Posted by Helen on: 03.20.2007 /
From a March 14 Associated Press report:
The president of the leading Southern Baptist seminary has incurred sharp attacks from both the left and right by suggesting that a biological basis for homosexuality may be proven, and that prenatal treatment to reverse gay orientation would be biblically justified.
The Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., one of the country’s pre-eminent evangelical leaders, acknowledged that he irked many fellow conservatives with an article earlier this month saying scientific research “points to some level of biological causation” for homosexuality.
Proof of a biological basis would challenge the belief of many conservative Christians that homosexuality — which they view as sinful — is a matter of choice that can be overcome through prayer and counseling.
However, Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., was assailed even more harshly by gay-rights supporters. They were upset by his assertion that homosexuality would remain a sin even if it were biologically based, and by his support for possible medical treatment that could switch an unborn gay baby’s sexual orientation to heterosexual.
Here’s Al Mohler’s blog entry: Is Your Baby Gay? What If You Could Know? What If You Could Do Something About It?
He followed it up a few days ago with this entry in response to the mail and media attention he’s received: Was it Something I Said? Continuing to Think About Homosexuality
Yes, Al, I think it was something you said!
Comment by: Paul
1I just did a video post looking at some of the reasons why christians seem to focus on this issue. As to Al’s comments, i think he is right that in some cases it is a bilogical orientation. Rather than a biological intervention maybe we as christians should think about the ethic of love and how we can follow the example of Jesus in giving humanity to people who needed it and letting the shame and judgement fall back on those dishing it out, regardless of side, race, orientation, gender etc
Comment by: Ann
2This sounds like both groups mentioned agree that altering chemical-related “destiny” puts us on a slippery slope in some way ethically. I wonder if we substituted a different treatable condition related to brain chemistry that likewise had chance to improve the quality of life for a child, if we would feel the same?
For example, let’s say you could isolate the gene and treat an infant in utero so that the child would not have to suffer from clinical depression later in life. I think most people who understand the genetic component of depression would probably see the benefit in an increased quality of life for the child. For one, a suicide may be averted. For another, corrected brain chemistry may decrease the potential for drug abuse or alcohol abuse (as a significant group of these groups “self medicate” to treat their underlying depression.)
We have no problem performing surgical procedures, such as certain types of heart surgery, while the child is still in the womb. What is it about the brain scares us so much? Is the brain so sacrosanct that we tell people that they have to “live with it” –even if a condition is correctable? And, what if you corrected the chemistry and yet the child still chose a homosexual lifestyle?
Comment by: benjamin ady
3Is this for real? From Mohler’s blog entry
sorry, but that just strikes me as too … pregnant with comic possibility. (but maybe I just have a sick mind)
Comment by: Aubrie
4So do they know what genes makes people unkind, unloving, and just plain out of their minds? Oh that’s right, they want to test for depression, can they test for craziness? I think Al Mohler may have passed that test. This just made me ill when I heard it. My uncle was gay & died of AID’s, and no one in my family would be the same without him.
Comment by: Helen
5Paul, yes, it seems odd to me to see a conservative Christian discussing chemically altering babies when his speciality ought to be in teaching people to love others as Jesus does – or so it seems to me.
Ann, I don’t necessarily think helping babies in utero to avoid problems later in life is a slipper slope; however I do think it’s a slippery slope for theologians to start talking about that, who have no expertise at all in that area. I’m surprised Mohler went there – my guess is he didn’t think carefully about all the many cans of worms he’d be opening by doing so.
Benjamin, Al probably thinks of himself as a shepherd so maybe that’s why he’s interested in the results of sheep experiments? ;-)
Thanks for your comment, Aubrie. I’d be the last person to argue that gay people are less able to make the world a better place than heterosexual people.
Comment by: Helen
6The idea of chemically altering babies for theological reasons seems bizarre to me – he’s basically saying, let’s alter them so they sin less.
But if it’s ok to go that far why stop there? Why not just abort all babies so they are guaranteed never to sin, whether gay or straight? That would eliminate way more sin than altering gay babies, which, after all, won’t necessarily stop them committing heterosexual acts Al Mohler considers sinful (sex outside marriage) anyway.
