license affirms and approves the right of a couple to procreate.”
The meaning of the sentence can be mapped this way:
“A marriage license (civil marriage contract, granted by the state) affirms (unconditionally welcomes) and approves (requires) the right of a couple to procreate (the capacity and ability, protected but not required by the state, to generate offspring by sexual intercourse).
Correct?
This isn’t going anywhere it hasn’t gone before; it’s just going there in a slow, structured way. Heck, you can even cheat to see where it’s going by reading what I already wrote earlier in the thread!
posted by John Howard on
OK, but the “by sexual intercourse” isn’t the only way people procreate anymore, but was the only way people procreated back when marriage and fornication and adultery laws were formulated. They regulated sexual intercourse because that was the only way to prevent or allow procreation.
Also, I see now what you mean by “requires”, you mean a marriage requires that the couple be allowed to conceive offspring, not requires that they actually do. OK, I’ll accept that. It is indeed possible though, as grendel pointed out, for a country like China to prevent a married couple from procreating offspring, but I say that strips the basic liberty from marriage and is unacceptable and is precisely what I am trying to prevent from happening here. We shouldn’t let marriage be stripped of its protection of the right to procreate.
posted by Jonathan on
OK, I think I see a way to get you to cut to the chase here:
Explain to me, in 40 words or less, in clear language that conforms to the definitions used above, how a state granting civil marriage licenses to gay couples “let(s) marriage be stripped of its protection of the right to procreate.”
(I’m really curious to know how you’re going to do that, because it sure sounds to me like what you’re saying is that, if gay people can marry, the right of straight married people to procreate is no longer protected. Which is just nonsense on its face.)
posted by Jonathan on
Or do you think that would only be true in China, and not in the USA?
If so, then explain in 40 words or less, in clear language that conforms to the definitions used above what, if any, effect a state granting civil marriage licenses to gay couples would have on the rights of straight couples.
posted by Jonathan on
All that is on the topic of how on earth gay marriage would threaten straight marriage.
Back to why you argument fails as a rationale for denying gay people the right to marry:
I’ll amend your sentence map according to your suggestions:
“A marriage license (civil marriage contract, granted by the state) affirms (unconditionally welcomes) and approves (requires) the right of a couple to procreate (the capacity and ability, protected but not required by the state, to generate offspring sexually by natural or technologically assisted means).
Correct?
posted by John Howard on
Explain to me how marriage could still protect the right of the couple to procreate offspring if there are couples who are married who are also prohibited from procreating offspring? Same-sex couples aren’t prohibited today, but they might be prohibited from attempting to procreate if we get around to passing an Egg and Sperm law against genetic engineering and same-sex procreation, which would clearly show that marriage didn’t protect the couple’s right to procreate offspring. If a same-sex marriage could be banned by law from procreating offspring, then any marriage could be. Even if we don’t ban same-sex procreation, SSM still strips the right to use our own genes, because same-sex couples require genetic engineering to procreate offspring, so if a married same-sex couple can be required to use genetic engineering, then any couple can be required to use their own genes.
Let me ask you if you think people should have the same right to procreate with someone of either sex? Should I have the same right to procreate with a man that I should have with a woman? Saying yes really insults the meaning of the word “right”, it really insults the natural right to procreate sexually and be a man married to a woman. You really need to accept that there should be different rights, and different names for the different set of rights. Sticking every man and woman couple into the same box with the same rights as a gay couple is disrespectful of human rights and opens the door wide open to genetic engineering and loss of natural reproductive rights.
Sorry for more than 40 words.
posted by grendel on
France does not allow post-menopausal women to procreate (by banning their access to reproductive technology) but does not prohibit them from marrying.
posted by John Howard on
Whoops, should be:
Even if we don’t ban same-sex procreation, SSM still strips the right to use our own genes, because same-sex couples require genetic engineering to procreate offspring, so if a married same-sex couple can be required to use genetic engineering, then any couple can be required [to use genetic engineering]. We’d be denying that there is anything special about using our unmodified genes.
posted by Jonathan on
Hey John – if the right to procreate is denied to straight couples, then there won’t be any more gay people created. Problem solved, right?
Sorry to be glib, but i’m coming to realize that i’ve basically been spending time arguing on the internets with L. Ron Hubbard. Anyone who can write a paragraph like the first one in your last response, and not understand, on their own and without any help, why it’s the purest nonsense is either a) less intelligent than the average twelve year old, or b) actually, bat-poop insane.
You win, John, okay? You win.
posted by John Howard on
grendel, France has a good idea, we should do that here too, we should go further and just ban IVF. But it still doesn’t prohibit any one from procreating, it just limits the methods they can use. An Egg and Sperm law, on the other hand, would make it a crime to procreate with someone of the same sex, or with modified genes. It would make it a crime no matter how young or old the couple is. It would also prohibit relationships, not individuals. A man would be allowed to procreate with a woman, but prohibited and criminally punished if he tried to procreate with a man. Elderly people don’t get criminally punished for trying to procreate, they just fail. Perhaps they would be criminally punished for using IVF in France if they were post-menopausal, but it would be for the use of the technology, not for the attempt to conceive children.
posted by John Howard on
Jonathan, are you ready to accept the Egg and Sperm Civil Union Compromise yet? You could help thousands of same-sex couples and their families get federal recognition and quickly enact uniform CU’s in every state, just by accepting an Egg and Sperm law that prohibited people from procreating with someone of the same sex. Why is it more important to claim a right to procreate with someone of the same sex? Why is more important to deny that a married man and woman have a right to procreate?
posted by Amicus on
“A marriage license (civil marriage contract, granted by the state) affirms (unconditionally welcomes) and approves (requires) the right of a couple to procreate …
—————-
Consider this:
I suspect that many would have a problem if we had a civil law that denied a religiously married couple the right to procreate.
If the law (of man) cannot deny, then how can it be said to “allow”?
Wouldn’t we be better off if we observed that marriage is a social contract, in which non-marital sex is discouraged?
I could qualify and add more to that, but let’s keep it simple.
From that more steady perspective, adding gays to marriage is really no problemo.
JH, I have to add that, although I share some of your anxieties about reproductive technology, we’re eventually going to have to come to grips with how best to use the technology, no just yes/no.
posted by John Howard on
No, Amicus, we can have Congress prohibit creating people by any means other than joining the egg of a woman and the sperm of a man. That would be a much better public policy for practical reasons and also must be done to preserve the principle of equality.
posted by Amicus on
Well, you are right. Suppose we did that.
Then Britain makes a big stink about continuing the research that we ban (like they did about stem cells). Money and jobs flow there, as well as technological advantage. Soon, though, they stop short of implementing the ideas, or they end up, sensibly limiting them.
But, someone wealthy and activist is disgruntled. He’s been following the technology. He goes to small country, Xanadu, and convinces them that they can get out of their poverty trap through genetic engineering. The poverty is so bad, they have no problem finding women (and men) who are willing to participate.
Soon, the USA finds it is competing with computer “geniuses” who have IQs of 190, consistently, from Xanadu, as well as superior sexual stamina (an unexpected correlation). The first tech company finally relocates to Xanadu, in 2030 as do a bunch of people who think that the technology will give them a chance at a designed baby they’ve always wanted.
What say you to this scenario?
posted by John Howard on
Well first of all, Britian has already banned use of artificial gametes, as have most European countries. They actually had a debate in Parliament about allowing same-sex procreation and decided not to allow it. Here is one story on it, from 2008. Not coincidentally, Britian also gives same-sex couples equal protections via Civil Partnerships. All countries should prohibit it, to avoid an genes race. The sooner it is prohibited the less chance of a company doing it in Xanadu, and I saw we take our chances that very very few people are crazy enough to want to have a child made there if they do start offering to do it. Sanctions and war are called for if they try to violate human dignity like that.
posted by Amicus on
Is there a long list of technologies that mankind has been successful in banning completely?
posted by Jonathan on
The ban in the article John cites is for safety reasons, not in principle. When the science has proven itself, you can bet that Britain will cautiously proceed.
posted by Amicus on
Should I have the same right to procreate with a man that I should have with a woman? Saying yes really insults the meaning of the word “right”, it really insults the natural right to procreate sexually and be a man married to a woman.
——–
I’ve been trying to come up with a perfect illustration to show how NOM and others are over anxious to generalize, to suggest that any difference in attribute negates the entire category.
Maybe some others can help. John Corvino did a piece on nongays not modeling their relationships after gays. That’s on point to my thought, but not expressed in the pithy way I’m seeking.
As a practical matter, we cognitively accept things in the same category, even though they have different attributes. Sometimes, the difference in attributes is significant enough that we actually have different understandings or expectations, from the same category of things.
This is imperfect, but maybe it will point a way for someone to come up with a better example. Take the category of eyes. We have some people with blue and some with brown, but they are still eyes. Same with couples. We have some that are attracted to same-sex and some that are not, but both are loving-couples, sexually involved.
Going further, we have some people with superior eyesight and some people with poor eyesight. In the right _social_ conditions (national distress), we may have a social expectation that people will superior eyesight become pilots to fight our nation’s wars. People with poor eyesight, we expect will fill other roles. Same with couples. We can expect one type to create children via natural insemination and another not to, without having to make some grand, normative statement about the entire category of all couples, claro?
posted by John Howard on
Is there a long list of technologies that mankind has been successful in banning completely?
