Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Ronn!Blankenship]

The Chinese want boys, and the Canadians want girls. If they have 
enough money, they come to the United States to choose the sex of their babies.


Well-off foreign couples are getting around laws banning sex 
selection in their home countries by coming to American soil -- where 
it's legal -- for medical procedures that can give them the boy, or 
girl, they want.


"Some people spend $50,000 to $70,000 for a BMW car and think nothing 
of it, but this is a life that's going to be with us forever," said 
Robert, an Australian who asked that his last name not be used to 
protect the family's privacy.




Full story at:

<>


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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Doug Pensinger]

Ronn! wrote:


<>


I don't understand what the objection is (the ones stated in the article 
are lame), and I'm really surprised that the U.S. of all places is the one 
allowing the procedure.


--
Doug
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[jdiebremse]

--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Doug Pensinger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Ronn! wrote:
>
> >
<>
>
> I don't understand what the objection is (the ones stated in the
article
> are lame), and I'm really surprised that the U.S. of all places is
the one
> allowing the procedure.


Isn't the real danger of ending up with an unbalanced population,
making it difficult for a generation to find a mate, worth noting?

And is this really functionally different from eugenics?

JDG



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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Jim Sharkey]

JDG wrote:
>Isn't the real danger of ending up with an unbalanced population,
>making it difficult for a generation to find a mate, worth noting?

Something that it looks like China will soon be facing.  Though that 
article indicates that OZ is looking for girls.  Can any of our Down 
Under folks enlighten us as to why that is.  China's cultural bias is
obvious, but why Australia's desire for girls?

Jim

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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Charlie Bell]

On 12/07/2006, at 2:46 PM, jdiebremse wrote:

Isn't the real danger of ending up with an unbalanced population,
making it difficult for a generation to find a mate, worth noting?


It's self-correcting - if there is an imbalance in gender one way, it  
is selectively advantage drives the ratio back to near 50-50. Plus I  
think it unlikely that it will ever be a common enough procedure to  
risk affecting the overall gender ratios (especially as I think  
unlikely that there'll be a significant bias in gender chosen).


And is this really functionally different from eugenics?


I'd say yes, but it's only a small step away. Close monitoring is  
necessary, and strict regulation. Oddly, the Australian system of  
only allowing gender selection to avoid genetic disease is closer to  
eugenics than just selecting a gender for personal reasons (like  
you've got 3 boys and want a girl...).


Is eugenics itself *inherently* a bad thing? I say not. But it's  
definitely, like pharmacology, nuclear physics, and chemistry, able  
to be corrupted to bad ends and misused.


Charlie 
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RE: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Horn, John]

> On Behalf Of Jim Sharkey
> 
> Something that it looks like China will soon be facing.  
> Though that article indicates that OZ is looking for girls.  
> Can any of our Down Under folks enlighten us as to why that 
> is.  China's cultural bias is obvious, but why Australia's 
> desire for girls?

Must... Restrain... myself...  There are *so* many ways to answer
that one...

  - jmh
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RE: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Jim Sharkey]

Horn, John wrote:
> On Behalf Of Jim Sharkey
>>why Australia's desire for girls?
>Must... Restrain... myself...  There are *so* many ways to answer
>that one...

Restraint?  On this list?  That's a bannable offense!  :)

Jim

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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Alberto Monteiro]

Charlie Bell wrote:
>
>> Isn't the real danger of ending up with an unbalanced population,
>> making it difficult for a generation to find a mate, worth noting?
> 
> It's self-correcting - if there is an imbalance in gender one way, 
> it  is selectively advantage drives the ratio back to near 50-50. 
>
Unless there's a way to eliminate the need of one gender for
reproduction. If a large enough number of lesbians chose to
have girls by this method, the population could drift towards
the "Glory Season" equilibrium: a huge majority of lesbians
with a minority of males.

> Plus I  think it unlikely that it will ever be a common enough 
> procedure to  risk affecting the overall gender ratios (especially 
> as I think  unlikely that there'll be a significant bias in gender 
> chosen).
>
Don't be so sure about this. Having babies is a huge investment
in a human's lifetime, so spending lots of money to have the
baby of your dreams is the most likely scenario. Gattaca comes
to mind - with the risk of being banned from the List, for
mentioning _two_ sf stories, one by Himself.

> Is eugenics itself *inherently* a bad thing? I say not. But it's  
> definitely, like pharmacology, nuclear physics, and chemistry, able  
> to be corrupted to bad ends and misused.
> 
Eugenics is evil when it's done by murder - but then it should
not be called Eugenics but simply Mass-Murder.

Alberto Monteiro

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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Charlie Bell]

On 12/07/2006, at 10:00 PM, Alberto Monteiro wrote:



Charlie Bell wrote:



Isn't the real danger of ending up with an unbalanced population,
making it difficult for a generation to find a mate, worth noting?


It's self-correcting - if there is an imbalance in gender one way,
it  is selectively advantage drives the ratio back to near 50-50.


Unless there's a way to eliminate the need of one gender for
reproduction. If a large enough number of lesbians chose to
have girls by this method, the population could drift towards
the "Glory Season" equilibrium: a huge majority of lesbians
with a minority of males.


You can only maintain that disequilibrium through a serious  
manipulation of the way diploid organisms breed. Eusociality is one  
way, where kin relations make sisters more important than daughters  
(haploid creatures like bees, wasps and ants have this bias built  
in). Manipulation of the breeding patterns, as in Glory Season, is  
another. But even in the scenario in which you describe, the  
selective advantage would be towards women who have sons, and as  
homosexuality isn't genetic (although it may have a genetic  
component) straight daughters would also have selective advantage.



Plus I  think it unlikely that it will ever be a common enough
procedure to  risk affecting the overall gender ratios (especially
as I think  unlikely that there'll be a significant bias in gender
chosen).


Don't be so sure about this. Having babies is a huge investment
in a human's lifetime, so spending lots of money to have the
baby of your dreams is the most likely scenario. Gattaca comes
to mind - with the risk of being banned from the List, for
mentioning _two_ sf stories, one by Himself.


Even if it does become a common procedure, the selective balance  
prevails. Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium models can be used to show how  
this happens.



Is eugenics itself *inherently* a bad thing? I say not. But it's
definitely, like pharmacology, nuclear physics, and chemistry, able
to be corrupted to bad ends and misused.


Eugenics is evil when it's done by murder - but then it should
not be called Eugenics but simply Mass-Murder.


Therein lies the issue. Some among us regard discarding unimplanted  
blastocysts as murder. I don't, and I'm guessing from your tone that  
you don't either.


Charlie
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Alberto Monteiro]

Charlie Bell wrote:
>
>> Unless there's a way to eliminate the need of one gender for
>> reproduction. If a large enough number of lesbians chose to
>> have girls by this method, the population could drift towards
>> the "Glory Season" equilibrium: a huge majority of lesbians
>> with a minority of males.
> 
> You can only maintain that disequilibrium through a serious  
> manipulation of the way diploid organisms breed.
>
Many animal species have a disequilibrium. One way is by polygamy.
The other way is by polyandry, and a female that puts enough eggs
to compensate the small number of females. Since humans can
hardly change ourselves into that second group, the more likely
scenario is the first.

> Eusociality is one  
> way, where kin relations make sisters more important than daughters  
> (haploid creatures like bees, wasps and ants have this bias built  
> in). Manipulation of the breeding patterns, as in Glory Season, is  
> another. But even in the scenario in which you describe, the  
> selective advantage would be towards women who have sons, and as  
> homosexuality isn't genetic (although it may have a genetic  
> component) straight daughters would also have selective advantage.
>
Homosexuality is either genetic, cultural or a mix of both. In
either case, a lesbian mother in a lesbian society will eventually 
have an influence in making the daughter lesbian too.

And lesbians have a huge advantage in selection: they select the
father of their daughters based on logical criteria, while hetero
women chose based on "love" [or hormones, etc]. So, the daughters
of lesbians will have a competitive advantage over the daughters
of non-lesbians.

>> Don't be so sure about this. Having babies is a huge investment
>> in a human's lifetime, so spending lots of money to have the
>> baby of your dreams is the most likely scenario. Gattaca comes
>> to mind - with the risk of being banned from the List, for
>> mentioning _two_ sf stories, one by Himself.
> 
> Even if it does become a common procedure, the selective balance  
> prevails. Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium models can be used to show how  
> this happens.
>
So please enlighten me about this. Intuition shows that genetic
manipulation and selection will converge to a mix of Glory Season
and Gattaca.