Comment by: HereandNow
7Well, I think that the idea of genetically altering sexual preference is absurd and immoral, but the suggestion that we could/should opens the door for larger, universal ethical considerations about genetically modifying beings. All I can say is that engineering a person to be what we think they “ought” to be morally is sick and wrong. It’s bad enough that we see so many spiritual leaders trying to control the way people live their lives through moral teachings, but to alter the body/mind we’re born with to conform to some picture of moral superiority that the head of a denomination thinks is the “way to be”–creepy. Since depression was mentioned as something that might warrant this kind of change by one poster, I’ll take that on instead of the absurd idea of genetically modifying sexual preference. I struggle with depression, I’d love not to, but it is a part of who I am and I’ve grown immensely as a person through the trials of depression. If anyone had tried to cut the depression out of me (or any other “bad” or “undesirable” character trait out of me) so that I conformed to an ideal that some other person thought was “normal”, or worse yet, “morally superior”, I would have missed out on a great many experiences that have made me uniquely and wonderfully me. I would venture to guess that most of the great accomplishments that humans achieve are done in the face of great adversity. Why try and take them all away? What is gained by this?
At the root of the problem with suggesting that we alter or reengineer people to fit a moral norm is the fact that we begin from a judgemental foundation when we do this. “I judge this behavior to be immoral–even unacceptable human behavior. Therefore I’ll cut it out of your unborn child. If there is a Christ in heaven, he hurled when he heard that one come out of Mohler’s mouth.
Comment by: Doreen
8Ann wrote
This assumes a gay person needs to have his/her quality of life improved.
I’ve known hundreds of gays and lesbians and do not know any who have a lifestyle, let alone any who chose to be homosexual.
Too bad we cannot find the “will grow up to be an un-Christlike preacher” gene and fix THAT in the womb….
Comment by: benjamin ady
9Is it really true that being homosexual doesn’t … involve more suffering, in some way or at some level, than being heterosexual?
I mean, within the fact that being human, and being in relationship … implies a lot of suffering no matter who or where you are, isn’t it …. possible that it might be … easier to be heterosexual than to be homosexual?
Just curious. I’m trying to think about the things that have caused me suffering, and whether, given the option, I would have opted to have myself changed in the womb so that I *didn’t* have that paricular suffering. And overall, (and here I am being almost as insanely hopeful as christians are supposed to be), I’d not change a thing–I’d rather be the person I am now, with the life I now have, inclusive of all the sufferings and all the defects (and I’m not saying homosexuality is a defect. I mean my sexuality has been pretty .. fucked up, at some levels and at some points in time, and I suspect that’s true to a greater or lesser degree for the average heterosexual AND for the average homosexual, and … well, for the average person, I guess) than to be some other person who was tweaked in utero.
Comment by: Helen
10My guess would be that it’s harder to be gay than not to be. If nothing else, because of the stigma associated with being gay.
If Al’s suggestion had been in order to “alleviate” suffering then I would at least have been pleased he was showing compassion.
I don’t think it was though. It was more like if an atheist said “let’s chemically alter babies in utero to ‘fix’ the ‘problem’ that they are genetically disposed to believe in a non-existent deity.” And I’m not claiming that’s the position of any or all atheists – I was just trying to draw a hypothetical parallel to what Al Mohler said.
Comment by: trissa
11Okay…genetically altering…that’s a little too “Brave New World” for me. I think any form of genetic alteration is a slippery slope. Think of all the people who have contributed so much to society, but who had some sort of physcial or mental health issues that most of us would not want. Would they have contributed in the same way if they had been genetically altered in utero?
Comment by: Doreen
12Benjamin asked:
I don’t think it involves more suffering, just different suffering. Being an alcoholic caused me much more suffering than being gay. Being brought up in the church I was brought up in caused me much more suffering than being gay (my issues with the church having little to do with my sexual orientation).
Comment by: benjamin ady
13Doreen,
If it’s not too forward to ask, I’d love to hear more about how being brought up in the church you were brought up in caused you suffering. I also experienced suffering from being brought up in the sect in which I was raised.
Comment by: Kathleen
14I guess I’m the only one who wasn’t all that offended by Mohler’s article. While I don’t think that genetically altering babies in the womb is right, I think that from his perspective, his logic is reasonable.
gay–> sin (or a greater propensity thereto)–> hell, right? I’d imagine that everything he’s advocating, he’s advocating for what he sees as the good of those concerned.
In addition, I think it’s refreshing to see a conservative Christian who has a relatively open mind to the possibility of a biological basis for homosexuality. Saying that it would still be a sin seems offensive, but he’s just trying to integrate what he’s learning with his beliefs – which is more than you can say for a lot of people with similar beliefs. Or people with any strongly-held beliefs, for that matter.