We ban murder even though we have never been successful in banning it completely. This is like that. It’s not the technology we’d be banning but the use of it to make people, just like we don’t ban guns but just the use of them to kill people. But also this is not like that, because it really is a much more difficult and specialized technology than others, and it hasn’t been figured out yet. So it might be in the fairly long list of things like time travel, wormholes, free energy, immortality, ESP, and talking animals, in terms of whether it will ever be figured out, even if we pour billions of dollars of taxpayer money into it.
posted by John Howard on
The ban in the article John cites is for safety reasons, not in principle. When the science has proven itself, you can bet that Britain will cautiously proceed.
posted by John Howard on
The article makes it seem like the ban is for safety reasons, but that’s the media for ya. The debate is not only about safety, there are other benefits that come from banning it and other costs that would be incurred if it is allowed. You’re probably right though that if other countries did the unethical experiments and first human trials and the offspring seem healthy and fertile and normal, Britian would probably allow it there too, but surely when they did, they would also convert their Civil Partnerships to full fledged marriages.
We could do it that way too: have Civil Unions in the meantime while we have a debate, and convert them to marriages if we decide to allow it if it proves safe.
posted by Amicus on
We ban murder even though we have never been successful in banning it completely. This is like that.
=====
well it’s not like that, but even if it were, murder is a type of killing, and we certainly do not ban all killing.
We’re not very good at keeping the genie in the bottle, are we?
We do have ‘controlled substances’, I suppose, but some argue that the very ban on some of those creates the problem of control.
As for reproductive technologies, it may turn out that there are a panoply of them, from IVF to newer, genetic engineering (and there may be more than one type of that – it may turn out easy to manipulate eye-color, but very difficult to engineer ‘superior musculature’ or ‘intelligence’ or giant genitals.
posted by Jonathan on
John,
I’m not stating that that’s what Britain will do from reading the article. I’m stating it from knowledge of the positions of leading researchers there and the history of regulation in the UK. And if not the UK, then Japan; and if not Japan, S. Korea, Singapore, certainly China down the road.
So I would strongly suggest considering Amicus’ advice that the way to think about this is “how do we regulate” as opposed to “how do we prevent,” because unless you become emperor of the world, it’s going to happen somewhere at some time.
I’m at least as concerned (probably more) about the negative implications of a “gene race” as the anyone else who’s thought this through carefully.
However, you’re bundling apples with oranges and calling it lemons, John. There are already significant technical hurdles standing in the way of donor gamete generation via induced pluripotency/reprogramming, but those hurdles pale in comparison to those that would need to be overcome to add germ line genomic *alteration* (actually editing the reprogrammed genome, true “genetic engineering” so to speak) to the mix. That’s a technology that’s more on the order of ~40-60 years away if ever.
So, admitting that you need same-sex reproduction as the keystone to an argument against gay marriage is to admit that you have no good argument. There’s no deep, fundamental connection between same-sex marriage and engineered reproduction.
The dystopia you fear could just as easily happen in a world without gay marriage as with it, and arguably more easily, since in its absence the ethos of marriage may remain more bound up with sexual reproduction and its possibilities than ever. Joe Six-Pack and Mrs. Six-Pack could just as easily come to want their Enhanced Offspring(TM) in a world governed by social conservatives as by anyone else. And that’s not even considering what the non-Western posture will be on these technologies.
Anyone who is interested in looking at a consideration of the best arguments against germ line alteration of traits (genetic engineering of offspring) should see Habermas’ typically thorough treatment of the topic in “The Future of Human Nature.”
posted by jimmy on
“….history of regulation in the UK. And if not the UK, then Japan; and if not Japan, S. Korea, Singapore, certainly China down the road.”
Exactly. The debate about reproductive versus therapeutic cloning within the UN has been more contentious than people realize.
posted by John Howard on
Isn’t it you who is now admitting that you need genetic engineering and same-sex procreation to be legal to make an argument for same-sex marriage? These arguments always get to this point, after weeks of trying to say it has nothing to do with marriage, etc etc, it winds up being a feeble cry that “same-sex procreation is inevitable.” Well, it isn’t. I think the UN would easily agree to prohibit same-sex procreation and genetic engineering, and all nations will be relieved to not have to waste any resources on a genes race when there are far more pressing problems facing every nation on earth. The genes race will only exacerbate the other problems, and it would be so easy to shun the technology. The few genetic engineers and eugenicists will be disappointed, but they can find another hobby, preferably one that doesn’t harm people or cost everyone money and resources.
Still wondering why you don’t want to move to the Compromise position until same-sex conception is safe, if you are so sure that it will be someday. Meanwhile, starting the day we enact the Egg and Sperm Civil Union Compromise, same-sex couples will have federal recognition and it will be much easier to get full CU’s in all 50 states.
posted by Jonathan on
“Isn’t it you who is now admitting that you need genetic engineering and same-sex procreation to be legal to make an argument for same-sex marriage?”
Um, no. What I in fact stated is the opposite of that:
“The dystopia you fear could just as easily happen in a world without gay marriage as with it, and arguably more easily, since in its absence the ethos of marriage may remain more bound up with sexual reproduction and its possibilities than ever. Joe Six-Pack and Mrs. Six-Pack could just as easily come to want their Enhanced Offspring(TM) in a world governed by social conservatives as by anyone else. And that’s not even considering what the non-Western posture will be on these technologies.”
See, John, this is where you start becoming a bore by not reading things before you respond to them.
Or, if you did read it, then please show, using direct quotes (not your addled paraphrasing) how anything I have said in this entire thread could be used to support the idea that same-sex procreation must be legal to make an argument for same-sex marriage. Good luck.
More generally, I demand that you go to this website:
http://www.google.com
and type into the little box there, “necessary vs sufficient,” and read what come up on your computer screen. Or go here for one-stop shopping:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies#Faulty_generalizations
Until you can manage to string two thoughts together that aren’t in direct conflict with each other, you can’t reason nor be reasoned with.
posted by Jimmy on
“Still wondering why you don’t want to move to the Compromise position until same-sex conception is safe, if you are so sure that it will be someday.”
He didn’t say it would eventually be safe, he simply stated that somehow, somewhere, there is a Dr. Mephesto (in Colorado, perhaps) who will attempt to conduct the research, or potentially see it through to whatever end, independent of any non-binding UN ruling or national marriage issue. The “compromise” is moot.
The science with regard to human engineering stems from the industry of treatment of infertile, heterosexual couples. It all stems from there, and whether they are married or not is not as relevant as whether they can afford the service, or not.
A monkey with four butts would certainly be useful at political debates, though.
posted by John Howard on
There are thousands of same-sex couples without any recognition, and none have federal recognition. The Compromise would not be moot for them.
Everyone who thinks that keeping same-sex procreation legal is more important than having the security of Civil Unions in every state or federal recognition is hurting gay people and their families. If you can’t argue for genetic engineering without using gay people as pawns and hurting them in the process, then clearly there aren’t any good arguments for genetic engineering. It’s entirely unnecessary and a bad use of resources, and it should be banned and any Dr. Mephistos should be told they will be put in jail and fined 100 Million Dollars if they attempt it.
posted by Jonathan on
“Isn’t it you who is now admitting that you need genetic engineering and same-sex procreation to be legal to make an argument for same-sex marriage?”
Nope. But if you really believe I did that, then please show how using direct quotes. Feel free to use anything I’ve said during this entire thread. Good luck!
“There are thousands of same-sex couples without any recognition, and none have federal recognition. The Compromise would not be moot for them.”
For “The Compromise” to be politically viable, it would need to establish a coherent, logical connection between SSM and genetically assisted reproduction. There isn’t one.
You can have a world with SSM but no GE, a world with both, or a world with GE but no SSM. There’s not a single reason that the two are connected.
posted by John Howard on
The Compromise is viable, you just want same-sex procreation to remain legal. The connection is established in the Compromise itself, which would establish with a federal law that marriage in the US protects the right to conceive offspring from the couple’s own genes and no state can strip procreation rights from marriage by either prohibiting any married couple from joining their own genes to conceive offspring, or allow a marriage to any couple that is prohibited from using their own genes to conceive offspring. The other two laws in the Compromise would be the Egg and Sperm law that would explicitly prohibit same-sex procreation, and the Civil Union law that would give federal recognition to state CU’s defined as “marriage minus conception rights.” Achieving those three outcomes is not only viable, but all of them are of vital importance and not enacting them would be unacceptable and a terrible tragic mistake.
Yes, we could have SSM with a ban on SSP: but that strips conception rights from marriage and makes it possible to prohibit married couples from using their own genes and force them to use modified or substitute genes. Yes, we could have SSP without SSM, but that is irrational, couples that have children together should be married, not forbidden to marry.
And I think that by arguing so strenuously against even a temporary* ban on same-sex procreation, you are admitting that a ban would destroy the argument for same-sex marriage, because you couldn’t claim they had equal rights any more. You can say that we can have SSM even if SSP is banned, but I think you know that it wouldn’t be acceptable to you and wouldn’t really be marriage. You’re being disingenuous by offering that as an acceptable outcome that really gives marriage rights to same-sex couples. It doesn’t and you know it.
*(even so called “permanent bans” are only temporary, since they can always be rescinded in the future, though the more we think of it as a permanent ban due to understanding that it will never be ethical, the more we benefit from the ban.)
posted by John Howard on
Quick correction:
Yes, we could have SSP without SSM, but that is irrational, couples that [are allowed to] have children together should be married, not forbidden to marry.
posted by Jonathan on
The whole thing was hilarious but this was the best part:
“You can say that we can have SSM even if SSP is banned, but I think you know that it wouldn’t be acceptable to you and wouldn’t really be marriage. You’re being disingenuous by offering that as an acceptable outcome that really gives marriage rights to same-sex couples. It doesn’t and you know it.”
When was the last time you looked at the newspaper?