>> Eugenics is evil when it's done by murder - but then it should
>> not be called Eugenics but simply Mass-Murder.
> 
> Therein lies the issue. Some among us regard discarding unimplanted  
> blastocysts as murder. I don't, and I'm guessing from your tone that 
>  you don't either.
> 
If/when medical techniques evolve, it's expected that not even
this kind of selection will be necessary. Selection at the level
of eggs may be what we will do - and then there's no reason
why both eggs can't come from two women.

Males are doomed to extinction - but we will die happily.

Alberto Monteiro

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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Charlie Bell]

On 12/07/2006, at 10:44 PM, Alberto Monteiro wrote:



Many animal species have a disequilibrium.


Such as?


One way is by polygamy.


In mammals, that just leads to lots of unmated males, with fierce  
competition. The overall ratio, if you're talking lions or deer or  
something, is 50-50,



The other way is by polyandry, and a female that puts enough eggs
to compensate the small number of females. Since humans can
hardly change ourselves into that second group, the more likely
scenario is the first.



Mebbe.




Eusociality is one
way, where kin relations make sisters more important than daughters
(haploid creatures like bees, wasps and ants have this bias built
in). Manipulation of the breeding patterns, as in Glory Season, is
another. But even in the scenario in which you describe, the
selective advantage would be towards women who have sons, and as
homosexuality isn't genetic (although it may have a genetic
component) straight daughters would also have selective advantage.


Homosexuality is either genetic, cultural or a mix of both. In
either case, a lesbian mother in a lesbian society will eventually
have an influence in making the daughter lesbian too.


But those who fail will have more offspring, driving the ratio back  
to parity.




And lesbians have a huge advantage in selection: they select the
father of their daughters based on logical criteria, while hetero
women chose based on "love" [or hormones, etc]. So, the daughters
of lesbians will have a competitive advantage over the daughters
of non-lesbians.


...but those who have more sons will have selective advantage




Don't be so sure about this. Having babies is a huge investment
in a human's lifetime, so spending lots of money to have the
baby of your dreams is the most likely scenario. Gattaca comes
to mind - with the risk of being banned from the List, for
mentioning _two_ sf stories, one by Himself.


Even if it does become a common procedure, the selective balance
prevails. Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium models can be used to show how
this happens.


So please enlighten me about this. Intuition shows that genetic
manipulation and selection will converge to a mix of Glory Season
and Gattaca.


No it doesn't. Gattaca maybe. Glory Season, only on a new planet with  
the geneering done at the time of colonisation.



Eugenics is evil when it's done by murder - but then it should
not be called Eugenics but simply Mass-Murder.


Therein lies the issue. Some among us regard discarding unimplanted
blastocysts as murder. I don't, and I'm guessing from your tone that
 you don't either.


If/when medical techniques evolve, it's expected that not even
this kind of selection will be necessary. Selection at the level
of eggs may be what we will do - and then there's no reason
why both eggs can't come from two women.


Urm... maybe there's a way to combine two eggs. But why? Better to  
substitute the DNA in a spermatozoa and let that do the job. The pain  
involved in fusing two eggs to viability is just not worth it.




Males are doomed to extinction


Rubbish. Even aphids need males.

Charlie.
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Alberto Vieira Ferreira Monteiro]

Charlie Bell wrote:
> 
>> Many animal species have a disequilibrium.
>
> Such as?
>
>> One way is by polygamy.
>
> In mammals, that just leads to lots of unmated males, with fierce
> competition. The overall ratio, if you're talking lions or deer or
> something, is 50-50,
>
The end result is disequilibrium.

>> Homosexuality is either genetic, cultural or a mix of both. In
>> either case, a lesbian mother in a lesbian society will eventually
>> have an influence in making the daughter lesbian too.
>
> But those who fail will have more offspring, driving the ratio back
> to parity.
>
Except that those offspring may not be as successful as those
that come from the lesbians, because they weren't as carefully
selected as those.


>>> Even if it does become a common procedure, the selective balance
>>> prevails. Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium models can be used to show how
>>> this happens.
>>
>> So please enlighten me about this. 

I am still waiting for the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium models!

>> Intuition shows that genetic
>> manipulation and selection will converge to a mix of Glory Season
>> and Gattaca.
>
> No it doesn't. Gattaca maybe. Glory Season, only on a new planet with
> the geneering done at the time of colonisation.
>
Why do you think Glory Season so unlikely, with high-tech replacing
the genetic manipulation? Lots of lesbians cloning themselves, and
eventually mixing genes with another lesbian?

>> Selection at the level
>> of eggs may be what we will do - and then there's no reason
>> why both eggs can't come from two women.
>
> Urm... maybe there's a way to combine two eggs. But why? Better to
> substitute the DNA in a spermatozoa and let that do the job. The pain
> involved in fusing two eggs to viability is just not worth it.
>
It may not be now, but we are talking about the long-range future
of Humanity. If it's possible, then someone will do it.

>> Males are doomed to extinction
>
> Rubbish. Even aphids need males.
>
Males evolved *because* they were required to cause genetic variation.
If we do *not* want to mutate - are you ready to replace Homo sapiens for
Homo invictus or some other Evil Race from SF? - then cloning and elimination
of variety is all we will get.

Alberto Monteiro
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Doug Pensinger]

John wrote:



Isn't the real danger of ending up with an unbalanced population,
making it difficult for a generation to find a mate, worth noting?


So you're saying we should tailor our laws to remedy the shortcomings of 
the Chinese social system?



And is this really functionally different from eugenics?


Eugenics is a social philosophy.  I don't think that if I have six 
offspring and all of them are the same sex and I choose the sex of the 
seventh to be the opposite sex that that amounts to a social philosophy. 
It amounts to freedom of choice, one of the principals this country was 
founded upon.


--
Doug
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Charlie Bell]

On 13/07/2006, at 3:42 AM, Alberto Vieira Ferreira Monteiro wrote:


Charlie Bell wrote:



Many animal species have a disequilibrium.


Such as?


One way is by polygamy.


In mammals, that just leads to lots of unmated males, with fierce
competition. The overall ratio, if you're talking lions or deer or
something, is 50-50,


The end result is disequilibrium.


example please? Of a natural diploid population with a highly  
skewed male/female ratio. Haplodiploidy causes sex ratio bias, as I  
discussed previously.



Homosexuality is either genetic, cultural or a mix of both. In
either case, a lesbian mother in a lesbian society will eventually
have an influence in making the daughter lesbian too.


But those who fail will have more offspring, driving the ratio back
to parity.


Except that those offspring may not be as successful as those
that come from the lesbians, because they weren't as carefully
selected as those.


as those that do, presumably. Unless you're talking about




Even if it does become a common procedure, the selective balance
prevails. Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium models can be used to show how
this happens.


So please enlighten me about this.


I am still waiting for the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium models!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardy_weinberg

See also Fisher's sex ratio theories, and Evolutionarily Stable  
Strategies.


I haven't got the time right now to do a complete work-through of the  
problem, for one it was a final-year undergraduate lecture (which  
means it's both pretty hard and it's over 10 years ago and I can't  
remember the details) and for two, I'm packing the house for a  
permanent move to Australia next week... :)





Intuition shows that genetic
manipulation and selection will converge to a mix of Glory Season
and Gattaca.


No it doesn't. Gattaca maybe. Glory Season, only on a new planet with
the geneering done at the time of colonisation.


Why do you think Glory Season so unlikely, with high-tech replacing
the genetic manipulation? Lots of lesbians cloning themselves, and
eventually mixing genes with another lesbian?


Because it would take careful control of a fixed population. If you  
reintroduced "wild-type" human genes, they'd out-compete. Maybe in a  
highly authoritarian and disciplined commune. But yes, it seems  
unlikely. This is science fiction, and it's a lot of fun, but it's  
not terribly likely. More likely, IMO, are Baxter's "coalescents",  
populations of eusocial humans, but even they'd require some special  
conditions to evolve.



Rubbish. Even aphids need males.


Males evolved *because* they were required to cause genetic variation.


Or, more correctly, sex may have evolved to promote genetic  
variation. Sexual dimorphism came later. It's not as cut and dried as  
you seem to think, it's still one of the great issues in biology.


