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From: gam@amdahl.UUCP (Gordon A. Moffett)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Re: Biological basis for homosexuality?
Message-ID: <663@amdahl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 3-Dec-84 14:15:45 EST
Article-I.D.: amdahl.663
Posted: Mon Dec  3 14:15:45 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 4-Dec-84 23:59:12 EST
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> = /Steve Dyer {decvax,linus,ima,ihnp4}!bbncca!sdyer sdyer@bbncca.ARPA

> As someone trained as a scientist, I am fascinated by basic research, but
> it is also useful to remember the political and social contexts in which
> scientific research, however "pure", operates.  Where might we go from
> here?  Suppose that one's primary sexual orientation is linked to the
> morphology of certain brain structures, that these structures differ from
> the norm in people with an affinity for the same sex, and that it is shown
> that hormonal changes in the mother during fetal development influence the
> ultimate morphology of the child's brain, and thus exerts a strong
> influence on the child's sexual preference?  This is not too far-fetched
> a theory, and the experiment mentioned above is a first step in data
> collection.
> 
> Let's examine the possible "cures" which might result if this research
> in the biological bases of sexual preference bore fruit:
> 
> - during pregnancy, a woman is noted to have the hormonal changes which
>   predispose her child to homosexual behavior (surely a simple home
>   screening test of blood, urine or salive might be prepared.)  She
>   decides to have an abortion on the basis of this finding.

Reality is the women have a right to an abortion for whatever reason.
Women may also choose the sex of their child by abortion, abort
Down's Syndrome fetuses, and even abort because it isn't desired
to have a child (yet).  In any case, the right to an abortion (in
the first trimester) is UNCONDITIONAL.

Are you questioning this right or what?  You are hereby sentenced to
10 months of reading net.abortion.

Furthermore, a woman may not want homosexual offspring because she
hopes to be a grandmother someday.  Granted that heterosexual children
are no guarantee of this, but it is not in the mother's interest to have
homosexual children in that case.

> - a woman with a previous history of this hormonal variance is treated by
>   her gynecologist to ensure that this does not occur during her next
>   pregnancy.

Women (with the co-operation of their husbands) also adjust the
times and conditions for intercourse to adjust the probability of
having a child of the desired sex. (Also see previous argument).

> - a child is born, the mother was notified of this hormonal variation
>   during her pregnancy, and it is noted on the child's medical record.
>   What effect will this have on the parents in their care and raising of
>   the child, given the societal mores which indicate this is a significant
>   enough problem that it should be measured at all?  What effect will this
>   biological "marker", or Scarlet Letter, have on the child's own self-
>   esteem, integration into society and ultimate sexual behavior?

Children (almost all!) are born either male or female.  This has far
greater impact on their upbringing than any other characteristic.
Moreover the sex of the fetus can be known long before birth, so even
then the mother's behavior is altered by that knowledge.  It may not
be fair or just, but that's the way it is.  We are all raised this way.

Some males grow up to be feminists and defenders of the
rights of homosexuals.  Some females grow up to be
mathematicians, politicians and construction workers.  Obviously, then,
the characteristics of a child at birth does not force specific
roles on that child as an adult.

> The issue here is not scientific knowledge or technology, but their use as
> tools to implement what society feels is "good", often to the detriment of
> individual variation and freedom.  It is incumbent upon people to speak
> against such goals when they are voiced, to question their underlying
> assumptions, and to continue the goal of education, to help persuade people
> otherwise when they describe same-sex sexual orientation as a "problem"
> which needs to be cured.

The future of humanity is in the hands (wombs) of women, as it always
has been.  Your arguments sound surprisingly like those of the "right
to life"-ers, as though homosexual fetuses (?) have a right to life
despite the mother's wishes.

You even allude to avoiding such investigation into the causes of
of homosexuality, given your arguments above.  Is this really the
voice of someone "trained as a scientist," or a political rhetorician
in disguise?  Why do you seem to be afraid to investigate the
question at all?

I am not saying that skewing the "randomness" of births is good or bad;
it is simply a decision that is out of our (men's) hands when we resign the
rights of reproduction to a woman's choice,  and I defend that right.
-- 
Gordon A. Moffett		...!{ihnp4,hplabs,amd,sun}!amdahl!gam

37 22'50" N / 122 59'12" W	[ This is just me talking. ]