You see gay people clamoring for marriage rights, *today.*
Like most of the population, most of those people just about know what “DNA” is, and most don’t even understand that much. They want *to get married to the people they love, right now, today.*
And here you are all by your lonesome worrying about a technology that, by the time it is ready for use if ever, you, me, and most of the people we know *will be dead.*
If gay marriage were recognized nationwide, tomorrow, there would be rejoicing in spite of the fact that SSR is impossible and will be impossible for an exceedingly long time. In other words John, nobody is thinking about it; the one who believes in this fictional “connection” between SSP and SSM is: You, full stop.
Because gay marriage and assisted reproduction are entirely unrelated, neither banning gay marriage, nor allowing gay marriage, nor allowing gay marriage only on the first Tuesday of every other month, will stop the eventual arrival of epigenetically assisted reproduction for those who are unable to have children naturally: heterosexual first and foremost, and then eventually same sex, if and when they are safe. If you were president of the world, perhaps. But in the real world, not a chance.
posted by John Howard on
Why would a heterosexual couple need epigenetically assisted reproduction? Only same-sex couples need that. And yeah, it’d be stopped with a law stopping it, not by stopping gay marriage. You surely must be understanding my proposal at this point, no? I know that I am the only one who talks about it, it is my proposal, and people like Jonathan Rauch and John Corvino should show me the courtesy of addressing it. Then if they agree to it, it’d be a big deal, and could quickly move to Congress enacting it and resolving the marriage debate.
And you are making my point: gay people are clamoring for equal protections, and don’t care about being able to procreate together. It’s you and Amicus who are insisting that they need procreation rights equal to a male-female couple right now. That is ridiculous, you could help them get equal protections by agreeing that equal procreation rights are a non-issue right now.
posted by Jonathan on
Heterosexual couples could benefit if, for example, there were a gamete or reproductive organ deficiency or injury which prevented standard in vitro techniques from being a viable option. Or, if germ line alteration in the case of disease is thrown into the mix, by swapping out genes in a parent’s gametes for Parkinsonism or other diseases with wildtype (non-disease) copies. These cases will be rare in the population at large, but since 99% of reproducing couples will be heterosexual, probably not much more rare than the number seeking it for SSR purposes.
“And yeah, it’d be stopped with a law stopping it, not by stopping gay marriage.”
Then why do you want to stop gay marriage? Why not just campaign to stop all epigenetically assisted reproduction for everyone? What does this have to do with teh gays?
posted by John Howard on
That wouldn’t be epigenetic engineering, as far as I know, though I would bet that epigenetic/methylation problems probably do lead to various diseases. And, they wouldn’t need it, and I would argue that they would not benefit from it, even as they felt compelled to use it. The likelihood is that it would cause them more pain and suffering and expense and trouble than having a natural child. Saving them from being compelled to go through IVF and screenings and options and choices is perhaps even more important than saving the children from being subjected to genetic engineering and the risks that would come from that.
And same-sex marriage will either make it impossible to stop SSR, due to procreation being a right of marriage, or it will make it possible to prohibited any marriage from using its own genes, if we say that procreation isn’t a right of marriage. Also, the controversy needs to be resolved so that it stops distracting us from urgent problems and efforts that we have to make as a civilization. And same-sex couples need equal protections. And marriage needs to be preserved so that it continues to approve of the couple using their own genes to have offspring. If there was no such thing as gay people and no push for same-sex marriage, I would just be opposing genetic engineering. But when people are saying that same-sex couples should have the rights of marriage, then I have to point out why that’s a bad idea.
posted by Jonathan on
“That wouldn’t be epigenetic engineering, as far as I know”
Induction of pluripotency, which everything I mentioned might employ, involves the remodeling the epigenetic characteristics of the donor adult cell to an ESC-like state.
“If there was no such thing as gay people and no push for same-sex marriage, I would just be opposing genetic engineering.”
Indeed. So then if there were no gay people, humanity would still find reasons to pursue all those nifty technologies to let them correct genetic diseases and make smarter babies.
Right?
posted by John Howard on
OK, but in theory the idea is to produce gametes with the same epigenetic imprinting that the person would have. But OK, apparently even that involves too much risk and genetic experimentation, so it’s even harder to see how it would be a benefit.
Right, though I wouldn’t tar all of humanity with the eugenic impulse, just misanthropists. Most humans want to reproduce with their own genes and with someone they want to reproduce with. The eugenicists among us don’t want humans to mate based on their desire, but instead want to control and influence people to mate only if they are of high genetic and social quality, and don’t want other people to mate at all. That;s why they encourage pre-marital and contracepted sex and yes even homosexuality.
posted by Jimmy on
“that’s why they encourage pre-marital and contracepted sex and yes even homosexuality.”
Alright, I admit it. I was encouraged to be queer by a misanthropic eugenicist. I was just standing there, minding my own business, and this misanthropic eugenicist came up to me and said, “Hey, you know what? You should be a homosexual.”
He said some other gobbeldygook after that, but it didn’t matter because his suggestion was so provocative, and since I wasn’t doing so hot with the chicks, I figured – what the heck.
I feel so free now.
posted by Jonathan on
I see. So eugenicists, in order to control and influence the mating behaviors and preferences of human society, encourage homosexuality.
Congratulations. That is paranoia of such crystalline perfection that it is not rebuttable. I have nothing to say except that I wish you peace, John.
posted by grendel on
ok, maybe I was wrong. He’s not Ferrous Cranus, he’s Loopy:
http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warriorshtm/loopy.htm
posted by John Howard on
What about the thousands of families that don’t have equal protections, Jonathan? You are giving them the finger, you’re taking food out of their children’s mouths. It’s not me or Maggie Gallagher who is keeping them from security and protections, it’s you, because you like having procreation rights with someone of the same sex. How is that working out for you?
posted by Jonathan on
Oh no, John. It is you. It is Ms. Gallagher, and it is you.
“I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”
May God have mercy on your soul.
posted by John Howard on
Do you really not understand or do you just not care? Same-sex couples do not need equal marriage rights today, they need equal protections and federal recognition. Maybe in 20 years we can say that same-sex couples should be allowed to procreate together, but it is very premature to say that today. Saying it today only harms the rights of married couples, but that is probably also what you are trying to do. It is certainly what Margaret Sanger wanted to do in 1934, when she advocated for an “American Baby Code“:
Article 3. A marriage license shall in itself give husband and wife only the right to a common household and not the right to parenthood.
Article 4. No woman shall have the legal right to bear a child, no man shall have the right to become a father, without a permit for parenthood.
posted by Jonathan on
So now you’re quoting ancient eugenicists saying things that virtually no one alive today would recognize as anything but evil. That’s relevant how, exactly? You think there are real people walking around agreeing with that today? In countries that are signatories to the universal declaration on human rights? Have you read article 16?
“Maybe in 20 years we can say that same-sex couples should be allowed to procreate together, but it is very premature to say that today.”
So you’re not against gay marriage in principle then.
Well that’s an abrupt improvement! Good for you.
I do understand what you’re saying, John. The problem is that it really does makes no sense.
You have already recognized that these technologies are not imminent, and that what drives gay people to want to be able to marry is: wanting to marry the person they love and be recognized as full members of their own families, not some kind of repro-techno-cultism.
You have already acknowledged that if gay people miraculously ceased to exist, humanity would, just the same, face temptation to use technology to manipulate reproduction and “improve” its outcome. So witholding the right of marriage from gay people would do nothing, literally nothing, to stop that from happening.
So what’s left? A conspiracy theory that gay rights is -still, even after all that- a front for eugenics. Seriously: Gay rights, a front for eugenics.
And you wonder why Rauch won’t “address” this pot full of craziness? It can’t be addressed, John, because it’s nonsense.
And then you attempt to portray yourself as a proponent of striking some kind of “deal” based on this nonsense, and turn the tables on your victims by declaring them “selfish” for not taking your “deal.”
Leaving aside that you have no power to broker any “deal,” why would anyone ever accept a “deal” based on false premises? The answer of course is that no one would.
posted by John Howard on
There is no false premise. Same-sex procreation is unsafe and would be unethical if it were attempted: True, by any standard. Maybe it won’t be true in 40 years, but it is true today. Labs might try to create human embryos from same-sex couples whenever they feel like, in spite of all the risks: True. It would cost money and use resources: True. Marriage is under threat of losing its inherent right to procreate with the couple’s own genes and being subjected to separate criteria to have procreation rights: True.
There are lots of people who echo Sanger’s views about procreation licenses today. Amicus did it in the other thread. It is very common to hear people say that breeders should have to get procreation licenses, and that marriage doesn’t protect their right to conceive offspring.
I am still opposed to same-sex procreation on principle, and think we should preserve sexual procreation on principle, and I think the research is a terrible waste of resources, and leaving it an open possibility or suggesting it is inevitable to children is terribly cruel. However, my point is that this is a democracy, and society might decide to allow SSR someday anyway in spite of my feelings, presumably when they think it is safe, at which point the CU’s same-sex couples have been enjoying since the Compromise was enacted would become marriages. So you wouldn’t be giving up anything, you would be gaining equal protections for thousands of couples now, and still keep a prospect of same-sex procreation and marriage in the future, after it is pioneered by Dr. Mephisto in Xanadu, which you are sure will happen. After the Compromise is enacted by Congress, I would still urge that we make the Egg and Sperm law more permanent with a Constitutional amendment, so that kids could plan their future, but that will be a much easier discussion to have down the road, when we consider the issue more thoughtfully and have more knowledge about what is involved and what is at stake, and not tangled up with the other protections same-sex couples need. Meanwhile, we’d have equal protections via CU’s and preserve marriage as a man and a woman.
