Posted on 06/19/2015 8:10:34 AM PDT by wagglebee
With same-sex marriage and the transformation of Bruce Jenner into Caitlyn Jenner in the world headlines, it’s time to ask what LGBT bioethics would look like. Timothy Murphy, of the University of Illinois College of Medicine, foreshadows some of the major themes in the journal Bioethics.
Bioethics benefits. “Bioethics is better than it would otherwise have been, because people queer in their sexual interests and identities have challenged misconceived concepts of health and disease, challenged obstacles to access and equity in healthcare, and forced attention to professional standards in clinical care, among other things.”
Defending LGBT parenting. To show that the battle is not completely over, Murphy cites Oxford philosopher John Finnis’s implacable opposition to adoption by male and female homosexuals as “intrinsically evil”. Putting “skepticism about LGBT people as fit parents fully behind it” will be one of the first tasks of fully developed LGBT bioethics.
Promoting new reproductive technologies. In the not-too-distant future it may be possible to use stem cell technology to create synthetic gametes for gay and lesbian couples. This will allow them to raise their own genetic children. “This option would go a long way in helping transgender people express and consolidate their gender identity,” writes Murphy. Another development could be “male pregnancies”. Now that it is possible to transplant a uterus, why couldn’t males bear children?
Paying for them. Shouldn’t insurers and the government pay for these very expensive technologies, if they already cover costs for heterosexual couples? “We need to begin asking these LGBT-centric questions.”
Clarifying the scope of conscience exemptions. Denying legitimate medical services to LGBT patients should not be protected by the law. “If clinicians may turn patients away because of their perceived sinfulness or immorality, it would be difficult to set any limit on the exercise of that right … If we go that way, healthcare would be a moral bazaar, undercutting its overall value by reducing its efficiency.”
Achieving status equality. “A strong presumption in theory that LGBT people are the equals of everyone else is one very good starting point for working toward the achievement of that exactly that equality in practice.”
This particular article only hints at the panorama of changes and challenges for LGBT bioethics. But there could be many others, some quite unexpected.
For instance, in a previous article in Bioethics, Murphy saw nothing wrong with sex selection of infants. While one objection to this is the possible distortion of the roughly-equal natural sex ratio in society, Murphy points out that from an LGBT perspective, this not a significant moral problem. “Complications about who qualifies as ‘male’ and ‘female’ complicate judgments about the ratio,” he says. He concludes that “The natural sex ratio cannot be a sound moral basis for prohibiting parents from selecting the sex of their children.”
Another LGBT bioethics theorist has criticized American sex education programs which promote abstinence. Her analysis suggests that a conservative approach promotes “the terror of desire” and “the proliferation of fear”. More space needs to be given to heteronormative sexualities. In other words, it seems, when parents and teachers explain the facts of life, they will need to add lots more “facts”, from detailed discussions of homosexuality to sympathetic explanations of transgender sexuality.
All this suggests there will be more and more palaver about homosexuality and related issues. But perhaps there will be less.
About 20 years ago the bioethicist who is now the editor of the leading journal Bioethics, Udo Schuklenk and another author, argued in the Journal of Homosexuality that research into the origins of homosexuality was unethical in the present climate. “Research into the causes of homosexuality assumes more often than not that homosexuality is one or another form of mental illness or undesirable deviance from the heterosexual norm, and should be cured.” And in another article he (and colleagues) explained that “the very motivation for seeking an ‘origin’ of homosexuality reveals homophobia.”
In a society in which the fact of homosexuality is axiomatic, questioning it could become a crime. Buckle up your seat belts.
Michael Cook is editor of MercatorNet.
Anything that prevents reproduction in a species can’t have a genetic basis. It is nonsense to claim otherwise. Queers are incapable of accepting the truth. It is simply part of their diseased thinking.
They are afraid that research into the causes of homosexuality will result in hetero parents taking steps to prevent having a homosexual child.
There will not be research (at least not in the US) on creating a prenatal test for whether the fetus will be likely to develop into a homosexual. The gay lobby will proclaim such research a hate crime. They will also make it illegal for such a test to be administered, or used as a basis for deciding to abort.
Not necessarily. Think of sickle-cell anemia. Having one gene gives immunity to malaria. Getting the gene from both parents gives anemia.
Think of early humans who may have formed matrilocal tribes(man joins wife's tribe rather than woman moving to husband's tribe). In such an environment, hetero boys would be lost to the tribe as they went off in search of mates, but homo boys would be more likely to stick around to help raise and feed their sisters' kids, who are genetically related.
Not following how sickle cell prevents reproduction.
Dying prevents reproduction rather effectively. Prior to modern treatments, life expectancy for those with sickle cell was 14, meaning they would not live to reproduce.
Ah, sickle cell allowed them to survive malaria. Malarial organisms do not infect sickle cells. The life expectancy for those homozygous for this disease is past the 5th decade. If they didn’t reproduce the gene would have been eliminated long ago. You are pretending to know something about an area outside your realm of expertise. I suggest you look at a 1994 article in the New England J of Medicine.
Key word: "is".
From the link to the NIH site I gave you:
In high-income countries like the United States, the life expectancy of a person with SCD is now about 40–60 years. In 1973, the average lifespan of a person with SCD in the United States was only 14 years. Advances in the diagnosis and care of SCD have made this improvement possible.You are pretending to know something about an area outside your realm of expertise.
You are an MD or researcher in the area of sickle cell disease?
From CDC:
The sickle cell gene is caused by a single amino acid mutation (valine instead of glutamate at the 6th position) in the beta chain of the hemoglobin gene. Inheritance of this mutated gene from both parents leads to sickle cell disease and people with this disease have shorter life expectancy. On the contrary, individuals who are carriers for the sickle cell disease (with one sickle gene and one normal hemoglobin gene, also known as sickle cell trait) have some protective advantage against malaria. As a result, the frequencies of sickle cell carriers are high in malaria-endemic areas.So, heterozygous carriers of the gene have malaria resistance and thus tend to live longer, so they can have more offspring. Homozygous (have it from both sides) tend to die young.
You wrote 14 year. The correct life expectancy is 50 plus which is clearly plenty of time to have offspring. If this were not the case the gene would have been eliminated long ago.
Sickle cell disease is a life-long illness. The severity of the disease varies widely from person to person.Hence, my statement "Prior to modern treatments, life expectancy for those with sickle cell was 14, meaning they would not live to reproduce".In high-income countries like the United States, the life expectancy of a person with SCD is now about 40–60 years. In 1973, the average lifespan of a person with SCD in the United States was only 14 years. Advances in the diagnosis and care of SCD have made this improvement possible.
If the medical research you have conducted disagrees with NIH, take it up with them. I'm done with you here.
I love this quote from Jurassic Park: “...your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
Granted, nevertheless, they have clearly been able to reproduce. For the record, I have been on many NIH funded projects dealing with other diseases.
Boil it down?: Triple the Cost
Forcing insurers to throw disease-ridden whackjobs and their self-inflicted, expensive and unnecessary claims in the same pool with otherwise healthy, normal Americans will double or triple premiums.
(Community rating, Guaranteed Issue)
How is that fair?
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