Genetic connections with parents are important, huh?
Well here’s what I have to say.

Absolutely correct.

“But what? But how can you say such a thing?”

Here’s the deal. We all know that genetic experimentation -is- a fact of life in today’s society. Any religious fundamentalist group will be opposed to that, but they’ll become what the Amish are now: a tiny little sect living in blissful ignorance of the rest of the progressed world.

You may or may not have heard of Kaguya, the mouse named after the Japanese Goddess. She’s a female mouse, and one with an important distinction.

She’s connected with both of her parents genetically. Only thing is… both of her parents are female.

That’s right. The genetic material from two females was joined the same way a sperm and an egg would join. The kinks are still being worked out, but… it’s the height of lunacy to completely rule out its practice with humans one day.

That said, it will only be a matter of time before lesbians can have children of their own, without input form any sort of male donor -at all.- And when that day comes… well, there’ll be a lot of unhappy religious fundamentalists^^;;

But hey, at least then we’ll be connected genetically with our children^-^ And by the content of this post, that’s -clearly- a very important thing to have, right?

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Have fun in twenty years^-^ The world is changing, and if you don’t change along with it, you’ll be left behind.

Canada’s future lies not with these “progressives” and “liberals” who believe in “core Canadian values” (whatever they may be) but mostly with the Third World immigrants who still believe in common sense and physical reality, and who still make babies the natural way. Ironically, it will be they and their descendants who will support the aging “liberals” in their last days of life.

Thanks Margaret for the thought provoking article.

It is troubling to think about many of the concerns you have brought together.  There is all the appearance of a modern day Pandora’s box.

“The much larger question raised is whether, given the fact that we can now disintegrate parenthood into its genetic, gestational, social and legal components, it is ethically acceptable to do so, as some people blithely advocate. I propose that it is not ethically acceptable and that to do so is seriously harmful to children and to society.”

I agree whole heartedly with your proposal.  I also think it is noteworthy that we see perplexing situations occurring in all the component(genetic, gestational, social and legal) areas.  For example, “donor conceived adults”—have been speaking out forcefully against the way in which they were “brought into being”.

I’m surprised that my neighbor would be all for manipulating the nucleus of a female egg to make it more male-like and thus trick it into developing a-la Kaguya.  All that with a failure rate of 99.8% in the mouse; the odds are likely to be much much worse in humans.  Help me to understand why one would want to do this?  Things get said quickly, but is it asking too much to hope for a reasoned response rather than what appears to be an intoxication with the idea of “LOOK WHAT I CAN DO”?

I’d like to comment on Kaguya, the mouse named after the Japanese Goddess. As the comment said, “she’s a female mouse,sand one with an important distinction.”

I say that we as humans, also have an important distinction-- that we are humans. And Kaguya and I are different. That’s ‘her’ nature as a mouse. 1+1=2 for Kaguya, won’t necessarily be the 1+1=2 for humans.

Is it really such a fundamentalist’s question?  If the proposition is that a person has dignity regardless of their orientation, should we be so callous to play darts with the dignity of children who do not have the ability to speak for themselves?

“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Have fun in twenty years^-^ The world is changing, and if you don’t change along with it, you’ll be left behind.”

Or, left standing. In twenty years, all these fools will be on the last leg of their journey into the abyss. Glad to be left out of that one.

There appears to be a consistent thread which runs through the various developments in reproductive “rights”: the right to have a child; the right to choose a childs gender; the right to design a child; the right to terminate a child if it appears flawed; the right to terminate a child because it’s inconvenient; the right to deprive a child of its father. They seem to concentrate solely on the “rights” of the adult with little or no apparent consideration for the childs welfare. This is progress?

I’m pretty happy that someone has come to the same conclusions I have, regarding Kaguya… Now all we need is a geneticist courageous enough to withstand a lot of angry religious banter^-^

Too bad some people disagree, but even *worse* that those people’s arguments are, to quote Monty Python’s Holy Grail, “right out!”