You are in a position to persuade Jonathan Rauch to help same-sex couples today. He is in a position to put the Compromise before Congress. Of course, if he is reading this, he doesn’t need you to do anything, he could act responsibly by himself.
posted by Amicus on
JH, you are not “learning”, just repeating.
In order to highlight the difficulty many people, including yourself, have in reasoning from ideals to laws and practicalities or to what the NRO article calls ‘a marriage culture’, I pointed out that, ideally, we would prefer not to ‘approve or allow’ bad parents. That difficulty is possibly also the source of the perplexing overconfidence that so many seem to have in their penis-vagina worldview, the near tautological certainty that gives their mind an arrogant comfort, rather than a truer Christian humility.
How, by the stars, you choose to conflate that with Sanger is like a verbal food fight, more than anything.
Let me bring it home for you again in this way. How many parents as a percentage, seriously abuse their children? Yet, you give them licenses. Say it is 15%. Then, add the percentage of serious birth defects. Suppose the reproductive technology you abhor for same-sex couples, merging ‘created gametes’, is 85% “successful”. Do you not drop your argument that it cannot be _ethical_ to use it, when compared to ‘natural insemination’ “technology”?
posted by John Howard on
Amicus, marriage doesn’t give anyone the right to abuse their children, the state takes children from abusive homes every day. Yes, it allows them to conceive more, because being allowed to have sex with your spouse is a fundamental human right, as is not being sterilized against your will, or forced to have an abortion. Sometimes the state takes newborns away from known-to-be abusive parents right in the hospital room. It is a very traumatic thing to do, and it would violate the rights of the child unless the state was damned sure that the parents would seriously abuse the child.
And I don’t see any difference between what you said we should do and what Sanger said we should do, in those points #3 and #4. Are you saying you disagree with Sanger and agree with me that marriage should continue to allow the couple to conceive offspring?
And OK, let’s “suppose” that SSR is 85% successful, or even 99% successful, it still uses lots of electricity and oil and medical resources and costs the taxpayers and increases government regulation and opens the door to genetic engineering leading to forced screenings and coercion to use engineered genes. It still would create people who are publicly aware of their experimental origins, along with the public, and who would suffer from psychological problems for being created without a father or a mother, and with two moms or two dads instead. (That’s not a knock on SS parenting abilities, which by all accounts are great, but noting that the very origins of the child would be experimental and engineered. Kids raised by same-sex couples today still know they are normal people, just not being raised by both their bio-parents, which is pretty common. Being born from two people of the same sex is not common and it would be cruel to put people in that situation.) There is NO NEED to try to create people, by any method, for any couple. There are enough people. Not being able to have children is not life-threatening or painful, and isn’t a cause of distress for same-sex couples. They know that, it’s not a depressing health problem. I have never come across any gay people lamenting that they cannot have children with someone of the same sex. In fact, that was usually the selling point, the source of the gaiety.
So yeah, even if it was safe it wouldn’t be ethical, and it isn’t safe in the first place. Nice thought experiment though.
posted by Amicus on
No, you’re not getting it.
In an “ideal” setting, there is no need for remediation, like taking children away from abusive parents, because we can simply, as part of our “ideal” not have abusive parents.
Let me try this (may not be the best example, but here goes). In an _ideal_ world, there are no roller coaster accidents. Now, have made that statement, you can’t come back at me and say, “when there is a roller coaster accident, the law should never hold the roller coaster operate responsible, because everyone knows the risks”. Why? Because it is simply two different “levels” or types of reasoning.
One can keep constructing their ideal world: In an _ideal_ world, there is no disease, etc., etc.
And the reason for bringing it up is not to reach for Sanger-like conclusions, but to point out the difficulties, including grave overconfidence, that people get themselves into, when they abstract in the wrong ways.
These two sentences don’t seem to go together, do they?
1. “There is NO NEED to try to create people, by any method, for any couple.”
2. “being allowed to have sex with your spouse is a fundamental human right”
Times are changing, from whatever you knew. I personally know one gay guy who is adamant about meeting someone who wants kids. Many couples think it is a natural expression of their love to have kids together (and that view is backed up by mainstream theology).
Noting that engineering takes resources is not an argument in ethics, necessarily. In a free society, within reason, people are and should be free to allocate the resources they have to the things they want, including their kids. (Indeed, I could make the argument that the added cost makes this kids among some of the most wanted in the world…no small factor or consideration, yes?).
Your list of problems for children derived from “processed” gametes doesn’t impress. With little effort, I can make an equally long list for children from non-processed gametes. “Non normal” as you describe it would just enter into a long list of other factors that, sadly, some would seize on, like race, creed, national origin, sexual orientation, to offer up their own supremacy. So, there seems to be no _special_ ethical argument, there.
posted by Amicus on
By the way, apart from what Johnathan has capably pointed out to you, your “compromise” seems backwards.
Given that the technology that you fear is not feasible for well into the foreseeable future for humans (decades), why do you punish gay couples for something that isn’t even a present or imminent consideration?
Surely, it would be wiser and more just to marry gay couples, than to punish them for a technology that doesn’t exist yet and for which the true risks of it are almost utterly unkown? It’s as though you are judging people on stuff they haven’t even done, yet, and couldn’t even do, today and for decades, if they wanted to.
My hunch is that this technology will probably rise or fail on its own merits, resolving many of the most vexing problems that we can imagine, in a fit of ‘can do’ instead of ‘might do’. That’s why, despite well founded worries, one can be optimistic that sensible regulation will not be hard to envision.
posted by John Howard on
why do you punish gay couples for something that isn’t even a present or imminent consideration?
You are the one punishing gay couples, Amicus, because you are insisting on them having conception rights (marriage) instead of accepting equal protections via civil unions that don’t give conception rights. It doesn’t punish gay couples to immediately get them federal recognition and much faster recognition in all 50 states, it punishes gay couples to stick with the status quo where thousands of families have no recognition at all.
Surely, it would be wiser and more just to marry gay couples, than to punish them for a technology that doesn’t exist yet and for which the true risks of it are almost utterly unknown?
We haven’t decided if we should allow people to try to procreate with someone of the same sex yet, if and when it becomes feasible. We should not put married men and women into that same category, seeing as we HAVE decided that they should be allowed to procreate, right? We should not put their procreation rights on the line, just because same-sex couples procreation rights are currently on the line. That would mean we could move to Sanger’s procreation licenses, which you have not “refutiated.”
And, the risks are not unknown, the risks are known to be unacceptably large.
sensible regulation will not be hard to envision.
Thanks for acknowledging that there would need to be a new government agency to regulate it. There would also need to be a huge government handout to make it safe and affordable.
Damn, come on, just stop this already! It is a stupid demand, a bad thing, not useful, not needed. Put down your sci fi books and take a look at the actual real world, with real people in it, with actual basic human rights and human needs.
posted by John Howard on
Noting that engineering takes resources is not an argument in ethics, necessarily. In a free society, within reason, people are and should be free to allocate the resources they have to the things they want, including their kids.
Sure it is. Maybe not in Libertarian Ethics, but then, nothing is an argument in Libertarian Ethics. Ethics is all about choices, and how humanity uses the planet’s finite resources is an ethical choice. NASCAR is unethical, flying to Greece for vacation is unethical. Granted, that pretty much makes everything unethical, but maybe everything that uses resources and isn’t necessary is unethical, now that we are in a climate emergency and running out of oil. The thing that makes genetic engineering different from NASCAR is that we haven’t done it yet, so it can be banned without anyone missing it, and it is different in kind, not just degree (how different is NASCAR from driving to work, or running a marathon?). And, humans can conceive enough just fine without using any resources.
posted by Jonathan on
It didn’t escape anyone’s notice that you declined to respond to the other 90% of Amicus’ response, John. Care to do that?
posted by John Howard on
I’ll check and see what I missed. Meanwhile, what about the thousands of same-sex couples without protections who don’t care about having procreation rights? What do you have to say to them? What about the millions of hetero marriages who do care about having procreation rights? What about the millions of taxpayers and health insurance customers who don’t want to pay for same-sex couples to have genetic offspring? What about the climate emergency, and dwindling resources? What about the actual real world, not the fantasy world you guys think we live in?
posted by Jonathan on
Yes, you’re a big warm bundle of social consciousness.
First things first. Amicus’ reply.
posted by John Howard on
I looked and can’t really tell what still needs to be responded to. If there was a point I haven’t addressed already just cut and paste it please. I’ve made many concrete factual and legal and logical arguments and you guys just toss it aside and continue to claim that procreation rights are more important than equal protections. Maybe you need to talk to some actual gay couples.
posted by Jonathan on
Well, know the parts that you did respond to, because you cut and pasted them yourself? All those other big parts that you didn’t; that’s what you should respond to. (Hint: he’s trying to help you think about how flawed logic leads to false premises. He even demonstrates one of yours for you.)
posted by John Howard on
OK, there are four paragraphs ruminating on an “ideal world” which are nonsense and I responded to by saying, this is the real world. There are two factual sentences of mine that he thinks don’t go together, but they’re both facts, and so they obviously both go together. He should explain what he means, is he refutiating them? There is a paragraph saying that more and more gay people are hoping to have kids with someone of the same sex, which apparently is a big secret they only shared with him, because you sure don’t hear anyone saying it in public. There is a paragraph saying that use of resources can’t be an ethical issue, which is wrong, as I pointed out. There is a flawed suggestion that the expense is somehow a good thing that proves the child is wanted, but that’s wrong too, and so what? There is an argument that my list of problems doesn’t matter because he can make a list of problems from natural conception, but natural conception is a right, uses no resources in and of itself, is proven to be quite safe, etc. And we sure do need more people to be created to sustain the human race and civilization, and natural procreation as a result of married couples having sex is the best way to do it, in spite of it not being a controlled eugenic perfect ideal way to do it, which is offensive and stupid. Then he seems to imply children created from two people of the same sex should take solace that other people are sometimes strange races or creeds or gay, so they can’t complain about having two fathers or two mothers, which is pretty offensive and cold.
