It seems to me that most of these posters are appalled at the thought of choosing the sexual-orientation of your child. Why is that so appalling? And if other's choose to do it to their children, why do you care?

I find it somewhat appalling that someone would choose to abort their baby, but I support their decision because it's their body and it's none of my business. The same thing goes here. It's no one's business except the parents. If they choose to screen for homosexuality, that is their choice. Hey, if they choose to make their child gay, that is their choice too.

Those of you that are appalled by this, what would you do? make it illegal to use hormone treatments? Basically take away someone elses right to their child because you don't like their decisions?

If Saletan's analysis is correct and it is simply a matter of androgen levels during pregnancy, then we are going to be addressing this issue sooner rather than later.

I think it's time to live and let live on both sides of the aisle.

A child is not the property of their parents; it is not a thing with which they can do what they want, using it as a 'mere means' to the fulfillment of their interests. Like any human individual, each child is to be regarded as an end in itself. Many of the ethical issues surrounding reproductive technologies occur because they encourage or reinfornce unseemly or repugnant attitudes towards the worth of human persons, that run against the proper norms of parental love and devalue children (see, for example, discussions regarding commercial surrogacy). The fact that a child is not the parents' property also sets important limits to the value that can be accorded to parental choice in this situation; basically, you can do whatever the hell you want with yourself and other consenting adults, but when your choices affect other non-consenting individuals, the moral alarm bells will be poised to ring. No decision made by parents with respect to their children is 'no one's business except the parents'; the state has a duty (and the right) to protect the interests of all children within its juristiction.

So what is wrong with choosing the sexuality of your child? Firstly, there might be many reasons for choosing a child's sexuality that I find to be relatively defensible. For example, (though I find even this somewhat problematic) parents might wish to spare their children the horrors of homophobia (this is problematic because it would, if widely practiced, be tantamount to 'conceding defeat' in the fight against reprehensible prejudice; it would be 'if you can't beat them, join them', and we certainly don't want to join them); also, gay parents might wish to have gay children, and mutatis mutandis for heterosexual couples, because doing so leads parent and child to share roughly the same world of experience, the same problems and joys in relation to sex and relationships.

My major concern is not really with these choices (I would tentatively suggest that the second kind of choice is entirely unproblematic), but rather with those born of homophobia; the sort of parental choices highlighted in the article. When a parent selects against their child being born with a certain sexuality based on the fact that they consider such a sexuality reprehensible or defective, they are not treating their children as ends in themselves, beings worthy of love and respect, for their love is being tagged as conditional on their obtaining the right sexuality. A child who grows up knowing that they had been 'saved' from their homosexuality will always wonder what their life would have been like had they been born before the advent of such technological advances; would they not then have found themselves repudiated and derided by their parents? In what sense, then, are they truly loved by their parents, if that love could turn to disgust so easily?

Allowing parents to 'heterofy' their children would be a reprehensible decision, I feel, because it encourages an attitude towards the worth of children and the worth of non-heterosexuals that is quite simply incompatible with proper parental love and with a decent, egalitarian society. All-out homophobes - and there are so disgustingly many - would use such technology to root out homosexuality in their own offspring, thus furthering marginalising gays, lesbians, etc.; entirely decent people would too often be moved by sympathy for their child-to-be and seek to heterofy the child so as to spare it the horrors-to-be inflicted by homophobes; and thus, homosexuality would quite probably become 'weeded out', further marginalising the gay community and empowering those who wish to see its members defiled and humiliated.

Consider an analogous situation. Imagine that we are living under conditions of terrible racism. Blacks are derided and hated by the majority of society; the Conservatives have no shame in publicly insulting them; there is a wide and popular movement afoot to make it impossible for blacks to marry whites, etc. Now imagine a piece of genetic science-fiction, such that in this society blacks are sometimes born to whites and sometimes to blacks. And now, imagine that someone has discovered the genetic (or some ontogenetic) condition for black skin; the Conservatives rejoice, for now they can make sure that they do not have black children. Decent parents are now given a means by which to spare their children the horrors of growing up black under such awful conditions. What would happen in such a situation? Would it be desirable? Most assuredly, it would not.

I'm not saying it's desirable or a good thing, I'm just saying that YOU have no say in what another parent does. The fact that you think YOU should get to decide what another parent does with their unborn child means that YOU are a self-made tyrant.