To the neighbor of TLDTS, and also barty… Uh, of course a mouse is not a person. and of course, the same procedure used with Kaguya wouldn’t work with people, at least not without being fundamentally altered. Let’s take a look at your arguments, respectively… we have:

“All that with a failure rate of 99.8% in the mouse; the odds are likely to be much much worse in humans.”
and
“1+1=2 for Kaguya, won’t necessarily be the 1+1=2 for humans.”

Well… that’s true. It’s *also* true, however, that all medical proceudres are first tested on animals, and that close to all medical procedures *also* have enormous failure rates before they’re ready to be used in humans. Look up the origin of organ transplant: that got of to a *terrible* start, but people kept trying and making it better, and now medical professionals the world over practice it.

Would you argue that a child born of two mothers is less human than a child born from heterosexual parents? If so, you’ll be guilty of the next holocaust, because this procedure *will* happen one day, and you *will* have to swallow your objections… unless hatred of children in the name of god has become acceptable.

Pretty much, in short, It’s not that people are arguing against the procedure… it’s that the arguments are so ridiculous. Make an argument against it if you’re gonna, but at least keep it intelligent?

(and ps, to JonathanR, your view is entirely subjective, so good luck to you^^ we’ll know in twenty years.)

The biological/natural family has always been mother, father & child.  Today’s reckless social experimentation is nothing less than an attempt at a revolution against man’s own nature. It will be as destructive as the communist revolutions which attempted to change the nature of man.

This revolution is championed by homosexual advocacy groups trying to cow (by conveniently dismissive claims of bigotry, fundamentalism, and backwardness) people into not merely tolerating their behavior, but into acctually condoning it against their own moral conviction.

Society used to call homosexuals by a derogatory terms and outcast them, then people decided this wasn’t Christian and for the most past have welcomed them into society and begun treating them with respect they deserve as men and women in the image and likeness of God.

Homosexual advocates know that the majority of humanity has and will continue to judge their behavior (if not themselves) as being sinful and unnatural. They will always be in a profound minority unless they can unnaturally perpetuate (or perpetrate) their abberant sexual deviancy on future generations.

The homosexual advocates gleefully turn to this revolution in the hopes that it will allow them to create an alternative society of misfits where they delusionally believe they will not confront their own moral autonomy by a removal of society’s nearly universal condemnation. 

They dismiss the vast majority of mankind who would rationally judge their experiment as dangerous as ignorant bigots.  Attempted rational discourse with such people, who have such a limited sense of self worth that they conflate their identity with their sexual behavior or with goddesses, is bound to make you sound like someone attempting to reason with a screaming two year old child who wants his way.  It makes you look silly.  Since spanking is not in order, it is far better to ignore them than to flatter their bullheaded commitment to sodomy.

In the field of Medicine we strive to treat disease or illness and in Medical Research we strive to develop new therapies to treat disease or illness.  Hopefully, most if not all of us see that as right and good.  When we discuss areas of medicine where disease or illness is not present, the practice of medicine becomes different such that the patient isn’t sick and the doctor hears “I want ….. you fill in the blank”.  So, whether it be “genetic orphans” or “babies without men” from a medical perspective what is the disease, illness or unmet medical need?  In both the above cases my take is that “we” are trying to make something happen that was not meant to be or would not have happen via nature.  I think that we are asking for problems if not manufacturing them outright whenever we don’t ask these questions … is it right and good.

On pages 575-576 of his novel “State of Fear” (Harper Collins, 2004) Michael Crichton writes about a social movement which had risen to prominence about a hundred years ago. Its supporters included the presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson; Sir Winston Churchill; Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of telephone; famous writers H. G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw and, in Canada, Tommy Douglas (the father of Medicare) and three out of the Famous Five pioneers of feminism: Emily Murphy, Nellie McClung and Louise McKinney.

