Same-sex reproduction.

[Hitsumei]

In 2007 there was a lot of hype about a new advancement that allowed them to fabricate synthetic sperm from bone marrow, which would allow two women to have biological daughters (no sons, as women lack a Y chromosome). Later I heard that it never made it past the ethics committee. It also utilized stem cell research.

Things have changed slightly in the last couple years, and stem cells research is not as hindered, and I may get to see the new science get developed. I knew that something like this would be held up for awhile, but it won't go away -- if we can develop the technology, then it will only be a matter of time before the obstacles are overcome.  

I of course find it an incredibly exciting prospect -- I'm blown away by the kinds of things humanity can achieve these days. This seems like such a fantastic idea, like the stuff of legends.

What are your opinions?

[AlP]

I have talked to my room mate about this. She is also excited by the possibility. I am too. Not for myself but for my gay friends, or for now my gay woman friends at least. I have no moral objection. I am a nihilist.

It seems that this would permit the extinction of man (assuming men chose to stop procreating or women chose to stop procreating with men, which I think is unlikely) (and the extinction of all humanity is of course possible by other means). I would have no problem with that. That would render the words man and woman redundant. There would only be humans. I'm cool with that too.

[Hitsumei]

I'm not excited for myself, I'm almost forty, I missed the baby boat. I was a lot more of a hard-lining feminist in my earlier life, and was adamant about never conforming, and having children, or being a housewife. My opinions changed over the years, but not fast enough.

There is roughly the same amount of men as there are women, as there is a 50% change of having either, but if an all-female type of reproduction were to become available, while an all-male type did not, it would skew the numbers towards female, and continue to do so as time progressed for as long as the state of affairs remained the same.

If an all-male type were to become available, even if there were an all-female type, the numbers would skew towards males, as their are roughly twice as many homosexual males as there are females in the general population.

[Will]

Oh no, they don't need us anymore!  

But seriously, I think it's great. Lesbians have just as much right to bear children as heterosexuals. I just wish people considered adoption more often. I don't know how things are upstairs in Canada, but down here in the US the foster system is a serious problem. There are a lot of children that could use a good home.

[AlP]

I'm not excited for myself, I'm almost forty, I missed the baby boat.

Hitting menopause might mean it's too late to carry a fetus. I assume that is what you are referring too. I don't think that means it's necessarily too late to provide half a genome. You would need a mate who has not reached menopause.

[pastafarian]

Reminds me of this comic.  

[Hitsumei]

Oh no, they don't need us anymore!  

But seriously, I think it's great. Lesbians have just as much right to bear children as heterosexuals. I just wish people considered adoption more often. I don't know how things are upstairs in Canada, but down here in the US the foster system is a serious problem. There are a lot of children that could use a good home.

It is the same here, and up until recently adoption was quite difficult for homosexuals -- the system has since been reformed, and we have the right to adopt nationwide (except for Nunavut, which is a new native territory which largely governs itself), and they promote in-nation adoption.

[Hitsumei]

Hitting menopause might mean it's too late to carry a fetus. I assume that is what you are referring too. I don't think that means it's necessarily too late to provide half a genome. You would need a mate who has not reached menopause.

I've not hit menopause yet, but fertility plummets after thirty seven. My wife is older than I am, though she has a fourteen year old son.

[AlP]

This never occurred to me but it seems that same sex reproduction doesn't just give more options to same sex couples. It also gives women who for whatever reason are not fertile or cannot carry a fetus (regardless of their sexuality) the opportunity to have a child. Lets say scientists manage to make human female sperm. Combine that with artificial insemination of a woman who is fertile and can carry a fetus. Then virtually every woman has the option of being a mother at any age. The child would inherit 50% of the DNA from the woman from whom the sperm was derived. The child wouldn't get the mitochondrial DNA from her I suppose but that doesn't seem like a big deal. So she would be a biological mother of the child. Am I missing anything?

I also wonder if it would be possible to splice Y chromosomes into the female sperm (if that's how they do it). Then two women would have the option of a male child (in the unlikely event they didn't want to eradicate mankind ). It might be tricky though I just read on wikipedia that the Y chromosome is 60 million base pairs.

Oh dear I just had another crazy idea! 60 million base pairs. Each base pair has 4 possible states (there are 4 nucleotides in DNA). If I were to measure that in computer terms, it's about 120Mbit (60 * 2 because a bit only has 2 states) or 15MB. The whole human genome is about 3 billion base pairs or about 750MB (roughly 1 CDROM). It's not a huge amount of information but it is stored in a very tiny amount of space. Maybe if genome sequencing comes down in price sufficiently we could use DNA as a storage medium, much like a USB flash memory or DVDROM?