Then, in his next post, I answered the first two paragraphs already, and I have already shown why he’s wrong about his “hunch”, though it is nice to know that he’s at least realizing he is really basing all of his argument on some “hunch” that it will work out. That hunch is ignorant and irresponsible and nothing but pure emotion, an overgrown fantasy of miseducated sci-fi geeks.
OK, I’m passing in my homework. Time for you two to do some. How about explaining why having procreation rights with someone of the same sex, is more important, TODAY, than having equal protections. Don’t pretend like it’s a non-viable solution, because England already has enacted the very same solution. Do you think any gay couples in England would prefer to give up their equal protections and their federal recognition, and have most of them lose all recognition and protections like most American gay couples have, in exchange for repealing the law banning use of artificial gametes and having a few of them able to call themselves “married” in a few provinces? I don’t see why, since artificial gametes might never be feasible, and if they do become feasible some day, they could repeal the ban then and change their CP’s to marriages then.
posted by Amicus on
Well, it appears that, on this new site, there are “previous comments” but not a link for “subsequent comments”, so we’re talking among ourselves. Brevity seems in order. *chuckle*
In the real world, I can have a child without marriage, even as a gay man. Therefore, a civil marriage license does not “allow” procreation.
What’s more, to the extent that marriage or sex-with-a-partner is a “fundamental human right”, then no civil marriage law can be said to “approve” procreation, because no law could deny it. Indeed, in many states I can actually be ‘married’, under the law, without ever having gotten a marriage license from the state.
In the real world, gay couples, sexually involved, exist, many of them as committed, loving couples and some desirous of children.
Therefore, it is only in an ideal world that links between civil marriage and procreation could come into conflict with gay couples.
In no world does banning reproductive technologies, because it is a threat to ‘natural insemination’ among nongays, imply that gays should not be allowed to get married, because gays don’t use natural insemination.
An ideal world in which gays are denied marriage because they cannot reproduce is mean-spirited (and confused about categories and attributes and fed by an overconfidence in the abstracted ideal).
An ideal world in which gays are denied marriage now, merely because of worries and a speculation on the risks of a distant, future reproductive technology (40+ years), is laughable and a cruel punishment.
In the real world, the harms from reproductive technologies can be weighed against the failings (and harms, even) of ‘natural insemination’, as well as the small size of the gay couple population (1-2% of all couples wanting children) and its self-limiting character.
In the real world, we typically end up regulating new technologies (although we don’t have to, as some politicians are fond of reminding us) rather than ending up with absolute bans (which have implied or opportunity costs, too).
With this, I think we may be coming close to The End.
posted by Amicus on
“because it is a threat” s/b “because they are a threat”
posted by Amicus on
[just for the record, I don’t like the term ‘natural insemination’, because it implies ‘unnatural insemination’, which sounds like alien abduction or something. IVF is a natural process, just assisted. Creating gametes from stem cells is another layer of assistance. True alteration of the genetic code, it seems to me, is something else entirely. ]
posted by Jonathan on
“IVF is a natural process, just assisted. Creating gametes from stem cells is another layer of assistance. True alteration of the genetic code, it seems to me, is something else entirely.”
I concur. Which is still another reason why this “Compromise” rests on a straw man: I’d stand side by side with JH in resisting genetic enhancement, but see no reason to object to epigenetically assisted gamete formation from naturally existing genomes. JH wants (needs) to think as though they’re the same thing.
posted by Amicus on
Well, years ago, we had to listen to statements like, “We can’t lift sodomy laws or even tolerate ‘confirmed homosexuals’, because, OMG, have you seen what they do to each other when having sex? Do you want your son or daughter recruited into that?”
It’s a fear of the unkown tactic. I’m not even sure it is an argument.
Then there was the “AIDS scare”, when, for a short while, it seemed as if ‘what gays did to each other’ could be eclipsed by how natural it was that they were being punished for their sickness, yet threatening everyone with disease. Some of the most vile stuff I’ve ever read got spewed under the ‘public health’ rubric, an able bastion for coercive public policy. (Still does.)
So, when I see forays on reproductive technology that normally focus on the impact of the technology on the much wider society, focus, instead, on excluding gays, I think of it as the new scare tactic: “OMG, if we let gays be married or parents, then look at the horrors of the reproductive nightmare that will take root for everyone and destroy us all!”.
posted by John Howard on
In the real world, I can have a child without marriage, even as a gay man. Therefore, a civil marriage license does not “allow” procreation.
Not with your sister, you’d go to jail, because it is an unethical, off-limits choice of someone to have a child with. And not with some other man’s wife, because that is also an unethical off-limits choice of someone to have a child with. Marriage always officially sanctions and prepares for and approves of creating a child with someone, it is never given to couples that are not allowed to have children together.
What’s more, to the extent that marriage or sex-with-a-partner is a “fundamental human right”, then no civil marriage law can be said to “approve” procreation, because no law could deny it. Indeed, in many states I can actually be ‘married’, under the law, without ever having gotten a marriage license from the state.
The term “fundamental right” is used to mean procreating is an equal right for all people, not that it is an unlimited right to do it however you want. The right we all should have to procreate is subject to restrictions regarding who we are allowed to procreate with, but only “supportable basis” prohibitions that apply to everyone equally, by restricting only relationship types based on public legal statuses, such as unmarried, over 18, not in certain relationships, and now we need to add someone of the sex, due to it being unsafe and dubious public policy to allow people to procreate with someone of the same sex.
In the real world, gay couples, sexually involved, exist, many of them as committed, loving couples and some desirous of children.
Well, they should know, as soon as possible, they they will not be allowed to, unless the public decides to allow it eventually, and that it will be up to the public, not to them. I’m confident that the case would be made to make the ban permanent with an amendment and international treaties, because the benefits of that far outweigh the rabbit hole of transhumanism and eugenics.
Therefore, it is only in an ideal world that links between civil marriage and procreation could come into conflict with gay couples.
Not if in the real world same-sex couples were not allowed to procreate together, to conceive offspring of their own genes.
In no world does banning reproductive technologies, because [they are] a threat to ‘natural insemination’ among nongays, imply that gays should not be allowed to get married, because gays don’t use natural insemination.
Stop using “nongays” and “gays”, we are talking about couples that are allowed to procreate together, and couples that are not (siblings, etc) or would no longer be, if we limited procreation to male-female couples with an Egg and Sperm law (same-sex couples). Gays, as individual people with equal rights to other people, would still be allowed to procreate using ‘natural insemination’, because the Egg and Sperm Civil Union Compromise would not prohibit unmarried procreation or sperm donation or anything that is currently done by gay people who want to have children. It would be consistent with banning those, but not lead to or require prohibiting anything else.
An ideal world in which gays are denied marriage because they cannot reproduce is mean-spirited (and confused about categories and attributes and fed by an overconfidence in the abstracted ideal).
I think it is mean-spirited to deny procreation rights to married men and women just because people cannot procreate with someone of the same sex without genetic engineering technology. How do you propose we express the approval and affirmation of procreating offspring together that marriage has always and everywhere expressed, if we don’t do it with marriage?
An ideal world in which gays are denied marriage now, merely because of worries and a speculation on the risks of a distant, future reproductive technology (40+ years), is laughable and a cruel punishment.
If and when we decide that people should have, in principle, the right to procreate with someone of the same sex, then same-sex marriage will be a rich reward. In the meanwhile, equal protections will he a great reward and help to existing families. Denying same-sex couples equal protections now, because you insist that same-sex procreation rights must be equal to a married man and woman’s, is cruel punishment to families right now.
In the real world, the harms from reproductive technologies can be weighed against the failings (and harms, even) of ‘natural insemination’, as well as the small size of the gay couple population (1-2% of all couples wanting children) and its self-limiting character.
No, that’d be a bad real world, it isn’t sustainable, uses too much energy, diverts resources, drives up health care costs, would encroach on reproductive rights, antagonize poor nations, etc. Even one same-sex couple conceiving a baby together would be too many. Leaving it legal is cruel and irresponsible.
In the real world, we typically end up regulating new technologies (although we don’t have to, as some politicians are fond of reminding us) rather than ending up with absolute bans (which have implied or opportunity costs, too).
What are the opportunity costs of an Egg and Sperm law? They’re purely speculative, and far off, right?
With this, I think we may be coming close to The End.
Cool, Project Runway is on now anyway.
posted by John Howard on
JH wants (needs) to think as though they’re the same thing.
I know they are different things in principle and practice, though in many ways they are both the same, because they both use lab created modified gametes, and really it’d be impossible to allow one but prohibit the other. The fact is most transhumanists are transhumanists for the opposite reason, they want to eliminate diseases and make procreation safer, not introduce new diseases and risks.
posted by Amicus on
I can’t marry my sister or another man’s wife. The existence of a category of women that I can’t marry doesn’t change truth of the assertion that I can have a child out of wedlock, _in the real world_ (I only need one counterfactual). Besides, _in the real world, I certainly can have a child with another man’s wife. In an _ideal_ world, as you point out, that is labeled “unethical”.