I also liked the part in the follow-up blog where he expressed his dismay that some of Christians he had heard from seemed to be forgetting to love the sinner.
I also, honestly, think he raised some interesting ethical questions. How many parents would be inclined to change their child’s sexuality if they knew about it? I bet a lot would – not necessarily because of their own homophobia, but because they probably think life would be easier for a straight child than a gay child. And as much as any person may say that he’d rather be who he is today, sufferings and all, than be someone else because his sufferings were artificially alleviated, I doubt many parents would say, “Suffering? Bring it on! It’ll make my kid a better person!” In restrospect, any specific struggle may not look so bad, may have the silver lining of having built character, but when looking toward the future, most people would rather avoid it – especially for their kids, I’d imagine.
Comment by: Ann
15I agree with the argument of eliminating needless suffering when there is an option.
For example, what if you could eliminate your daughter’s hereditary propensity for breast cancer in utero?
If you do treat, Sure, she’ll miss out on all that character building suffering… but, having a friend who whose fighting this disease (and who will candidly tell you that she has grown as a result) the last person she wants to suffer is her baby girl.
If suffering is good for folks, I say stop all mercy projects, no more clean water for developing nations, no more drug research into an HIV or bird flu vaccine.
Or, we must acknowledge on some level when dealing with someone else’s life, they should have an autonomous right to avoid certain kinds of avoidable suffering.
Comment by: Kathleen
16Maybe this would be a better analogy than cancer or depression:
Many deaf people consider themselves a part of the Deaf community, and in many ways, they see things like cochlear implants, hearing aids, and mainstreaming in schools to be contributing to the decline of that community. It’s not that they want themselves or their kids to be marginalized, but they don’t view deafness as a disability, or a bad thing. Sure, it has its downsides, but then, so does hearing (my linguistics class had a deaf speaker who mentioned waking up refreshed to find her entire family grumpy – they’d been kept up all night by snoring, or a crying baby, or the noise of traffic or something: “And you think I’m the one with the disability?”). It’s just a part of who they are, and, based on what I learned, though I don’t have any personal experience, I think that Deaf people would be opposed to something like genetically modifying a baby in utero to eliminate deafness – but the average hearing parent, on finding out that their child would be deaf and there was something they could do about it, would opt to “fix” the “problem.”
Even that, though, isn’t a perfect example. Deafness is considered a defect by almost the entire rest of the world, while there are plenty of straight people who don’t have a problem with homosexuality.
Comment by: Ann
17Kathleen,
My point was that we are deciding for another autonomous human being what we consider to be suffering, or, perhaps more accurately stated, a biologically based bodily state that may lead to suffering. Breast cancer, especially with today’s headline of Elizabeth Edward’s renewed fight, was an extreme example where probably all of us would agree that alleviating this kind of suffering would be a noble goal for humanity.
If I understand what you said, I get to determine, based on my values, etc., what constitutes a biologically based bodily state that may lead to suffering for a child — an autonomous being. To take the deaf issue, if I think its OK, then I can choose to make my child deaf. I can make my child live life according to my values. She will not have the option to live life as a hearing person — which is an equally valid expression of life.
I believe that all people should have the right to self-determination. Even a child who will have her own, independent life to live someday.
Comment by: Kathleen
18I certainly wasn’t saying that anyone gets to decide what condition is going to lead to suffering – my point was exactly the opposite. Things that may look like suffering to an outsider may not be to someone actually in that condition – as in deafness or homosexuality (while I think that cancer and (almost by definition) depression usually do involve considerable suffering) – and so what right does anyone have to make that decision?
Which is exactly why I think that some of Mohler’s points were interesting – I think a lot of people would assume that their homosexual child might be subject to a lot of pain growing up, which would make the idea of “genetic tweaking” appealing. The impulse is honorable, but I don’t think the outcome is. You’d end up with a scarily homogenous population, at a minimum.
Comment by: Ann
19Kathleen,
Thanks for your reply and explanation.
This discussion reminds me so much of a “Genetics and the Law” class in law school. Our professor helped draft the California Stem cell law and emphasized a world where values might eventually shape biological destiny for the unborn.