It's amazing what can be stored in 750MB of information. Windows XP is bigger than that I think!

[PipeBox]

In response to DNA being used as a storage medium, the read/write times would be horrendous, and the parity questionable after every change.  But it is true that DNA, as with any molecular storage solution, would be store in quite a small space.

As to the original post, it's fascinating.  I'd half-expect it to appear in medicine in the next 10 years, if I understand how far the research is along, and assuming it's no longer unethical.

[Ihateyoumike]

The prospect of females ultimately far outnumbering males is a good one to me.

All joking aside, time to probably make alot of you hate me...

I'm against this. Not to the point where I would go out and rally a group of people with picket signs. I'm too close to nihilism for that one. And no, I'm definitely not against it because of the homosexual relationship aspect of it. Anybody who has read my posts on the topic know that I am perfectly ok with gays and lesbians being together.

I simply find it a little bit greedy. Have we as a species not moved past the evolutionary greed to make a baby out of our own DNA?  Aren't there an extremely large amount of unwanted children out there being put through a shitty (for the most part) foster care and government run system? Do we really want to leave more children behind to be "owned" by the governments who are so inept they can't seem to get anything else right? Does anyone else stop for a minute to realize what typically happens to these "products of the system" when they turn legal age and are released from the care of the state?

If you are unable to create a child of your own, whether it is a man/woman, man/man, or woman/woman combination... I say, adopt a f^#@*%g baby, do not artificially create another one because for every one that's created by scientists there's one out there who doesn't get the chance to have a real family.

Is having a child that resembles you that important? Can you not love a child just as much, even if it's not yours? Hell, there are animals that adopt other dead animal's children, why can't we? And for that matter, how many men do you think there are out there raising someone else's baby all the time thinking it is their own?

I'm sorry for the  :hide2:

[rlrose328]

If you are unable to create a child of your own, whether it is a man/woman, man/man, or woman/woman combination... I say, adopt a f^#@*%g baby, do not artificially create another one because for every one that's created by scientists there's one out there who doesn't get the chance to have a real family.

Is having a child that resembles you that important? Can you not love a child just as much, even if it's not yours? Hell, there are animals that adopt other dead animal's children, why can't we? And for that matter, how many men do you think there are out there raising someone else's baby all the time thinking it is their own?

I agree with you in concept... however, not all states let same sex couples adopt either.  And adoption is expensive.  We'd LOVE to adopt a second child to add to our household.. I've ALWAYS wanted to adopt (wrote a theme paper about it when I was just 11).  But when we looked into it, we realized we can't afford the adoption process at all.  While I have a number of friends who have adopted locally... they did it with "help" from their respective churches who footed most of the bill.  We don't have that luxury.

So point me in the direction of a lower cost adoption and I'll jump at the chance.  We can readily affort to have another child in our family.. we just can't afford the adoption fees themselves without taking out a second (or third) mortgage.

[Hitsumei]

Anybody who has read my posts on the topic know that I am perfectly ok with gays and lesbians being together.

I'm glad -- I wouldn't want to make you uncomfortable...

I simply find it a little bit greedy. Have we as a species not moved past the evolutionary greed to make a baby out of our own DNA?

You don't seem to be suggesting that "we as a species" should move past this, but only gay people. Otherwise this type of reproduction existing should be entirely irrelevant.

Aren't there an extremely large amount of unwanted children out there being put through a shitty (for the most part) foster care and government run system? Do we really want to leave more children behind to be "owned" by the governments who are so inept they can't seem to get anything else right? Does anyone else stop for a minute to realize what typically happens to these "products of the system" when they turn legal age and are released from the care of the state?

Is this uniquely a problem for homosexuals, or are you prepared to deny the reproductive privileges of other groups in order to bolster adoption?

If you are unable to create a child of your own, whether it is a man/woman, man/man, or woman/woman combination... I say, adopt a f^#@*%g baby, do not artificially create another one because for every one that's created by scientists there's one out there who doesn't get the chance to have a real family.

With the option available, we would be able to create children, and for every naturally created child there is one unadopted child as well. This isn't uniquely true of children created with scientific aid.

Is having a child that resembles you that important? Can you not love a child just as much, even if it's not yours? Hell, there are animals that adopt other dead animal's children, why can't we? And for that matter, how many men do you think there are out there raising someone else's baby all the time thinking it is their own?

Again, why should this be uniquely true of homosexuals? Why should we be denied reproductive rights for this reason when no one else is?

[Will]

I'm glad -- I wouldn't want to make you uncomfortable...

You might even say that you're GLAAD. Eh? Eh?  