There is no “supportable basis” to deny a fundamental right, so the assertion remains that the law cannot deny, therefore it cannot be said to “allow”. The chance that the law could restrict a fundamental right is thin and should be held to the highest standard (cf. see how hard it has been to restrict guns, for instance). However, as I noted above, the ‘marriage culture’ mentioned in the NRO opinion piece is consistent with an interpretation of marriage as a social contract (a contract with society) about having sex with your married partner. More marriage, gay marriage, is therefore wholly consistent with a ‘marriage culture’. [Age restrictions are not really “restrictions” per say on the right, but an assessment in what the right inheres, i.e. consensual relations.]
“How do you propose we express the approval and affirmation of procreating offspring together…”
—-
“Marriage”/”Marriage culture”. (Hint: that’s why it might be called the conservative case and why Conservatives should ‘wake up!’).
People really, really, really, really, really, really CAN understand that if you are nongay, you are using ‘natural insemination’, unless you are infertile; and. if you are gay, you are also using ‘natural insemination’ just with technology assistance. Doing “designer babies”, i.e. genetic engineering, is a different ball of wax, but high hopes for that technology are unwarranted, speculative, and far off in the future. In the end, it may be that what can be achieved via “engineering” is so slight, that it can be easily regulated or permitted, too.
“Even one same-sex couple conceiving a baby together would be too many.”
—-
This assertion is ultimately irrational and unsupportable. The costs of using the technology are born by the couple, not society. Infertile nongay couples and gay couples already pay huge sums to have children. They also are the most pre-screened of all parents on the planet. Your absolute resistance is long, almost windy.
What are the opportunity costs of an Egg and Sperm law?
===
For a guy who purports to have read eugenicists and trans-humanists, you have a stunningly poor imagination.
However, I will notice that you have not dealt with the costs or ‘how to’ of enforcing a ban. (Or even with the theoretical question of whether it is enforceable, especially among nongays…).
Also, you are ready to go to “war” to prevent Xanadu from [??using stem cell gametes, without genetic engineering?], to kill innocents as collateral damage to that war, even. Yet, you aren’t willing to kill mothers, fathers and children who had sex/children out of wedlock… Hummm…. same victim in each case, such radically different penalties.
I love designers for their creativity. I hate Project Runway. LOL.
posted by Amicus on
What if the technology you fear does NOT pan out, as effective, as workable for humans?
How are your going to redress the “sin” you’ve committed in withholding a vital social good from an entire group/class of people, relegating them to the grave injustice of second-class citizenship to satisfy your fears, whether they are truly technology-based or not?
All I’m saying is I wouldn’t want to be you, on judgment day.
posted by Jonathan on
“For a guy who purports to have read eugenicists and trans-humanists, you have a stunningly poor imagination.”
Indeed. Transhumanism is substantially about enhancement of human capacities. It’s inherent even in the name of the movement. Prevention of disease is not something that can be classified as Transhumanism, unless the word becomes so meaningless that it describes everyone.
“However, I will notice that you have not dealt with the costs or ‘how to’ of enforcing a ban. (Or even with the theoretical question of whether it is enforceable, especially among nongays…).”
He daren’t do so, because to ask the question is to recognize that any such enforcement would fly in the face of majority public will; the same majority, by the way, that not so long ago voted to deprive gay/lesbian/genderqueer citizens of the right to marry.
California voters in 2004 passed Proposition 71 by a huge margin, which established the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine and made stem cell research a state constitutional right. A restriction on reproductive cloning (a different process from the ones we’ve been discussing) were present because of well-known problems with the process in animals, but the proposition specifically mandated state public funding designed to circumvent the federal restriction on human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research.
A few years later, California passed Proposition 8, the purpose of which is familiar to all of us.
So there you have it: The same Soccer Moms & Dads in the OC who voted to deny gay fellow CA state citizens the right to marry were very happy to vote for human ESC research and a way to skirt federal restrictions on it, demonstrating the total disconnect between the issues in the public mind. There is apparently no ‘seamless garment’ which will obscure the benefits of rational self-interest in the eyes of the American voter. This should not be all that surprising given the disappointingly Constantinian inflection of much of American protestantism.
It is thereby demonstrated by real world example, not ideal world theorizing, that there is no “Compromise” to be made with Teh Gays, because gay marriage is not the “problem” – the universal human will to improve its condition by any means is, and always will be, the “problem.”
“How are your going to redress the “sin” you’ve committed in withholding a vital social good from an entire group/class of people, relegating them to the grave injustice of second-class citizenship to satisfy your fears, whether they are truly technology-based or not?”
He does so the way it’s always been done, – by classifying LGBTQ people not as created so by God, but as intrinsically disordered, even as a conspiracy mounted by misanthropic eugenicists. Which of course is what this is really about, as you clearly pointed out above.
The will to convert and articulate theological principles as secular argument open to debate in the public square is always admirable. However, no such translation will save a fundamentally rotten theology. This is because rotten theologies almost inevitably produce unjust and unsound arguments when translated to policy.
A theology which elevates unconditional, insistently power-subverting love generally will not produce the kind of monstrosities of history that have arisen from doctrines like the neo-Animism which presently calls itself Natural Law. However, it also cannot support the comforting, Us/Them, Saved/Unsaved social dichotomies that comfort the ungenerous heart.
posted by Amicus on
Johnathan, I detect a note of despair in your tone. You mustn’t allow it. For all I know, JH could be Saul on the road to Damascus, and the scales are about to fall from his eyes.
BTW, the issues I imagined for enforcement are more vexing than those you wrote. It’s not clear to me that a gamete from my stems cells is so clearly different than my regular-way gametes. So, where would the evidence for enforcement be?
You could even imagine the same thing for the case of engineering. Prove to me that a child is “engineered” and not just the product of randomness in a regular-way process…
posted by John Howard on
I can’t marry my sister or another man’s wife. The existence of a category of women that I can’t marry doesn’t change truth of the assertion that I can have a child out of wedlock, _in the real world_ (I only need one counterfactual).
I didn’t claim you couldn’t have a child out of wedlock, quit going backwards, haven’t I already shown how that is irrelevant? The point is you can’t marry people you aren’t allowed to have a child with, such as a sibling, and you shouldn’t be allowed to have a child (conceive offspring) with another person of the same sex.
Besides, _in the real world, I certainly can have a child with another man’s wife. In an _ideal_ world, as you point out, that is labeled “unethical”.
No, in the real world that is labeled unethical, and in the real world is the crime of adultery and often subject to punishment. You can also, in the “physically possible” sense you use it, have a child with your sister in the real world, right? But the child is taken away to be raised by strangers and the adults go to jail. That’s what should happen to people who try to break the Egg and Sperm law too, along with a huge fine.
There is no “supportable basis” to deny a fundamental right, so the assertion remains that the law cannot deny, therefore it cannot be said to “allow”.
Read Loving v Virginia: “Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” fundamental to our very existence and survival. Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535, 541 (1942). See also Maynard v. Hill, 125 U.S. 190 (1888). To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual, and cannot be infringed by the State.”
See, they didn’t rule out all restrictions, they didn’t say that states couldn’t deny people marrying their sister, or polygamy, or bigamy, or a 12 year old. Those are “supportable basis” to deny the fundamental freedom, only racial classification was ruled to be “so unsupportable a basis.” Preventing unethical experiments and preserving natural conception and stopping the manufacture of humans are also supportable basis to restrict marriage.
“How do you propose we express the approval and affirmation of procreating offspring together…”
“Marriage”/”Marriage culture”.
Right, that’s good, so you don’t want Sanger’s “Procreation Licenses” that are independent of marriage, and you recognize that marriage is supposed to express approval and affirmation of procreating offspring together. Where we disagree is that you think we should do that for same-sex couples. I think that it would be unethical and bad public policy to approve or allow people to procreate offspring with someone of the same sex. We can really stop talking about marriage, because we agree on it. I too think that we should have same-sex marriage as long as we allow same-sex procreation, and we should only stop having same-sex marriage if we enact an Egg and Sperm law that prohibits people from procreating offspring with someone of the same sex. So now you say you agree that marriage is how to express approval of procreation, do you agree that it can’t be given to couples that are prohibited from procreating together and not approved to procreate together, like same-sex couples would be if we had an Egg and Sperm law that required unmodified gametes of a man and a woman? Or if that happens, would you change your tune again and say that they should have marriage anyhow, and go back to your prior position that marriage shouldn’t approve of procreation?
Designer babies and same-sex procreation are the same ball of wax, they both use modified gametes and produce someone who could not be produced by healthy people without modification. We can’t stop one and not the other, to stop either, we have to stop both. The proposed Egg and Sperm law would stop both.
IVF is mandatory coverage in my state, meaning it is paid for by everyone, and I don’t see how same-sex procreation would be different. The research into genetic engineering is paid for by taxpayers. It’s just total BS to claim it won’t cost me anything, that all the cost is paid by the couple. It’s not true now, and it’ll be ten times worse in the future when it is an entitlement and regulated by government.
The cost of enforcing the ban would be very small, and I think could be handled by existing federal regulators and investigators who currently snuff our child porn and human trafficking and terrorism. And that budget could be slashed, because ending gay marriage here and stopping genetic engineering would reduce the desperate violence against the US considerably. Mainly the ban would be self-enforced by researchers and labs who don’t want to get hit with the fine and jail if they announce their experiments publicly or are turned in by someone. Perhaps enforcing it would also require sting operations where a couple hires a lab to try to do some genetic engineering, but I doubt it would get that far. It would add millions of dollars to the coffers if we caught some rich guys trying to do it.