I take it by your response that you are very strongly anti-abortion as well? Since you believe a child in the womb is living and has rights, you cannot possibly believe abortion is ok. Yes or no?

As a matter of fact, I am staunchly in favour of the legality and moral permissibility of early-term abortions; I take sentience or psychology to be the ultimate boundary-marker of moral status. My concern is not with the rights of the foetus, but with a.) the rights of the resultant child to be raised within conditions conducive to its happiness, healthy development, and future autonomy and b.) the rights of any member of society to live in a society in which the conditions of justice are preserved over time. That 'heterofication' might be done to a foetus without rights does not imply that it is morally neutral, as the body of the foetus is the body of the resulting child; what is done to that body is, down the line, done to the child. (Similarly, if I infected your blood-transfusion with AIDS, I would be harming you, though the blood itself has no right not be AIDS-infected.)

Of course I should not get to decide what another parent does with their unborn child: the matter should obviously be decided through adequate political processes (referendum, judicial decision, etc.). However, my point is quite simply that there are, in fact, individuals other than the parents of a child who have a say in what is done to that child. The state (which we may regard as an 'artificial person' for the sake of argument) is the most obvious example, and note that the state's rights as a protector of the interests of children are far-reaching. Here, the requirements of education are the most notable example: every parent has a duty to provide for its child an adequate education, whether by entering it into public schools or by securing some equivalent form of private education. The content of the child's education is subject to somewhat strict controls: you cannot tell your child anything you like and comply with your legal duties as a parent. As a conscientious individual, I also have an opinion on what a child may and may not be taught as part of their education: they may not be told that the Earth is flat, that the Queen of England is a Martian, or that Darwinism is untrue; furthermore, I am in strong favour of civic education.

Passing moral judgement on how others treat their children is not equivalent to tyranny unless it is backed up by coercive intervention, and only then if such coercion is morally unwarranted in light of the manner in which the actions of the parent affect others (including, of course, the child). I do not think that I get to 'decide', as if my moral claims are guided by whim and quirk; as a person of conscience, I draw upon common moral concerns (the welfare of children, the fight against injustice and inequality) in order to motivate an argument for state intervention against individuals attempting to 'cure' their children of morally arbitrary and irrelevant characteristics such as race, sex, and sexuality. I oppose state laxity in the face of such attempts because the rights of homosexuals to participate as equals within society are denied and endangered, and because such attempts constitute new dangers to those rights. Again, see the analogy with the racist society: in such a society, legalising the 'breeding out' of black skin would be part and parcel of a defeat conceded to the powerful cultural forces of injustice.

It is in no sense irrelevant what you or I think of as desirable or a good thing, unless our judgements are born of idiosyncratic concerns that cannot be publically justified against principles acceptable to conscientious and reasonable persons. When we draw upon publicly recognised standards of justice and morality, we are in no sense exercising moral tyranny.

Excuse me while I rub my eyes incredulously.

Did you write “make your child gay”? How, pray tell, does one accomplish this? Judy Garland movies? Queen’s greatest hits? Teletubbies and Barney, non-stop, from infancy?

“Make your child gay”!

From your camera one could intercede at any time - from conception to birthing - genetically, hormonally (or whateverly) to insure that a Hetero Sapiens emerges; only to be foiled by nurture.

And we all know how creative and cunning those gay makers can be!

Another line of reasoning would include a couple who continues to have children they otherwise might not have because they wish for a boy and they have five girls, or vise versa.

Whats that telling your kids, "well son", "you wouldn't exist if your mom hadn't wanted your little sister so badly"?

Actually if being gay is a natural trait and I think you believe it is, then science may indeed be able to switch a persons sexuality in one direction or another through various treatments during pregnancy.

I believe the original poster was not talking about post birth enviromental expsoures.

Upon review, I think you are correct about the original writer's meaning (pre-birth). I stand corrected.

I very much doubt that "making them gay" (pre-birth) would be as much the choice as those who may want to cure gayness. Whether "being gay" is natural (or not) is not at issue. There is a convincing and growing body of evidence that would support "natural". All behavior is “natural”. The questions we have to answer, as a society, are: what behavior is culturally desirable and acceptable and what is clearly proscribed?

The task at hand, from my camera, is to battle intolerance (another "natural"). But I would wait until after birth and clear signs of its expression. However, I would be ever vigilant and reward tolerance while correcting intolerant behavior from very early on.

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