Wikipedia has a reasonable summary of the status of the problem.  
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_sex


If we do *not* want to mutate - are you ready to replace Homo  
sapiens for
Homo invictus or some other Evil Race from SF? - then cloning and  
elimination

of variety is all we will get.


Mutations are genetic changes at points in the genotype, not  
phenotypic changes to population. Assuming you actually mean "evolve"  
not "mutate", then, well, it's inevitable. Even the changes you're  
talking about are evolution.


Charlie

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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Ronn!Blankenship]

At 02:03 AM Thursday 7/13/2006, Charlie Bell wrote:


On 13/07/2006, at 3:42 AM, Alberto Vieira Ferreira Monteiro wrote:


Charlie Bell wrote:



Many animal species have a disequilibrium.


Such as?


One way is by polygamy.


[snip]

Because it would take careful control of a fixed population. If you
reintroduced "wild-type" human genes, they'd out-compete. >>>Maybe in a
highly authoritarian and disciplined commune.<<< But yes, it seems
unlikely. This is science fiction,



Or Colorado City . . .


--Ronn! :)

I always knew that I would see the first man on the Moon.
I never dreamed that I would see the last.
--Dr. Jerry Pournelle



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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Alberto Monteiro]

Charlie Bell wrote:
>
>>> In mammals, that just leads to lots of unmated males, with fierce
>>> competition. The overall ratio, if you're talking lions or deer or
>>> something, is 50-50,
>>
>> The end result is disequilibrium.
> 
> example please? Of a natural diploid population with a highly  
> skewed male/female ratio. Haplodiploidy causes sex ratio bias, as I  
> discussed previously.
>
This ratio can come after a fierce and deadly competition among
males. Those males that are excluded are, darwinially, dead.

>> I am still waiting for the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium models!
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardy_weinberg
>
Wikipedia, the Borg of all Knowledge :-)
 
> See also Fisher's sex ratio theories, and Evolutionarily Stable  
> Strategies.
> 
Ok - I will.

>> Why do you think Glory Season so unlikely, with high-tech replacing
>> the genetic manipulation? Lots of lesbians cloning themselves, and
>> eventually mixing genes with another lesbian?
> 
> Because it would take careful control of a fixed population. If you  
> reintroduced "wild-type" human genes, they'd out-compete. Maybe in a 
>  highly authoritarian and disciplined commune. But yes, it seems 
>  unlikely. This is science fiction, and it's a lot of fun, but it's  
> not terribly likely. More likely, IMO, are Baxter's "coalescents", 
>  populations of eusocial humans, but even they'd require some 
> special  conditions to evolve.
> 
I am not aware of those groups.

>> Males evolved *because* they were required to cause genetic variation.
> 
> Or, more correctly, sex may have evolved to promote genetic  
> variation. Sexual dimorphism came later. It's not as cut and dried 
> as  you seem to think, it's still one of the great issues in biology.
>
I know it's not so simple. Before males appeared as a separate
subspecies, all creatures were hermaphrodites.

Maybe there's a genetic advantage for the species, or to form
new species, in having two sexes over hermaphroditism.
 
> Wikipedia has a reasonable summary of the status of the problem.  
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_sex
> 
Ok, I will see it.

>> If we do *not* want to mutate - are you ready to replace Homo  
>> sapiens for
>> Homo invictus or some other Evil Race from SF? - then cloning and  
>> elimination
>> of variety is all we will get.
> 
> Mutations are genetic changes at points in the genotype, not  
> phenotypic changes to population. Assuming you actually mean 
> "evolve"  not "mutate", then, well, it's inevitable. Even the 
> changes you're  talking about are evolution.
> 
A sentient species can stop evolution of itself, even if the
evolution would produce a "better" [to their sentient criteria]
species.

Alberto Monteiro

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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Charlie Bell]

On 13/07/2006, at 3:23 PM, Alberto Monteiro wrote:

example please? Of a natural diploid population with a highly
skewed male/female ratio. Haplodiploidy causes sex ratio bias, as I
discussed previously.


This ratio can come after a fierce and deadly competition among
males. Those males that are excluded are, darwinially, dead.


That a large proportion of the males might not go on to breed  
actually says nothing about the sex ration in the next generation.  
The ratio continues to be close to 50-50. You are theorising away  
merrily, but there are in reality very few examples of skewed bias in  
diploids, as I've said. If you'd like to give an example of one  
you've found, we can analyse it, but I am telling you now that it's  
very rare because of stabilising selection - even in the situation  
you're alluding to, it's still an advantage to females to produce  
sons as well as daughters - a skewed sex ratio will make it  
advantageous to have more sons, and so equilibrium is restored. It  
might be "wasteful" in terms of males, but evolution doesn't care,  
it's just success that matters.



I am still waiting for the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium models!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardy_weinberg


Wikipedia, the Borg of all Knowledge :-)


It's not bad in some areas, certainly. Can be a great gateway to some  
real sources.



 More likely, IMO, are Baxter's "coalescents",
 populations of eusocial humans, but even they'd require some
special  conditions to evolve.


I am not aware of those groups.


Spoilers for those who haven't read Stephen Baxter's current trilogy,  
so I'll link to Ye Olde Wikipedia again... ;)


First you need to understand eusociality - http://en.wikipedia.org/ 
wiki/Eusociality


There's one mammal group that has eusociality - the mole rat. 2  
species, of which the weirdest is the naked mole rat (it's even  
poikilothermic, which is very unusual for a mammal...). Baxter  
postulates a human group that becomes eusocial and undergoes rapid  
evolution in his novel Coalescent. But even mole rats are only  
slightly skewed, and actually biased towards males (1.4:1, or 58%  
male) where you'd think that eusociality would cause female bias.


Males evolved *because* they were required to cause genetic  
variation.


Or, more correctly, sex may have evolved to promote genetic
variation. Sexual dimorphism came later. It's not as cut and dried
as  you seem to think, it's still one of the great issues in biology.


I know it's not so simple. Before males appeared as a separate
subspecies, all creatures were hermaphrodites.


Or asexual.


Maybe there's a genetic advantage for the species, or to form
new species, in having two sexes over hermaphroditism.


Advantages to the individual.



Mutations are genetic changes at points in the genotype, not
phenotypic changes to population. Assuming you actually mean
"evolve"  not "mutate", then, well, it's inevitable. Even the
changes you're  talking about are evolution.


A sentient species can stop evolution of itself, even if the
evolution would produce a "better" [to their sentient criteria]
species


Only by eliminating all variation (and all sources of variation), or  
by only breeding through cloning vats. If there is *any* variation at  
all, the *slightest* selective advantage will eventually prevail.


Charlie.
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Alberto Monteiro]

Charlie Bell wrote:
>
>>> example please? Of a natural diploid population with a highly
>>> skewed male/female ratio. Haplodiploidy causes sex ratio bias, as I
>>> discussed previously.
>>
>> This ratio can come after a fierce and deadly competition among
>> males. Those males that are excluded are, darwinially, dead.
> 
> That a large proportion of the males might not go on to breed  
> actually says nothing about the sex ration in the next generation.  
> The ratio continues to be close to 50-50. You are theorising away  
> merrily, but there are in reality very few examples of skewed bias 
> in  diploids, as I've said. If you'd like to give an example of one  
> you've found, we can analyse it, but I am telling you now that it's  
> very rare because of stabilising selection - 
>
Ok, but competition among males creates an opportunity for
a polygamous society.

> even in the situation 
> you're alluding to, it's still an advantage to females to produce 
> sons as well as daughters - 
>
Not if we accept technological advances.

> a skewed sex ratio will make it 
> advantageous to have more sons, and so equilibrium is restored. It  
> might be "wasteful" in terms of males, but evolution doesn't care, 
> it's just success that matters.
>
That's what must be carefully modelled before we jump to conclusions.

Intuitively, it seems that males have no advantage over lesbian
females in a society where there are as many males as heterosexual
females, and where lesbians can reproduce sexually with other
lesbians.

However, lesbians _may_ have some advantages over heterosexual
females, and this will slightly push the lesbian:hetero ratio
in the population towards a lesbian dominance.

 I am still waiting for the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium models!

Ok, I saw that, but it's specifically designed for non-sexual
genes.