Crichton writes:

“Nobel Prize winners gave support. Research was backed by the Carnegie and Rockefeller Foundations. ...important work was… done at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and Johns Hopkins. Legislation to address the crisis was passed in states from New York to California. These efforts had the support of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Medical Association, and the National Research Council. It was said that if Jesus were alive, he would have supported the effort… Those who opposed the theory were shouted down and called reactionary, blind to reality, or just plain ignorant.”

What was this exciting and progressive idea? Eugenics - a movement to prevent the breeding of the inferior human beings (immigrants, Jews, blacks, the mentally ill, etc.) by isolation in institutions, or by forced sterilization. Eugenics achieved its maximum popularity in Nazi Germany, and was successfully practised in places such as Auschwitz.

Crichton continues:

“After World War II, nobody was a eugenicist, and nobody had ever been a eugenicist.”

Twenty or so years from now, when the current scientific foolishness brings its poisonous fruits, how many people will be proud of their past support of it?

Don’t want to sound like a preacher but I thought the following was rather prophetical:

“....I am only making clear what Man’s conquest of Nature really means and especially that final stage in the conquest, which, perhaps, is not far off. The final stage is come when Man by eugenics, by pre-natal conditioning, and by an education and propaganda based on a perfect applied psychology, has obtained full control over himself. Human nature will be the last part of Nature to surrender to Man. The battle will then be won. We shall have `taken the thread of life out of the hand of Clotho’ and be henceforth free to make our species whatever we wish it to be. The battle will indeed be won. But who, precisely, will have won it?

For the power of Man to make himself what he pleases means, as we have seen, the power of some men to make other men what they please.’

C.S. Lewis ‘The Abolition of Man’ 1947 (chap.3)

The whole book is recommendable (short too).

Margaret Somerville said: “In short, genetic relationship goes to our deepest roots of who we are and to whom we bond. One has only to look at one of the primary uses of the internet – genealogical research”

Genealogy doesn’t make much sense. Just to go back to the time of the pilgrims we each have over 1,000,000 ubergrandparents. Most people follow a narrow thread to prove relation to a famous person we’re probably all related to anyway. That’s what’s wrong with The DaVinci Code idea of a blood line started by Christ. If it were true we’d all be related to him.

The author seems to be saying that ‘donor conceived adults’ would prefer not to exist. She also seems to imply that adopted children are not as loved as children born to their parents. I’ll bet lots of people would say otherwise. I knew a woman who said she couldn’t raise children she didn’t give birth to. I considered it a character flaw.

I admire Margaret Somerville.  The things need to be said.  The reason will become apparent.  All these lost souls out there “doing the crime & time” because they have no genetic heritage......  All of society suffers.  Those who say they can raise only birth children are far greater in number than just one - it relates often to their own early upbringing/lack.  I’m adopted, & this has caused me to feel similarly.  There’s a difference between social & genetic family in ways that most with two families can relate to - & many aren’t able to tell you diffences, they’re often those afraid to grow.  The rat can tell us about mothering & genes & the change that takes place when a mother rears a biological baby rat versus no mother?  Perhaps this story’s the same for humans, it would seem it has hallmarks.  There are families with bad mothers & others with good ones?  The experiment of closed adoptions is playing out again with all the secrets of anonymity in reproductive technology, & the result will not be pleasant.  The extended family’s involved, grandparents, & uncles/aunts.  The children in general, about 93%, want to know origin truth.  Who’s going to get blame when this is hidden?  Is society going to pay?  You bet.  Who’s going to be ditched when DNA test is taken & parents are found not to be?  Will a younger generation be taking these tests as a matter of course to check?  I would - so many parents are hiding secrets.  Who’ll co-ordinate medical care when genetic family’s lost?  There are many cases where medical information is vital.  Every child needs genetic mother & father, & then go from there adding whoever you like if you have to, just tell them truth.  Make sure all families have the same fairness in grandchildren.  It’s very complex to be fair to extended family & to children created in these new ways!  As humans we need to please our families to maximise our happiness.