In the future, at least in theory, where genetic altering is possible, there is a possibilty of changing biological destiny for an unborn child. Whether or not to exercise that choice is based on what one values. For example, one could choose to not alter a child because one values diversity. The choice (not to alter) was still being made for a future autonomous being who may not hold the same value for diversity as the parent. As a class we wrestled ethically with when a parent has the right, or not, to essentially dictate subtle genetic destiny (blue eyes, blonde hair) or even more overt genetic destiny (dwarfism).
The class came up with a consensus regarding values for biological genetic manipulation based on a continuum. On the one end, everyone agreed with altering genetic destiny for things like cancers and brain disorders like Parkinson’s, Huntington’s etc. On the other end was eye color, gender, orientation and stuff out of that sci-fi film Gattica (sp?) that pretty much creeped everyone out…at first. Towards the end of the class there were arguments that if a family would love a boy more than a girl, then it would be logical to favor a baby boy. Now extrapolate that idea out for a society and you have much of rural China.
Comment by: Laura M.
20Kathleen,
I agree with the views you’ve expressed so well on this subject, including your comments about Mohler.
As a person with deep Libertarian leanings, I agree with transhumanists on this issue. It is the birthtright of all mankind to do whatever they choose as long as they harm no others nor transgress upon the rights of others.
I consider the alteration of children in utero or out to be unconscionable, however, as this is a blatant transgression on their rights, IMO.
Thanks to the holes that I bear to this day in my earlobes, I continue to resent that my ears were pierced for me as a young child, before I was anywhere near old enough to make the decison for myself :-)
And despite the fact that severe depression runs in my family, as well as cervical cancer, I most definitely would not have this type of genetic altering procedure performed on any child of mine.
I disagree strenuously that it is OK to perform any sort of medical procedure on a child/infant that is not done as an emergency or is medically necessary.
BTW, what’s with comparing homosexuality with mental illness and disease ? I expect that from fundamentlists and extremely conservative right-wing types, but in normal conversations with average people ?
Comment by: Ann
21Hi Laura, I think the blog brought up biology as a hypothetcal link and kind of posed the question if you could change orientation of a child, would you. With that in mind, the idea behind the blog –changing biological destiny –opens questions beyond orientation. It also asks questions when is it ever right to impose your will on a child.
Comment by: Doreen
22Benjamin wrote
The church I grew up in made me feel that it really didn’t matter what I did, I was a sinner who would most likely go to you-know-where. The church did not promote the idea of allowing me to have a personal relationship with God or Jesus, but instead expected I would go through the church appointed go-between.
The church made it impractical to share my faith journey with my friends by forbidding me from attending their churches.
The church made me feel that men are much more important than women because I never saw any women in a position of authority.
These are a few examples. If you’d like to “talk” more, feel free to email me at damannion at yahoo dot com.
poetcomic.blogspot.com
Comment by: Elaine
23What has struck me, as you talk about in utero genetic altering, is our fallability as humans.
When my daughter was pregnant with my grandson, Jacob (who is now 10) – Using the results and intepretation of an ultrasound, she was told Jacob had Downe Syndrome. The doctor recommended an abortion.
Jacob does not have Downe Syndrome. He does have a kidney abnormality they discovered in utero. They put him thru all sorts of horrible tests (think infant and toddler), Ignored the fact that he was not having any problems with function. Convinced us to have surgery to fix, which we did.
AND, within a year, Jacob’s body had “undone” the surgery and reverted back to the way it was. He hasn’t had any bladder or kidney problems, yet. (This was done at Cincinnati Children’s Hosptial,one of the best in the country)
At each step in this process, the doctors “really” thought they were right. (I am not saying there aren’t success stories out there.)
It seems like our society/culture is always looking for the quick fix and not looking at the long term ramifications of this. (quick fix being things “society” says are outside the “norm” – whatever normal is!)
What does this have to do with what Mohler said? What if they had told us Jacob was genetically disposed to homosexuality, would we have fixed him? I would have voted no.
Why do we think we need to fix things?
Comment by: Doreen
24Wow Elaine, that’s an amazing story! re: fixing things, one of the fastest growing segments of society who get plastic surgery is teenaged girls. If young girls believe they need to be corrected so young, how do we expect them not to believe they need to be slapped around a few years later?
Comment by: Helen
25Thanks Elaine – I’m glad your grandson is doing well. I like your question: “Why do we think we need to fix things?”
Doreen, I agee – teenagers who get plastic surgery to conform to other peoples’ ideas about how they should look are not on the track to becoming adults who have good boundaries.