> Spoilers for those who haven't read Stephen Baxter's current trilogy,
>   so I'll link to Ye Olde Wikipedia again... ;)
> 
> First you need to understand eusociality - http://en.wikipedia.org/ 
> wiki/Eusociality
> 
Ok - I won't read it now.

>> I know it's not so simple. Before males appeared as a separate
>> subspecies, all creatures were hermaphrodites.
> 
> Or asexual.
>
Yes, of course. I think you could get what I intended to say :-)

>> A sentient species can stop evolution of itself, even if the
>> evolution would produce a "better" [to their sentient criteria]
>> species
> 
> Only by eliminating all variation (and all sources of variation), or 
>  by only breeding through cloning vats. If there is *any* variation 
> at  all, the *slightest* selective advantage will eventually prevail.
> 
No - taking back to Science Fiction, did you read the "Foundation
and Robots" Trilogy? If not, I will not spoil :-)

I once saw a sf short movie where kids had to do an intelligence
test when they became teens, and the State _eliminated_ those
students that were too smart. It seems that most societies
are just doing that right now, and trying to eliminate those
members that raise above the mud of the population.

Isn't this what bullies in schools systematically do?

It's a pity that Sentient Species usually use the Sentience
to make sure that Sentience does not increase too much :-/

Alberto Monteiro

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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Charlie Bell]

On 13/07/2006, at 5:44 PM, Alberto Monteiro wrote:


Charlie Bell wrote:



example please? Of a natural diploid population with a highly
skewed male/female ratio. Haplodiploidy causes sex ratio bias, as I
discussed previously.


This ratio can come after a fierce and deadly competition among
males. Those males that are excluded are, darwinially, dead.


That a large proportion of the males might not go on to breed
actually says nothing about the sex ration in the next generation.
The ratio continues to be close to 50-50. You are theorising away
merrily, but there are in reality very few examples of skewed bias
in  diploids, as I've said. If you'd like to give an example of one
you've found, we can analyse it, but I am telling you now that it's
very rare because of stabilising selection -


Ok, but competition among males creates an opportunity for
a polygamous society.


Absolutely. Harems aren't uncommon - many deer, antelopes, monkeys  
and apes, cattle, and obviously lions. It is interesting that nearly  
every social setup we can imagine does seem to appear - even  
polyandry, most spectacularly amongst deep-sea angler fish where one  
large female is "wed" to several males, who are essentially parasitic  
sperm balls attached to her skin.



even in the situation
you're alluding to, it's still an advantage to females to produce
sons as well as daughters -


Not if we accept technological advances.


I'm saying that no matter the technology, it's inherently unstable,  
and a perturbation, for example wild-type genes invading the  
population, would be likely to cause the system to fall apart.





a skewed sex ratio will make it
advantageous to have more sons, and so equilibrium is restored. It
might be "wasteful" in terms of males, but evolution doesn't care,
it's just success that matters.


That's what must be carefully modelled before we jump to conclusions.

Intuitively, it seems that males have no advantage over lesbian
females in a society where there are as many males as heterosexual
females, and where lesbians can reproduce sexually with other
lesbians.

However, lesbians _may_ have some advantages over heterosexual
females, and this will slightly push the lesbian:hetero ratio
in the population towards a lesbian dominance.


I am still waiting for the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium models!


Ok, I saw that, but it's specifically designed for non-sexual
genes.


It can be used to model ratios of the frequency of the sex  
chromosomes, iirc, but not allelic frequencies of alleles on the sex  
chromosomes.



Spoilers for those who haven't read Stephen Baxter's current trilogy,
  so I'll link to Ye Olde Wikipedia again... ;)

First you need to understand eusociality - http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Eusociality


Ok - I won't read it now.


I know it's not so simple. Before males appeared as a separate
subspecies, all creatures were hermaphrodites.


Or asexual.


Yes, of course. I think you could get what I intended to say :-)


A sentient species can stop evolution of itself, even if the
evolution would produce a "better" [to their sentient criteria]
species


Only by eliminating all variation (and all sources of variation), or
 by only breeding through cloning vats. If there is *any* variation
at  all, the *slightest* selective advantage will eventually prevail.


No - taking back to Science Fiction, did you read the "Foundation
and Robots" Trilogy? If not, I will not spoil :-)


Tell me the principle, without spoiling the story, if possible. But  
what non-biologists often fail to fully appreciate is just how  
powerful the selective force is.


I once saw a sf short movie where kids had to do an intelligence
test when they became teens, and the State _eliminated_ those
students that were too smart. It seems that most societies
are just doing that right now, and trying to eliminate those
members that raise above the mud of the population.


Based on a short story I have, but I can't remember the author.


Isn't this what bullies in schools systematically do?

It's a pity that Sentient Species usually use the Sentience
to make sure that Sentience does not increase too much :-/


Yeah.

Charlie
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[jdiebremse]

--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Doug Pensinger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Eugenics is a social philosophy.  I don't think that if I have six
> offspring and all of them are the same sex and I choose the sex of
> the seventh to be the opposite sex that that amounts to a social
> philosophy.
> It amounts to freedom of choice, one of the principals this country
> was founded upon.

Of course, but your choice has implications that affect others - to
say nothing of your child.

Are you saying that if the "free choice" of American parents results
in a generation that is born 75% female and 25% male, that you would
have no problem with that?   (And women say that they can't find any
good men today!)  And that this would not be an appropriate area for
public intervention?

It also raises the question of what rights do unborn children have.
Are you o.k. with parents aborting children that will have a
tendency towards homosexuality?   Or of only selecting embryos for
implantation that have blond hair or above-average intelligence?
Or what about only selecting embryos that have below-average
intelligence?

The ironic thing is that I just received word today that the pro-
choice government of Tony Blair is moving today to ban gender-
selection abortions in the UK.   But I guess that that the UK wasn't
founded on freedom of choice, eh? (Magna Carta and John Locke
anyone?)  To me, its a shame that the pro-choice extremists in this
country have turned the United States into a place where the Chinese
come to engage in a practice that even the communists have banned
back in their own country...

JDG








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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Doug Pensinger]

JDG wrote:



Of course, but your choice has implications that affect others - to
say nothing of your child.

Are you saying that if the "free choice" of American parents results
in a generation that is born 75% female and 25% male, that you would
have no problem with that?   (And women say that they can't find any
good men today!)  And that this would not be an appropriate area for
public intervention?


Massive straw man, unworthy of reply.  See Charlie's posts on the subject.


It also raises the question of what rights do unborn children have.
Are you o.k. with parents aborting children that will have a
tendency towards homosexuality?   Or of only selecting embryos for
implantation that have blond hair or above-average intelligence?
Or what about only selecting embryos that have below-average
intelligence?


We're talking a major expense, John, so the number of procedures is likely 
to be limited to either wealthy people or people that are desperate for a 
child of a certain sex (not because we favor one sex over the other but 
because they have trouble conceiving one or the other) or want to avoid a 
child with a debilitating birth defect that they may be prone to.


I think another thing that you'll find among most people is that most of 
them are proud of their own genetics.  However silly it is, I get a lump 
in my throat when I match my hand with that of my grown son and it's 
almost an exact match.


Your solution wants a problem.


The ironic thing is that I just received word today that the pro-
choice government of Tony Blair is moving today to ban gender-
selection abortions in the UK.   But I guess that that the UK wasn't
founded on freedom of choice, eh? (Magna Carta and John Locke
anyone?)  To me, its a shame that the pro-choice extremists in this
country have turned the United States into a place where the Chinese
come to engage in a practice that even the communists have banned
back in their own country...


We weren't discussing abortion.  I would have much more trouble with 
abortion along these lines.  In fact I would object to it altogether.  
From the original article:


"The procedure, which Steinberg also offers as an add-on service for 
infertile couples, determines the gender of a batch of fertilized eggs and 
implants only embryos of the wanted sex. This process -- called 
preimplantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD -- is more widely used to screen 
for genetic diseases."


Let me ask you again.  Do you think we should tailor our laws to remedy 
the shortcomings of the Chinese social system?


