After reading this from The Advocate, I'm kinda lost and scared of what science could do.
Please read about prenatal dexamethasone therapy:
The treatment, which is called prenatal dexamethasone therapy and is only given to a few dozen women every year, is a step toward “engineering in the womb for sexual orientation,” says Alice Dreger, an opponent of the treatment and a professor at Northwestern University.
“Most clinicians speak about this treatment as ambiguous-genitalia prevention,” Dreger says. “Others suggest that you should prevent homosexuality if you can. But being gay or lesbian is not a disease and should not be treated as such.”
In the face of criticism from Dreger and others, such as the National Center for Lesbian Rights, a consortium of medical groups will release updated guidelines for the treatment in September. The updates are expected to describe the treatment as experimental and reiterate that the standard approach for cases of ambiguous genitalia is to perform corrective surgery. But even that guideline change is likely to face opposition from intersex activists who oppose corrective genital surgery on newborns.
As the Intersex Society of America explains on its website, "That is a crucial reason why medically unnecessary surgeries should not be done without the patient’s consent; the child with an intersex condition may later want genitals (either the ones they were born with or surgically constructed anatomy) different than what the doctors would have chosen. Surgically constructed genitals are extremely difficult if not impossible to “undo,” and children altered at birth or in infancy are largely stuck with what doctors give them."
L.A. Times has more info of this treatment. I'm telling you, this is freaky as Hell.
4 comments:
I have been reading about this for the past few years.
This is a dangerous slippery slope. Humanity will be the first dominant species on the planet responsible for it's own extinction...sad.
And the bottom line in this is money. We all know that if every parent had a choice nobody would want a gay or lesbian child.
This drug will do gangbusters in business once it is "perfected."
I also read the article and am a bit worried that such technology exists. I've seen stories about the pain, hurt and conflict that such individuals go through and also the psychological trauma....however, I do believe that messing with nature can have serious repercussions. It seems to be a double-edged sword!
It seems to me that the way this would have to work is for the mother to first know the sex of her child to be, and then somehow monitor the hormones in her womb in order to keep them at the proper balance with drugs of this sort. Sort of like keeping the pH balanced in an aquarium. Likely expensive and time consuming. And I can imagine abuse of the drugs leading the the creation of hypermasculine freaks.
I saw the headline about this but stayed away from it...
Post a Comment