31–40 of 102 posts
While I appreciate there's a lot of new debates to work through, the possibility of a child with two same-sex parents would be revolutionary for gay and lesbian couples. It's striking how many commenters here thus far default to treating this as a college ethics question, concocting contorted hypotheticals.
While I appreciate there's a lot of new debates to work through, the possibility of a child with two same-sex parents would be revolutionary for gay and lesbian couples. It's striking how many commenters here thus far default to treating this as a college ethics question, concocting contorted hypotheticals.
While I appreciate there's a lot of new debates to work through, the possibility of a child with two same-sex parents would be revolutionary for gay and lesbian couples. It's striking how many commenters here thus far default to treating this as a college ethics question, concocting contorted hypotheticals.
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One of the main problems preventing human cloning is the trouble getting enough eggs. Even if you don't care about the ethical issues (females only have a quite low finite number of eggs), it's still really expensive. If a small team can get their hands on a whole lot of viable human eggs, they may be less limited by what funders of big research grants want.
The number of eggs women have is far from "quite low". How many do you think they need? A woman menstruates once a month until menopause, from say age 14 till 55. So you would estimate a need for 492 total eggs. A woman is born with 1 million eggs, and has about 300,000 left by puberty. Which is to say: developing the eggs is not a limiting factor in getting them from women.
While I appreciate there's a lot of new debates to work through, the possibility of a child with two same-sex parents would be revolutionary for gay and lesbian couples. It's striking how many commenters here thus far default to treating this as a college ethics question, concocting contorted hypotheticals.
This technology goes way beyond that. I don't see why we should dismiss the many valid ethics questions because it is something that some gay people want. That may be a slight positive to weigh against all the other questions.
I don't think "but yeah what if you steal rich people cells and make a baby and then totally blackmail them" is quite the ethical quandary some people seem to think it is, however. It's clear to whom this is a purely navel-gazing academic exercise, and to whom this offers life-changing possibilities.
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I don't know what you expect to achieve by calling those selfless women who choose to do surrogacy prostitutes. The surrogacy sector in the United States is highly regulated, and surrogates are highly protected ( https://health.ny.gov/community/pregnancy/surrogacy/surrogat... ). Yours is an ignorant, misogynistic stance.
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This technology goes way beyond that. I don't see why we should dismiss the many valid ethics questions because it is something that some gay people want. That may be a slight positive to weigh against all the other questions.
I fully agree that we ought not dismiss valid ethics questions. These should by all means be discussed, and - as with any reproductive tech - they will be, before anything like this ever rolls out. I don't think "but yeah what if you steal rich people cells and make a baby and then totally blackmail them" is quite the ethical quandary some people seem to think it is, however. It's clear to whom this is a purely navel…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know what you expect to achieve by calling those selfless women who choose to do surrogacy prostitutes. The surrogacy sector in the United States is highly regulated, and surrogates are highly protected ( https://health.ny.gov/community/pregnancy/surrogacy/surrogat... ). Yours is an ignorant, misogynistic stance.
Most surrogates are not selfless--- they get paid for what they do...in the US often $60,000. Some jurisdictions do require that women choosing surrogacy have to do it altruistically, receiving only reimbursement for medical expenses. This causes a shortage of surrogates compared to market demand. People looking for surrogates often then travel to jurisdictions where the laws are different to obtain them (I know peop…
Right, but this sort of applies to anything though. Labour markets, for example. Does the fact that Bangladeshi clothes factories are exploitative of their staff make hiring staff intrinsically immoral in the United States?
> Most surrogates are not selfless--- they get paid for what they do...in the US often $60,000.
Including the lead-up and recovery period to take the whole process to a year or so, and accepting your very high estimate of $60k in surrogate compensation, that's hardly a windfall for the average American woman. There's far easier ways to earn $60k in an entire year in the US than carrying someone's baby. For American surrogates, there's usually an element of selflessness involved.
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I fully agree that we ought not dismiss valid ethics questions. These should by all means be discussed, and - as with any reproductive tech - they will be, before anything like this ever rolls out. I don't think "but yeah what if you steal rich people cells and make a baby and then totally blackmail them" is quite the ethical quandary some people seem to think it is, however. It's clear to whom this is a purely navel…
Among other things, this vastly increases the potential for artificial selection of embryos using PGS, for which there are already companies operating publicly (and dark groups operating privately). Concern over this isn't just "navel gazing" and should be weighed against the positives. There are a hundred of other questions which are valid concerns and your original comment seems dismissive of these. Yes some of us…
Seems like you're trying to go for a bit of a motte and bailey argument here. The issue you raise is valid, but it isn't the one being raised in the other comments, which is making celebrity babies for the purposes of blackmail, and it isn't the one my comment was aimed at.
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I don't know what you expect to achieve by calling those selfless women who choose to do surrogacy prostitutes. The surrogacy sector in the United States is highly regulated, and surrogates are highly protected ( https://health.ny.gov/community/pregnancy/surrogacy/surrogat... ). Yours is an ignorant, misogynistic stance.
As for the harms of surrogacy, here's a good article that explains what's really happening, it's not the rosy picture you're painting: https://thecritic.co.uk/end-womb-trafficking