--
Doug
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Alberto Monteiro]

Doug Pensinger wrote:
>
>> It also raises the question of what rights do unborn children have.
>> Are you o.k. with parents aborting children that will have a
>> tendency towards homosexuality?   Or of only selecting embryos for
>> implantation that have blond hair or above-average intelligence?
>> Or what about only selecting embryos that have below-average
>> intelligence?
> 
> We're talking a major expense, John, so the number of procedures is 
> likely to be limited to either wealthy people or people that are 
> desperate for a child of a certain sex (not because we favor one sex 
> over the other but because they have trouble conceiving one or the 
> other) or want to avoid a child with a debilitating birth defect 
> that they may be prone to.
> 
It's not as expensive _now_ as the cost of raising a child. So,
increasingly more people will do this - to the point that it
becomes so cheap that everybody will do it.

> I think another thing that you'll find among most people is that 
> most of them are proud of their own genetics.  However silly it is,
>  I get a lump in my throat when I match my hand with that of my 
> grown son and it's almost an exact match.
> 
Which means that stupid people will chose a genetic setup that
makes their children stupid too :-P

Alberto Monteiro

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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Charlie Bell]

On 14/07/2006, at 2:58 PM, Alberto Monteiro wrote:

It's not as expensive _now_ as the cost of raising a child. So,
increasingly more people will do this - to the point that it
becomes so cheap that everybody will do it.


Even if that's true, however, i still can't see it seriously skewing  
the sex ratio *in the long run*. China is by no means a permanent  
situation, degrading and disgraceful as it (and many other places...)  
is at the moment. Cultural expectations can change dramatically in a  
generation or two, and if sons are going to fail to continue the  
family line because they're unable to find wives, at least some  
families will take the pragmatic approach to have daughters...


Here's a review paper, summarising the current thinking and state of  
research on sex ratios and gender selection.


http://www.u.arizona.edu/~jons/sexratio.html

To be honest, I'd rather see PGD than late-term abortions for gender  
selection, and I'd definitely rather see PGD than infanticide. I  
think it's hard to argue that an undifferentiated blastocyst has  
"rights", given the huge natural wastage of pre-implantation embryos,  
so better that parents make some choice getting the baby they want,  
than going for luck and resenting the outcome.


Charlie



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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Alberto Monteiro]

Charlie Bell wrote:
>
>> It's not as expensive _now_ as the cost of raising a child. So,
>> increasingly more people will do this - to the point that it
>> becomes so cheap that everybody will do it.
> 
> Even if that's true, however, i still can't see it seriously skewing 
>  the sex ratio *in the long run*.
>
Yes, I think we have beaten this to death. I accept your point
of view, but I think mine [a Lezbo Utopia :-)] is more likely.
But there are uncertanties in these projections, and both
attractors are possible.

> China is by no means a permanent 
>  situation, degrading and disgraceful as it (and many other 
> places...)  is at the moment. Cultural expectations can change 
> dramatically in a  generation or two, and if sons are going to fail 
> to continue the  family line because they're unable to find wives, 
> at least some  families will take the pragmatic approach to
> have daughters...
>
China is an _unstable_ scenario - but this will be easily 
self-corrected with a major civil war.

Alberto Monteiro

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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Charlie Bell]

On 14/07/2006, at 4:03 PM, Alberto Monteiro wrote:

Yes, I think we have beaten this to death. I accept your point
of view, but I think mine [a Lezbo Utopia :-)] is more likely.


Based on *what*, though, other than your wet dreams? :) Yes, I think  
it's plausible that such a society could develop if founded by  
sufficiently motivated people, but will the general population head  
that way? No, not at all likely, and I'd need to see studies showing  
how such a society could remain stable before I modified that assertion.



China is an _unstable_ scenario - but this will be easily
self-corrected with a major civil war.


Or with the natural stabilisation that occurs over a number of  
generations...


Charlie
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Alberto Monteiro]

Charlie Bell wrote:
>
>> Yes, I think we have beaten this to death. I accept your point
>> of view, but I think mine [a Lezbo Utopia :-)] is more likely.
> 
> Based on *what*, though, other than your wet dreams? :)
>
There's no "dream" component here :-)

> Yes, I think 
> it's plausible that such a society could develop if founded by  
> sufficiently motivated people,
>
Ok, that's enough for me. You agree that this scenario is possible
but unlikely, I agree that the 1:1 scenario is possible but
unlikely. Until we can actually make a decent mathematical model,
there's no way we can pass from guess to fact.

>> China is an _unstable_ scenario - but this will be easily
>> self-corrected with a major civil war.
> 
> Or with the natural stabilisation that occurs over a number of  
> generations...
> 
"Too many males" is unstable in a single generation. War is the way
to fix this.

Alberto Monteiro

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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Ronn!Blankenship]

At 08:03 AM Friday 7/14/2006, Alberto Monteiro wrote:


Yes, I think we have beaten this to death.




So?  :P


What Else Is New Maru


--Ronn! :)

I always knew that I would see the first man on the Moon.
I never dreamed that I would see the last.
--Dr. Jerry Pournelle



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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[jdiebremse]

--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Doug Pensinger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Are you saying that if the "free choice" of American parents
> > results in a generation that is born 75% female and 25% male,
> > that you would
> > have no problem with that?   (And women say that they can't find
> > any good men today!)  And that this would not be an appropriate
> > area for public intervention?
>
> Massive straw man, unworthy of reply.  See Charlie's posts on the
> subject.

I don't think that calling my argument a straw man contributes to
positive debate on this subject.

I believe that Charlie's point is that such a situation would be
unstable in the long run.   If a generation of people comes out
disproportionately female, then this would create an incentive to
produce male children.  This perhaps may be true - but doesn't do
any good for the people who were born in the disproportionate
generation.

Secondly, the point doesn't consider the possibility of misaligned
incentives.   There may be many reason why parents perceive children
of one sex to be more desireable than those of another - and those
reasons might have nothing to do with adulthood.  For instance,
parents may perceive that they will enjoy playing games with a
female child more than a male child, or that a female child is
easier to manage while growing up than a male child, etc.  These
sorts of cultural perceptions could easily result in misaligned sex
ratios persisting into the long term.

> > It also raises the question of what rights do unborn children
have.
> > Are you o.k. with parents aborting children that will have a
> > tendency towards homosexuality?   Or of only selecting embryos
> > for
> > implantation that have blond hair or above-average intelligence?
> > Or what about only selecting embryos that have below-average
> > intelligence?
>
> We're talking a major expense, John, so the number of procedures
> is likely to be limited to either wealthy people or people that
> are desperate for a child of a certain sex (not because we favor
> one sex over the other but because they have trouble conceiving
> one or the other) or want to avoid a
> child with a debilitating birth defect that they may be prone to.

Leaving aside the number of people doing this because of a birth
defect, you do realize that you are essentially arguing that this
practice is o.k., so long as only rich people do it?   The expense
of the procedure shouldn't affect the morality of this procedure.
If the procedure is moral and sensible for a few rich people to
engage in, then it should be moral and sensible for everyone to
engage in - should they have the opportunity.

> > The ironic thing is that I just received word today that the pro-
> > choice government of Tony Blair is moving today to ban gender-
> > selection abortions in the UK.   But I guess that that the UK
> > wasn't  founded on freedom of choice, eh? (Magna Carta and John
> > Locke anyone?)  To me, its a shame that the pro-choice
> > extremists in this country have turned the United States into a
> > place where the Chinese
> > come to engage in a practice that even the communists have banned
> > back in their own country...
>
> We weren't discussing abortion.

Yes we are.   We are talking about conceiving a number of children,
and "eliminating" the children of the undesired sex.

> I would have much more trouble with
> abortion along these lines.  In fact I would object to it
> altogether.

I can only hope that you get the opportunity to join me in
supporting a ban on sex-selection abortions.

> Let me ask you again.  Do you think we should tailor our laws to
> remedy  the shortcomings of the Chinese social system?

I still have no idea what you mean by this.   I merely think that if
the Chinese Communists think that a certain procedure is too
gruesome to allow in their own country, that should be a strong
tipoff that we shouldn't be allowing it in our own country either.

JDG




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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Charlie Bell]

On 15/07/2006, at 3:43 PM, jdiebremse wrote:

We weren't discussing abortion.


Yes we are.   We are talking about conceiving a number of children,
and "eliminating" the children of the undesired sex.


As I pointed out elsewhere, this is the main assumption of  
difference. If you regard an undifferentiated pre-implantion ball of  
cells as a "child", then of course you're going to have a different  
view to those who think humanity and sentience and so on are sliding  
scales (that an adult has more rights than a child has more rights  
than an infant than a foetus than an embryo than a zygote than an ovum).