And if the technology does not pan out, say it’s 2120 and the Earth (“Eaarth”) has run out of resources and everyone is starving and dying, and same-sex procreation has been legal all that time and been researched all that time and yet it still hasn’t panned out – won’t YOU be the one who has to answer for why you stuck with the status quo, instead of choosing equal protections for same-sex couples back in 2010, instead of preserving our resources and prioritizing health care for sick people, you said it was more important that we have same-sex procreation legal and spend out resources on research to allow it? I think a lot of people will be a little pissed off at you.
posted by John Howard on
I think LGBT people were created so by God, that’s why I think we ought to provide equal protections asap. I don’t think that means we must spend billions of dollars and years of medical research so they can conceive children with someone of the same sex. Just because God creates people who want to do something doesn’t mean they have a right to do it, let alone that society is obligated to help them.
posted by Jonathan on
“For all I know, JH could be Saul on the road to Damascus, and the scales are about to fall from his eyes.”
Not today, at least. Where’s a flash of light & thunderclap when you need one…
“BTW, the issues I imagined for enforcement are more vexing than those you wrote. It’s not clear to me that a gamete from my stems cells is so clearly different than my regular-way gametes. So, where would the evidence for enforcement be?
You could even imagine the same thing for the case of engineering. Prove to me that a child is “engineered” and not just the product of randomness in a regular-way process…”
These are interesting points, because while technically the answer is straightforward, (i.e., standard genomic profiling of a child vs. its parents would readily reveal A) who those parents were and thereby if they were a same or opposite sex couple, and B) whether the child’s genome contained any nonparental or “hot-rodded” genes), privacy laws might well mitigate against the accessible storage or obtainment of such information. Of course, if such procedures were criminal, those laws could presumably be circumvented for cause.
posted by Jonathan on
John, did you notice that, as I pointed out, Californians were willing to vote to start spending “billions of dollars and years of medical research” on human embryonic stem cells, while contemporaneously voting to ban gay marriage? Showing (for the tenth time) that, in the real world, there is no politically relevant connection between the two in anyone else’s mind but your own?
posted by Amicus on
Just repeating, because it is looking more and more airtight, a powerful syllogism, maybe it will sink in:
1. In the real world, I can have a child without marriage, even as a gay man. Therefore, a civil marriage license does not “allow” procreation. An _exception_ for felony incest does not negate the general point. Adultery, a crime that can arise only among the married, both does not directly negate the point, because it applies only to the married, and may not largely apply, as the penalty is simply offering cause for the dissolution of the marriage.
2. What’s more, to the extent that marriage or sex-with-a-partner is a “fundamental human right”, then no civil marriage law can be said to “approve” procreation, because no law could deny it. Indeed, in many states I can actually be ‘married’, under the law, without ever having gotten a marriage license from the state.
4a. In the real world, therefore, marriage cannot be said to “approve” or “allow” procreation. 4b. Assertions about the _real world_ that restrictions on this fundamental regulate “procreation” are, therefore, inane.
3. In the real world, gay couples, sexually involved, exist, many of them as committed, loving couples and some desirous of children.
4.c Therefore, IT IS ONLY IN AN IDEAL WORLD that links between civil marriage and procreation could come into conflict with gay couples.
I then looked at two scenarios, in which ‘procreation” could be used to confuse people about the aptness of gay marriage:
5. In no world does banning reproductive technologies, because it is a threat to ‘natural insemination’ among nongays, imply that gays should not be allowed to get married, because gays don’t use natural insemination.
6. An ideal world in which gays are denied marriage because they cannot reproduce is mean-spirited.
It is also confused about categories and attributes and fed by an overconfidence in the abstracted ideal – see above, example about eyes, blue/brown and strong/weak – all attributes of the same category, all potentially given rise to different expectations.
This is true even if one agrees in the utility of a ‘marriage culture’ or in a ‘marriage ideal’, i.e. that gay marriage is good for a marriage culture.
7. An ideal world in which gays are denied marriage now, merely because of worries and a speculation on the risks of a distant, future reproductive technology (40+ years), is laughable and a cruel punishment.
Finally, two points on the consequences of various reproductive technologies, in a decision framework. This section is the only one that could be expanded ad infinitum, because people can dream up all kinds of stuff, given the time to do so.
8. In the real world, the harms from reproductive technologies can be weighed against the failings (and harms, even) of ‘natural insemination’, as well as the small size of the gay couple population (1-2% of all couples wanting children) and its self-limiting character. Claims about the end of civilization and the using up of all resources are laughable in the face of 1-2% of all procreating couples using stem cell gametes, say. The socialization of the cost of 1-2% of all couples is to be compared with the socialization of the cost of children that gays pay, in school taxes and so forth, and the socialization of the cost of the poor results of ‘natural insemination’ (disabilities and more). Making a list of only one type of cost and calling it an “argument” is not worthwhile or supportive analysis. Among the intangible costs to be weighed include abortions. No gay couple ever had an abortion.
9. In the real world, we typically end up regulating new technologies (although we don’t have to, as some politicians are fond of reminding us) rather than ending up with absolute bans (which have implied or opportunity costs, too). Banning stem cell gametes probably is unenforceable for nongays, which is where it really matters, since that is 99% of the population.
Last, I pointed out that most of the forays into reproductive technology that single out gays fit in a long line of scare tactics used against the gay community.
We have some on display here:
10. “Designer babies and same-sex procreation are the same ball of wax, they both use modified gametes and produce someone who could not be produced by healthy people without modification. We can’t stop one and not the other, to stop either, we have to stop both.” Genetic modification and stem cell generated gametes are not nearly the same thing. Appealing to ignorance to stop gay couples from getting married, although not new, is reprehensible.
posted by Amicus on
i.e., standard genomic profiling of a child vs. its parents would readily reveal A) who those parents were and thereby B) if they were a same or opposite sex couple
——–
Well, that’s true. But, the upshot of it is that ‘an across the board ban’ could only be enforced against same-sex couples, no? I mean, in the absence of obvious genetic mod.
This means that a so-called absolute ban is really a ban targeted just for gays, because it can only be enforced against them.
My example: infertile nongay couple goes down to Mexico, where an illegal lab is being run. Father has stem cell gametes “created”. They come home and have the child. So far as I understand the technology, no genetic screen will say whether they used ‘natural insemination’ after tequila or whether they dipped into the forbidden sperm pool…
And, I don’t know what all possible genetic mods look like ‘on the computer screen’, but some could be some look like natural mutations. Who is to say that the child wasn’t a ‘miracle child’ rather than a deliberate hot rod? It might depend. And, of course, someone would have to be doing expensive genetic tests to enforce the ban on every child born. (And even if I’m wrong about the technology, why can’t I say so, because others appear to be willing to lie about the technology for their own purposes…waaa).
posted by Jonathan on
“Well, that’s true. But, the upshot of it is that ‘an across the board ban’ could only be enforced against same-sex couples, no? I mean, in the absence of obvious genetic mod.”
Keep in mind that while scientifically grounded this is of course speculative:
Assuming that the process included epigenetic (i.e., transcription factor RNA or small molecule) factor induced dedifferentiation of the parent’s donor cell to ESC potential status (“induced pluripotency”), followed by redifferentiation in vitro to the needed gamete stage, fertilization in vitro and implantation, the only evidence of reproductive assistance might be differential patterns of methylation in the child’s genome. Today at least, the methylation patterns in children born as the result of in vitro fertilization (IVF) show distinct methylation patterns from those of their mothers; so this is a telltale for at least the use of IVF if nothing more. IVF isn’t illegal now and likely wouldn’t be even in our current thought-dystopia.
Here’s where things get completely speculative: it has recently been discovered that stem cells produced by induced pluripotency have different methylation patterns, more like that of the origin donor tissue, from those resulting from nuclear transfer (cloning). This “tissue memory” goes away during redifferentiation, but it means that there may be a detectable quantitative difference in methylation pattern even between children resulting from an IVF-only versus IVF-using-iPSC-gametes conception. Again, this is massively speculative, but it’s not clear whether or not the technology would be truly undetectable in the child.
“And, I don’t know what all possible genetic mods look like ‘on the computer screen’, but some could be some look like natural mutations. Who is to say that the child wasn’t a ‘miracle child’ rather than a deliberate hot rod?”
This is somewhat more clear cut, and depends on the method of modification:
1) Genetic – Human genes are generally large (10,000-15,000 bases), and gene replication in all mammals is of high fidelity. When genes in progeny are different in sequence from those in parents, therefore, there is a well-characterized and readily calculable probability that the differences are inherited from one parent, the other, or represent de novo mutation.
It would depend on the specific changes in the gene, of course, but suffice it to say that the presence of a sequence in a child that is absent in both its parents is a low-probability event, and detection of such a sequence in the reading frame of an expressed gene would likely be given similar weight, as evidence of modification, as gene fingerprinting currently receives in criminal court as evidence of identity.
2) Epigenetic – it is not inconceivable that cogestational methods of “enhancement,” (i.e., a mother doping her pregnancy with some factor or set of factors) could be discovered which would leave no mark on the genome itself. At present, this is entirely speculative.
posted by John Howard on
If we can do paternity testing by court order, we can do hot-rod testing and same-sex paternity testing by court order too. But really it would probably never come to that, because researchers wouldn’t pursue that research and labs wouldn’t offer it to people, because they’d be fined millions of dollars and put out of business and jailed.
Amicus, why are you still going on about marriage, when our disagreement is about whether same-sex procreation should be allowed or not? As long as that is allowed, of course same-sex marriage should be allowed. Try making your syllogism again, but this time, assume that we have prohibited people from using modified gametes and only allow people to procreate with someone of the other sex.
posted by Jonathan on
Oops, nearly every state in the union gives marriage licences to people who can’t procreate in principle or in practice. Try asking your question again.