Mike, I don't think "greed" is the right term. Greed suggests a selfishness. It's not selfish to want to reproduce, it's an innate and social imperative for many people and it's necessary to continue the species.

I think that we're adapting in order to better facilitate homosexual parings. We're just a bit too impatient for mutation and natural selection to allow women to create spermatozoa (or the equivalent) on their own, so we're doing it ourselves. Just as we create medicines for illnesses that our immune systems aren't quite ready to deal with yet, or we wear sunscreen to protect us from harmful ultraviolet waves from the sun because our skin hasn't quite adapted yet, we find a way to facilitate our existence through scientific discovery and integrate those discoveries in our lives. I think you'd agree that there's nothing wrong with people being homosexual, therefore I can't imagine there's anything wrong with two women, very much in love, reproducing. Assuming the science is sound, how is it different from me falling in love with a woman and using artificial insemination to reproduce?

Anyway, you don't have to be ashamed or embarrassed for your opinion here.

[Ihateyoumike]

I agree with you in concept... however, not all states let same sex couples adopt either.  And adoption is expensive.  We'd LOVE to adopt a second child to add to our household.. I've ALWAYS wanted to adopt (wrote a theme paper about it when I was just 11).  But when we looked into it, we realized we can't afford the adoption process at all.  While I have a number of friends who have adopted locally... they did it with "help" from their respective churches who footed most of the bill.  We don't have that luxury.

So point me in the direction of a lower cost adoption and I'll jump at the chance.  We can readily affort to have another child in our family.. we just can't afford the adoption fees themselves without taking out a second (or third) mortgage.

I understand your point. I would like to see all states and countries get to a point where gay couples have all the same rights that heterosexual couples have. It hasn't happened yet, but I hope that we keep progressing to that point.

I would be interested in seeing how much it would cost for this procedure compared to the cost of adoption for comparison purposes.

I would also love to be able to point you too a cheaper, more efficient, adoption process. However, without the energy and money being spent on making that a reality, it's not going to happen. I am saddened by that. The money and time are spent on other, and in my opinion, less important things like artificially creating offspring in laboratories.

I'm glad -- I wouldn't want to make you uncomfortable...

I'm not sure what you mean with this statement. It feels like an underhanded remark trying to state that I actually am uncomfortable with same-sex unions. I hope I'm wrong, but I feel that I'm not. Luckily, your opinion has no basis on my thought processes.

You don't seem to be suggesting that "we as a species" should move past this, but only gay people. Otherwise this type of reproduction existing should be entirely irrelevant.

I am suggesting that I feel that taking care of the children who are already alive and in need of a family should be our first concern. Do you truly believe that only same-sex couples benefit from being able to create a child in a laboratory? I am speaking of any type of situation where science has to intervene to produce an offspring. This statement, coupled with the previous statement, again leads me to believe that your opinion of my stance on the subject of homosexuality is different from the one which I have presented. And yet again, that's your issue, not mine.

Is this uniquely a problem for homosexuals, or are you prepared to deny the reproductive privileges of other groups in order to bolster adoption?

Is it really a reproductive right to bear a child of your own flesh and blood if nature has made you sterile, or if you are in a same-sex situation where reproduction is not possible? Without the science to be able to artificially create a child in a laboratory, would there be any homosexual couples or heterosexual couples who are unable to reproduce by natural means who would feel it is their right to have an offspring?

Let me try to clear this up for you... Anybody who is unable to naturally reproduce would be doing a great service by adopting instead of artificially creating a child. Anybody.

With the option available, we would be able to create children, and for every naturally created child there is one unadopted child as well. This isn't uniquely true of children created with scientific aid.

You are absolutely correct that this is not uniquely true of children created with scientific aid. There are alot of people out there having children who do not have the means to raise a child in the manner which will benefit the child. I find that truly saddening, as I'm sure you do. If it were up to me, that is one situation where I would not mind a system being put into place to stop situations like that from happening. That is clearly wishful thinking however as I am aware that would be a gross violation of human rights.

Just because I have voiced my opinion on how I would like to see this situation play out, does not mean I think it is actually something that will be feasible. I have no doubt in my mind that people will continue to artificially create children no matter what my thoughts on the subject are.

Again, why should this be uniquely true of homosexuals? Why should we be denied reproductive rights for this reason when no one else is?

And yet again, I have never stated that this is uniquely true of homosexuals. I also never stated that homosexuals should be denied the right for anything. I simply stated my opinion on the subject, and you have put words into my mouth.

I personally think that the time, money, and effort put forth into any reproductive science could be put to much better use finding better ways to take care of the children which already exist.

If we paid less attention to our own wants, and more attention to the needs of the children of the world, I think this just might be a better place. Again, this is simply wishful thinking and I know it's never going to happen.