A blastocyst is not a child to most people, John. Many, possibly most  
according to some studies, zygotes *fail to implant* and "die" in the  
toilet or soaked up in a panty-liner. The wastage is naturally huge.  
Clearly, until they're able to implant, they're disposable,  
*biologically* speaking.


Charlie
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Charlie Bell]

On 15/07/2006, at 3:43 PM, jdiebremse wrote:

I would have much more trouble with
abortion along these lines.  In fact I would object to it
altogether.


I can only hope that you get the opportunity to join me in
supporting a ban on sex-selection abortions.


Of course most of us would support a ban on self-selection abortion.  
But PGD is not abortion, unless you have a really bad understanding  
of developmental biology.



Let me ask you again.  Do you think we should tailor our laws to
remedy  the shortcomings of the Chinese social system?


I still have no idea what you mean by this.   I merely think that if
the Chinese Communists think that a certain procedure is too
gruesome to allow in their own country, that should be a strong
tipoff that we shouldn't be allowing it in our own country either.


They're not banning it because it's "gruesome", they're banning it  
because they're worried it'll skew their already skewed gender-bias  
even further.


Charlie
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Bryon Daly]

On 7/15/06, jdiebremse <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


> We weren't discussing abortion.

Yes we are.   We are talking about conceiving a number of children,
and "eliminating" the children of the undesired sex.



Personally, I think it's ridiculous for someone to go through the pain,
expense and hassle of IVF just to ensure the desired sex for their child,
particularly when there's a way to at least raise the odds without doing all
that.  Many fertility centers won't accept patients that have gender
selection as their only reason.  But I'm curious about your opinion here

So your problem here is with IVF in general then?  Because the general
practice with IVF is to fertilize many eggs (15-20) and then just implant a
small number of them (2-6).  (The original article link is down, so I don't
know if the article goes into the details at all).  As I understand it, the
sex selection is just another criteria for deciding which ones get implanted
- either way, a bunch of embryos are "eliminated".  (Though, potentially
they can be frozen and used at a later time).

What if the abortion factor was eliminated?  Right now, they can use sperm
spinning to get about an 80% accuracy in selecting for boy or girl sperm
which can be used in a more tradtional way that doesn't generate unwanted
embryos.  Lets say that they find a way to get this to 100% accuracy.  Do
you stil have the same objections?

-bryon
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Alberto Vieira Ferreira Monteiro]

JDG wrote:
>
>> Let me ask you again.  Do you think we should tailor our laws to
>> remedy  the shortcomings of the Chinese social system?
>
> I still have no idea what you mean by this.   I merely think that if
> the Chinese Communists think that a certain procedure is too
> gruesome to allow in their own country, that should be a strong
> tipoff that we shouldn't be allowing it in our own country either.
>
This logic is false. Chinese "Communists" [I would not call them
Commies, but Extreme-Corporate-Capitalists - China seems
like a huge Capitalist Corporation to me :-)] think lots of other things
gruesome - like making movies that mock their CEOs or Directors -
so this should not be a parameter to evaluate the gruesomeness
of anything.

What if China bans breasts implants? [*]

Alberto Monteiro

[*] I am aesthetically biased against breast implants, except in a
few cases of females that are extremely mammalially challenged,
but I would never think that the desire to have artificial breasts
should be prohibited.
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Charlie Bell]

On 15/07/2006, at 6:08 PM, Bryon Daly wrote:


On 7/15/06, jdiebremse <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


> We weren't discussing abortion.

Yes we are.   We are talking about conceiving a number of children,
and "eliminating" the children of the undesired sex.



Personally, I think it's ridiculous for someone to go through the  
pain,
expense and hassle of IVF just to ensure the desired sex for their  
child,
particularly when there's a way to at least raise the odds without  
doing all

that.


A number of ways. Timing is one, as well as centrifugation as you  
mentioned.


The most reliable is, of course, infanticide... ;-) Or just swap them  
about in the maternity ward. Worked in The Omen...


Charlie
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Ronn!Blankenship]

At 10:18 AM Saturday 7/15/2006, Alberto Vieira Ferreira Monteiro wrote:

JDG wrote:
>
>> Let me ask you again.  Do you think we should tailor our laws to
>> remedy  the shortcomings of the Chinese social system?
>
> I still have no idea what you mean by this.   I merely think that if
> the Chinese Communists think that a certain procedure is too
> gruesome to allow in their own country, that should be a strong
> tipoff that we shouldn't be allowing it in our own country either.
>
This logic is false. Chinese "Communists" [I would not call them
Commies, but Extreme-Corporate-Capitalists - China seems
like a huge Capitalist Corporation to me :-)] think lots of other things
gruesome - like making movies that mock their CEOs or Directors -
so this should not be a parameter to evaluate the gruesomeness
of anything.

What if China bans breasts implants? [*]



Then their stock will be flat.


--Ronn! :)

I always knew that I would see the first man on the Moon.
I never dreamed that I would see the last.
--Dr. Jerry Pournelle



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RE: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Dan Minette]

> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
> Behalf Of jdiebremse
> Sent: Saturday, July 15, 2006 7:43 AM
> To: Killer Bs Discussion
> Subject: Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex
> 
> 
> Leaving aside the number of people doing this because of a birth
> defect, you do realize that you are essentially arguing that this
> practice is o.k., so long as only rich people do it?   The expense
> of the procedure shouldn't affect the morality of this procedure.
> If the procedure is moral and sensible for a few rich people to
> engage in, then it should be moral and sensible for everyone to
> engage in - should they have the opportunity.

If it is a question of inherent morality/immorality, then I agree with your
point.  Some things are wrong, even if they only happen a few times.  But,
there are other areas where ethics is consequence based.  For example, a
rich people often use resources, such as fossil fuel, at a rate that would
be horrific if everyone used them at that rate.  Think of the increase in
fuel usage if everyone in the world had a private plane to travel where they
wish.

Yet, I don't think this means it is inherently immoral for someone to have a
private jet.

Dan M. 


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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[jdiebremse]

--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Charlie Bell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On 15/07/2006, at 3:43 PM, jdiebremse wrote:
> >> We weren't discussing abortion.
> >
> > Yes we are.   We are talking about conceiving a number of
> > children,
> > and "eliminating" the children of the undesired sex.
>
> As I pointed out elsewhere, this is the main assumption of
> difference. If you regard an undifferentiated pre-implantion ball
> of  cells as a "child", then of course you're going to have a
> different view to those who think humanity and sentience and so on
> are sliding scales (that an adult has more rights than a child has
> more rights than an infant than a foetus than an embryo than a
> zygote than an ovum).

I know that it is oh-so-fashionable in these parts to say that
everything comes in "shades of grey", and contrast that to pale-
conservative JDG who sees things in black-and-white, but sometimes
things really are in black-and-white.   To put it another way, the
right to life is like virginity - either you have it or you don't.
(Apologies to the former UN Ambassador from Brazil on that one.)
There is no sliding scale on the right to life.   Either the
organism has the right, or it does not.

> A blastocyst is not a child to most people, John. Many, possibly
> most according to some studies, zygotes *fail to implant*
> and "die" in the toilet or soaked up in a panty-liner. The wastage
> is naturally huge.  Clearly, until they're able to implant,
> they're disposable, *biologically* speaking.

Sorry, Charlie, but this is not sound logic.  The logical conculsion
of what you are saying is that "if the infant mortality rate is
high, then infanticide is morally acceptable."   I hope that makes
it clear.   Its completely irrelevant how many children die
naturally in determining whether or not it is acceptable to kill a
child.   The same applies to the fetus, blastocyst, zygote, and even
to the cow - the number that would die naturally is completely
irrelevant in deciding whether it is moral to intentionally kill
another.

And if we want to talk biologically, from the very moment of
conception, that which you refer to as a zygote, blastocyst, and
fetus, are all nevertheless individual members of homo sapiens
sapiens - *biologically* speaking, of course.

JDG




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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[jdiebremse]

--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "Bryon Daly" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> What if the abortion factor was eliminated?

I still have grave reservations about genetic engineering of human
beings.  I don't agree that parents have a blanket right to tinker
with the genetic code of their children without permission - and
obviously the children are in no position to give that permission.

I would agree that the heart of my problem is the abortion issue.  I
find the continued legality of sex-selection abortions in this country
to be gravely disturbing.  You would never imagine that someone could
be killed in the United States on account of their sex, but its true -
and legal.   Nevertheless, in the scenario you envisage, where
abortion is taken out of the equation, I don't expect that I'd be
hopping on the bandwagon.