Or do you mean, assume we require everyone who is married to procreate with the other sex in order to be allowed to stay married? Oops, sounds like a violation of human rights.
posted by John Howard on
No state in the union gives marriage licenses to couples that are forbidden to procreate offspring together and punished if they do anything that might result in them procreating together. Marriage always approves of and condones and smiles on procreation of offspring, it is never given to to couples in types of relationships that the state has decided are not allowed to procreate offspring. You’re going backwards too.
Note to readers: to go back and read previous comments or get back to the newer comments, just change the “comment-page-4” to “comment-page-3” or “comment-page-2” in the URL.
posted by John Howard on
This means that a so-called absolute ban is really a ban targeted just for gays, because it can only be enforced against them.
It’s certainly not targeted just for gays, but at last, you now understand that IT ONLY EFFECTS same-sex couples. I think we are getting somewhere. And even if the public were to decide that it was ethical to allow use of modified gametes for fixing genetic defects before they are passed on, or for creating gametes for infertile people, but not ethical to do it in order to procreate with someone of the same-sex, in other words, if it were targeted only at same-sex couples, that would still be a rational ban (they would not be doing it for ‘medically necessary reasons’ and so the risk and cost is not justified). It would however not be a useful ban, because it would not stop the coercion and the genes race and protect natural conception rights and waste money, etc. And such a targeted ban would not last long, because the public would get used to using modified gametes and manufactured people and soon decide to let labs manufacture babies for same-sex couples too. So I strongly advocate a blanket ban that doesn’t target same-sex couples. But yeah – it only effects the public rights of same-sex couples.
posted by Amicus on
Johnathan,
Thanks for info. Anyone try demethylation in order to ‘cover their tracks’? (Afterall, humans are a creative bunch and if there were an incentive to do it, when there might not have been one before…).
How much does it cost, in time and dollars, to sequence DNA, in terms of costing the enforcing a universal ban? I’m thinking that the whole thing needs to be done, to be certain?
As for the certainty of observing a mutation, I would think that the law would have to bend over backward to accommodate a false positive, before we threw mothers in jail for “illegal reproduction”. Paternity testing could require a different statistical test – do they really run an entire gene sequence or just spot check?
Although you call it speculative, I think most scientists are on board with development being a serious combo of genetic and epigenetic factors, so epigenetic not that far off the table, is it? Although making the problem that much more complex certainly does seem to make meaningful results of the entire technology fairly distant.
Last, I do believe that IVF is beyond the reach of gay couples in some jurisdictions, in terms of open adoption and so forth. Am I wrong?
posted by Amicus on
JH, you continue to draw a hard line from procreation to marriage, after the syllogism refutes that, _in the real world_.
You really do need to come to grips with points #4 #5, #6. At least now they are summarized, so you can’t keep changing frames of reference and (earnestly?) confusing yourself and slipping in and out of “de facto”, “ideal”, “law”, “culture”, and “ethics”.
Thank you for talking and helping to clarify the issues.
posted by Amicus on
Much amused:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11465715
(CNN) — The “father of the test tube baby,” Robert G. Edwards, won the Nobel Prize for medicine on Monday, the awards committee announced.
His contributions to developing in vitro fertilization (IVF) “represent a milestone in the development of modern medicine,” the committee said.
“As early as the 1950s, Edwards had the vision that IVF could be useful as a treatment for infertility,” which affects about 10 percent of all couples worldwide, the commitee said.
posted by Jonathan on
“Anyone try demethylation in order to ‘cover their tracks’?”
Chromatin remodeling compounds can reduce the memory effect of origin tissue methylation. If the purpose were obscuring the specific tissue of origin, that would make a difference. But for the purpose of obscuring a relative difference between a natural vs. in vitro conception, not useful. In vitro vs. iPSC/in vitro, possibly, but only if it were a universal practice for both procedures, which would seem unlikely barring some extreme legal or cultural pressure to make it so. Differential methylation is intrinsic to the differentiation process of an embryo, rather like the rings in a tree. So an unaltered gamete with origins in a parent will always bear that telltale pattern.
“How much does it cost, in time and dollars, to sequence DNA, in terms of costing the enforcing a universal ban? I’m thinking that the whole thing needs to be done, to be certain?”
Very hard to estimate. Today, ~$1000 per individual. Tomorrow, presumably cheaper. Full genome sequencing wouldn’t necessarily need to be done; one can imagine a scenario wherein a list of genes commonly altered for enhancement purposes is known to those familiar with the art, such that a current panel testing for those modifications need only include those genes, similar to the way in which a computer antivirus program is constantly updated by its authors to include countermeasures for the expanding list of currently known computer viruses.
“As for the certainty of observing a mutation, I would think that the law would have to bend over backward to accommodate a false positive, before we threw mothers in jail for “illegal reproduction”. Paternity testing could require a different statistical test – do they really run an entire gene sequence or just spot check?”
Spot check using known polymorphisms (areas of common difference). In my opinion, absent something like a single-base change as the method of “enhancement,” changes would constitute very low-probability inheritance/mutation events, and so any questioning of the results would be more along the lines of proper execution of the test in the lab than of the test in principle.
“Although you call it speculative, I think most scientists are on board with development being a serious combo of genetic and epigenetic factors, so epigenetic not that far off the table, is it?”
Oh certainly gestational epigenetic factors are already characterized; for example, if you repeatedly stress out a pregnant mouse, her pups will be twitchier and more prone to startle; the effects of illegal drug use during pregnancy on fetal development are well-known. However, the likelihood of coming up with a reliable, in-utero or systemically administered factor or factors that would produce a salutary developmental effect seems much lower, since events in biological development are extensively and precisely orchestrated in space and time. Much easier to wreck that process than to influence it in a targeted manner from without. Not impossible, just not easily foreseen from here.
“Last, I do believe that IVF is beyond the reach of gay couples in some jurisdictions, in terms of open adoption and so forth. Am I wrong?”
Yes, availability of IVF to gay couples is heterogeneous both in the states and internationally.
posted by Amicus on
So an unaltered gamete with origins in a parent will always bear that telltale pattern.
===
drat
availability of IVF
===
FYI, not so in Austria (the only jurisdiction I know that I can offer up.
Not that it matters. JH’s ban, in addition to costing billions annually to enforce*, would likely not survive a constitutional challenge (and not just on privacy rights).
*$5 billion a year at just $250 for parent-child genetic ‘mandated similarity test’ in China, a nation that can’t even deliver solid prenatal care right now, resulting in an unmeasured amount of woe and cost…
China are going to respond to a demand to spend this kind of money to worry about a relative handful of gays and lesbian loving couples who want kids? Yeah, no.
posted by John Howard on
It wouldn’t cost billions to enforce a ban on modified gametes. At first, and for the foreseeable future, it won’t cost a thing, it would just be a legal ban, and no lab is going to risk making babies from modified gametes both for ethical reasons and to avoid the risk of being found out and fined millions of dollars and jailed for a long time. Hopefully it will then stay like that, because with the ban in place, researchers won’t pursue it and it will never become possible. But if in the future it appeared that some researchers might violate the ban and try to secretly make babies from modified genes despite the ban, then it is true that we might have to spend some money on enforcing the ban. But the best way to do that is with sting operations by couples trying to find a willing lab, and investigative work of the labs, not through testing of newborn babies to see if they were made from GM’d genomes. That kind of ad hoc investigation could easily be handled by the FBI with their existing agents, and not require additional funding. In fact, the ban would probably free up hundreds of homeland security agents because it would reduce if not end the jihad against the US, while performing same-sex procreation and creating genetically engineered super children would surely increase the threat of terrorism and make our lives even more insecure and our privacy even more violated.
posted by Jonathan on
“In fact, the ban would probably free up hundreds of homeland security agents because it would reduce if not end the jihad against the US, while performing same-sex procreation and creating genetically engineered super children would surely increase the threat of terrorism and make our lives even more insecure and our privacy even more violated.”
….or the Terrorists win. Hi Dinesh!!!
TOO funny…
posted by John Howard on
I hate to use the threat of terrorism in my argument, but it is a fact that the terrorists are motivated partly by what they perceive as our offenses to God, and pushing our values and technology on the rest of the world. I have to say I want them to win, so that we can be safe. Gay marriage and same-sex procreation are causing terrorism and it isn’t even something most Americans believe in. And while I’m at it, gay marriage and same-sex procreation research cause headlong reckless oil drilling like BP Horizon, too.
posted by John Howard on
Dear NRO Editors, please take a few hours to read through these comments on Jonathan Rauch’s ‘sputtering’ response to your original editorial. OK, I’ll save you some time, just read this last one:
Gay marriage advocates really do want to be allowed to have biological children together, they want to be allowed to use stem cells or whatever it takes to create embryos and babies with their same-sex partner. And as you say, “there is a governmental interest in ensuring that as many children as possible are raised in a home by biological parents who are committed to each other and to them for the long term. ” So, as long as it is legal to attempt to have biological children with someone of the same sex, then same-sex marriage is not the least bit a contradiction in terms.
However, attempting to have biological children with someone of the same sex is inherently unethical and should be prohibited with a federal law. Do you guys, NRO, support a federal law that bans people from procreating with someone of the same sex? Or, do you think that people should have a right to attempt to have children with someone of the same sex? As long as it is legal, and it is currently legal, then we should have same-sex marriage. We should only prohibit same-sex marriage if we prohibit same-sex procreation.