JDG




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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[jdiebremse]

--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "Dan Minette" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>
>
>
> > -Original Message-
> > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
> > Behalf Of jdiebremse
> > Sent: Saturday, July 15, 2006 7:43 AM
> > To: Killer Bs Discussion
> > Subject: Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex
> >
> >
> > Leaving aside the number of people doing this because of a birth
> > defect, you do realize that you are essentially arguing that this
> > practice is o.k., so long as only rich people do it?   The
> > expense
> > of the procedure shouldn't affect the morality of this procedure.
> > If the procedure is moral and sensible for a few rich people to
> > engage in, then it should be moral and sensible for everyone to
> > engage in - should they have the opportunity.
>
> Some things are wrong, even if they only happen a few times.  But,
> there are other areas where ethics is consequence based.  For
> example, a rich people often use resources, such as fossil fuel,
> at a rate that would be horrific if everyone used them at that
> rate.  Think of the increase in fuel usage if everyone in the
> world had a private plane to travel where they wish.
>
> Yet, I don't think this means it is inherently immoral for someone
> to have a private jet.

I have to say that your example did not convince me of the point.
Presuming that everyone has a private jet in a market economy,
presumably the prices would still reflect the new situation.   In
other words, as the number of people with private jets increased,
the price of oil would increase to reflect the tradeoff of using oil
for private jet flights vs. using the oil for other things.  In
order to keep flying the private jet as the price of oil rises, one
would presumably have to provide increasing amounts of value to
society through work or capital allocation or both.   (Or one would
presumably have to value the private jet flight more than the
alternative goods and services one could have purchased.)

In other words, to have reached a point where everyone had a private
jet, we preumably did so at a price level equilibrium that reflects
that fact that it really *was* the most efficient use of our oil to
spend them on private jet flights.

JDG



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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Doug Pensinger]

JDG wrote:


Massive straw man, unworthy of reply.  See Charlie's posts on the
subject.


I don't think that calling my argument a straw man contributes to
positive debate on this subject.


OK, I'm sorry.  Your argument is fallacious because the chance that the 
male/female ratio becomes severely offset under current circumstances is 
very close to zero.



I believe that Charlie's point is that such a situation would be
unstable in the long run.   If a generation of people comes out
disproportionately female, then this would create an incentive to
produce male children.  This perhaps may be true - but doesn't do
any good for the people who were born in the disproportionate
generation.

Secondly, the point doesn't consider the possibility of misaligned
incentives.   There may be many reason why parents perceive children
of one sex to be more desireable than those of another - and those
reasons might have nothing to do with adulthood.  For instance,
parents may perceive that they will enjoy playing games with a
female child more than a male child, or that a female child is
easier to manage while growing up than a male child, etc.  These
sorts of cultural perceptions could easily result in misaligned sex
ratios persisting into the long term.


But what indication do you have that any of this would ever happen?  You 
can't make laws based on imaginary scenarios; _nothing_ would be legal!



Leaving aside the number of people doing this because of a birth
defect, you do realize that you are essentially arguing that this
practice is o.k., so long as only rich people do it?   The expense
of the procedure shouldn't affect the morality of this procedure.
If the procedure is moral and sensible for a few rich people to
engage in, then it should be moral and sensible for everyone to
engage in - should they have the opportunity.


No, I'm arguing that I don't believe that the practice (choosing sex) will 
become widespread.  If it _does_ begin to become widespread, then we can 
worry about banning the procedure.  It has nothing to do with ethics.



Yes we are.   We are talking about conceiving a number of children,
and "eliminating" the children of the undesired sex.


Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy.  I mean really, are you going 
to ban sunglasses next because they might block the twinkle in Daddy's eye?



I can only hope that you get the opportunity to join me in
supporting a ban on sex-selection abortions.


I promise you that if sex selection via termination of pregnancy becomes a 
problem in the U.S., I'll write my congressperson.



Let me ask you again.  Do you think we should tailor our laws to
remedy  the shortcomings of the Chinese social system?


I still have no idea what you mean by this.   I merely think that if
the Chinese Communists think that a certain procedure is too
gruesome to allow in their own country, that should be a strong
tipoff that we shouldn't be allowing it in our own country either.


It doesn't have anything at all to do with gruesomeness.  When I suggested 
that there were no good reasons for banning the procedure you stated 
"isn't the real danger of ending up with an unbalanced population, making 
it difficult for a generation to find a mate, worth noting?" but in fact, 
that is not a problem in the U.S.  It is a problem in China (and a few 
other nations).  Lacking a problem here, the only reason to ban the 
procedure would be to accommodate the problems in other nations, 
especially China.


If you had good reason to anticipate a problem here, perhaps a ban would 
be justified, but I haven't seen any evidence to suggest that you do; just 
speculation.


--
Doug
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Charlie Bell]

On 17/07/2006, at 6:50 AM, jdiebremse wrote:


--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Charlie Bell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

On 15/07/2006, at 3:43 PM, jdiebremse wrote:

We weren't discussing abortion.


Yes we are.   We are talking about conceiving a number of
children,
and "eliminating" the children of the undesired sex.


As I pointed out elsewhere, this is the main assumption of
difference. If you regard an undifferentiated pre-implantion ball
of  cells as a "child", then of course you're going to have a
different view to those who think humanity and sentience and so on
are sliding scales (that an adult has more rights than a child has
more rights than an infant than a foetus than an embryo than a
zygote than an ovum).


I know that it is oh-so-fashionable in these parts to say that
everything comes in "shades of grey", and contrast that to pale-
conservative JDG who sees things in black-and-white, but sometimes
things really are in black-and-white.   To put it another way, the
right to life is like virginity - either you have it or you don't.
(Apologies to the former UN Ambassador from Brazil on that one.)
There is no sliding scale on the right to life.   Either the
organism has the right, or it does not.


The question is, at what point does the "organism" become a fully- 
fledged member of the group? You say at conception. Possessing a full  
complement of chromosomes suddenly makes you fully human. Well,  
others disagree. Some think it's when implantation occurs. Others, at  
the point where the foetus is capable of independent survival (this  
is approximately my position at present). Others still, at birth or a  
specified time thereafter and still others, at the point when the  
child achieves full self-awareness.



A blastocyst is not a child to most people, John. Many, possibly
most according to some studies, zygotes *fail to implant*
and "die" in the toilet or soaked up in a panty-liner. The wastage
is naturally huge.  Clearly, until they're able to implant,
they're disposable, *biologically* speaking.


Sorry, Charlie, but this is not sound logic.  The logical conculsion
of what you are saying is that "if the infant mortality rate is
high, then infanticide is morally acceptable."   I hope that makes
it clear.


Utterly false connection. An infant is an independent and individual.  
A blastocyst is not.



Its completely irrelevant how many children die
naturally in determining whether or not it is acceptable to kill a
child.   The same applies to the fetus, blastocyst, zygote, and even
to the cow - the number that would die naturally is completely
irrelevant in deciding whether it is moral to intentionally kill
another.

And if we want to talk biologically, from the very moment of
conception, that which you refer to as a zygote, blastocyst, and
fetus, are all nevertheless individual members of homo sapiens
sapiens - *biologically* speaking, of course.


Saying that something which *cannot* survive without biological  
support from an adult is an "individual" is stretching the definition  
beyond breaking point.


You're using the classic language of emotion to make your point -  
talk of "killing children" and "aborting embryos". These are neither,  
they're balls of cells. They might contain 46 chromosomes, but until  
they're implanted in the uterus, they're never going to be anything  
else.


Cancer is undifferentiated balls of cells too. Is a tumour a "human"?

Charlie
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[ritu]

Charlie wrote:

>>> A blastocyst is not a child to most people, John. Many, possibly most
>>> according to some studies, zygotes *fail to implant* and "die" in the
>>> toilet or soaked up in a panty-liner. The wastage is naturally huge.
>>> Clearly, until they're able to implant, they're disposable,
>>> *biologically* speaking.
>>
>> Sorry, Charlie, but this is not sound logic.  The logical conculsion
>> of what you are saying is that "if the infant mortality rate is
>> high, then infanticide is morally acceptable."   I hope that makes
>> it clear.
>
> Utterly false connection. An infant is an independent and individual.
> A blastocyst is not.

And besides, we are talking about a blastocyst in a petri dish/test tube
whatever.

JDG, do you also hold that all couples who undergo IVF, have a baby after
the first implantation, and decide against further implants are guilty of
'killing children'?

I am as big an opposer of female foeticide as anyone else [no one chooses
to abort male foetuses in India]. But we are not talking about conceiving
and nourishing a baby for a few months and then aborting them because they
don't have a penis.

Do I think it is advisable to tinker like this in cases other than medical
emergencies? No. But neither do I think that there is any need or point in
banning it. The technology exists. People who want it will get it.
Especially if they are rich. Even if it is illegal. So might as well keep
it legal and tax it high. It is a luxury medical service after all.

Ritu
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Ronn!Blankenship]

At 02:49 AM Monday 7/17/2006, Charlie Bell wrote:


Cancer is undifferentiated balls of cells too. Is a tumour a "human"?



The obvious difference is that if left alone a blastocyst has a 
chance (if nothing goes wrong) of becoming a human being, whereas a 
tumor does not.



Insert Classic Lawyer Joke Here Maru


--Ronn! :)

I always knew that I would see the first man on the Moon.
I never dreamed that I would see the last.
--Dr. Jerry Pournelle



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RE: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Dan Minette]

> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
> Behalf Of jdiebremse
> Sent: Sunday, July 16, 2006 11:02 PM
> To: Killer Bs Discussion
> Subject: Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex
> 
> --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "Dan Minette" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >
> > Yet, I don't think this means it is inherently immoral for someone
> > to have a private jet.
> 
> I have to say that your example did not convince me of the point.
> Presuming that everyone has a private jet in a market economy,
> presumably the prices would still reflect the new situation.   In
> other words, as the number of people with private jets increased,
> the price of oil would increase to reflect the tradeoff of using oil
> for private jet flights vs. using the oil for other things.  In
> order to keep flying the private jet as the price of oil rises, one
> would presumably have to provide increasing amounts of value to
> society through work or capital allocation or both.   (Or one would
> presumably have to value the private jet flight more than the
> alternative goods and services one could have purchased.)

> In other words, to have reached a point where everyone had a private
> jet, we preumably did so at a price level equilibrium that reflects
> that fact that it really *was* the most efficient use of our oil to
> spend them on private jet flights.

Well, if you are able to assume that the economic cost of choosing a baby's
sex goes down, I thought I could assume that the price of oil would not go
up...by assuming other technical innovations.  For example, let's say the
technology needed to covert shale beds developed significantly, or that we
find an easy and cheap way to tap under-sea methane.  

The problem I was thinking about was the fact that CO2 levels in the
atmosphere would really go through the roof.  You know that I've argued for
the middle position on global warmingand consider both those who deny
the existence of human induced global warming and those who claim it must be
stopped at any price to be in error.  But, if everyone had planes and used
them, the change in climate would be catastrophicafter a CO2 rise of a
factor of 10 or more.

Let's assume that, in the future, there would be an easy, cheap method of
picking the sex of a child, pre-conception.  Let's also assume that it
rarely was used to get all boys or all girls, that most families who used it
picked a girl if they had a boy and a boy if they had a girl.  Why would
this be such a significant problem that the government had to ban it?

Dan M. 


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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Nick Arnett]

On 7/12/06, Alberto Monteiro <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


And lesbians have a huge advantage in selection: they select the
father of their daughters based on logical criteria, while hetero
women chose based on "love" [or hormones, etc]. So, the daughters
of lesbians will have a competitive advantage over the daughters
of non-lesbians.


Do we really know that logic has evolutionary advantages over emotion?
I imagine that perhaps the mix of the two has advantages over either
one, given that's how things have turned out so far.  And we have
quite a variety of dominance throughout the human population and among
cultures, nations and other subgroups.

It isn't sensible or kind to compare logic and emotion!  At least
that's what I think... and feel... ;-)

Nick

--
Nick Arnett
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Messages: 408-904-7198
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Charlie Bell]

On 17/07/2006, at 3:04 PM, Ronn!Blankenship wrote:


At 02:49 AM Monday 7/17/2006, Charlie Bell wrote:


Cancer is undifferentiated balls of cells too. Is a tumour a "human"?



The obvious difference is that if left alone a blastocyst has a  
chance (if nothing goes wrong) of becoming a human being, whereas a  
tumor does not.


No, that's the whole point - if left alone a blastocyst has *no*  
chance of becoming anything. It requires the act of uterine  
implantation to progress to the next stage of development.


Charlie
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Alberto Monteiro]

Nick Arnett wrote:
> 
>> And lesbians have a huge advantage in selection: they select the
>> father of their daughters based on logical criteria, while hetero
>> women chose based on "love" [or hormones, etc]. So, the daughters
>> of lesbians will have a competitive advantage over the daughters
>> of non-lesbians.
> 
> Do we really know that logic has evolutionary advantages over 
> emotion?
>
Yes. Selection by emotion evolved to chose traits that were
advantageous for our caveman ancestors, like bullying power
or capacity for deceit.

> I imagine that perhaps the mix of the two has advantages 
> over either one, given that's how things have turned out so far. 
>
Have they?

>  And we have quite a variety of dominance throughout the human 
> population and among cultures, nations and other subgroups.
> 
> It isn't sensible or kind to compare logic and emotion!  At least
> that's what I think... and feel... ;-)
> 
:-)

Alberto Monteiro

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RE: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Jim Sharkey]

Dan Minette wrote:
>Let's also assume that it rarely was used to get all boys or all 
>girls, that most families who used it picked a girl if they had a 
>boy and a boy if they had a girl.  Why would this be such a 
>significant problem that the government had to ban it?

Certainly in *this* country, that would be the case.  Most families 
that I know with all boys would like their next child to be a girl, 
and vice-versa.  I think the problem lies in that many of the sex-
choice tourists (for lack of a better term) are not making their 
choice based on some paradigm of, well, balancing out the family 
ledger, so to speak.  I think a majority of them are coming here 
specifically to have a baby of a specific sex because that sex is
"better" than the other one.

I personally am repelled by the idea of choosing a baby's sex.  I 
don't see it as a practice that needs banning, but I do see where the
logical next step is "Why can't my baby be blond, or tall, or any 
number of other more desirable traits?" and I can further see why 
some people want to nip it in the bud, right or wrong.  My question 
is, at what point would the possible practice of "tinkering" with 
one's progeny before they're even conceived be banned?

I also wonder, if such tinkering becomes viable, does it have the 
possibility of damaging an egalitarian society?

Jim

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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Doug Pensinger]

Jim Sharkey wrote:



I personally am repelled by the idea of choosing a baby's sex.  I
don't see it as a practice that needs banning, but I do see where the
logical next step is "Why can't my baby be blond, or tall, or any
number of other more desirable traits?" and I can further see why
some people want to nip it in the bud, right or wrong.  My question
is, at what point would the possible practice of "tinkering" with
one's progeny before they're even conceived be banned?


People want to ban it already, so I doubt that if abuse starts to get out 
of hand it will escape early notice.



I also wonder, if such tinkering becomes viable, does it have the
possibility of damaging an egalitarian society?


How so?

--
Doug
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Charlie Bell]

On 17/07/2006, at 7:12 PM, Jim Sharkey wrote:

I also wonder, if such tinkering becomes viable, does it have the
possibility of damaging an egalitarian society?


No. It's likely to make any society *more* equal in the (possibly  
quite) long run.


Charlie
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Jim Sharkey]

Doug Pensinger wrote:
Jim Sharkey wrote:
>>I also wonder, if such tinkering becomes viable, does it have the
>>possibility of damaging an egalitarian society?
>How so?

Well, I would imagine that such advances would only be available to 
the wealthy, at least initially, possibly even for an entire 
generation.  In which case, children of the wealthy, who arguably 
already have one leg up on the competition, would get yet another
tick in the "plus" column in terms of success, conceivably 
concetrating wealth and power even more tightly to a select few.

I certainly don't mean to sound like an alarmist hack SF writer.  I'm 
just allowing for the possibility.

Jim

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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Alberto Monteiro]

Jim Sharkey wrote:
> 
> Well, I would imagine that such advances would only be available to 
> the wealthy, at least initially, possibly even for an entire 
> generation.  In which case, children of the wealthy, who arguably 
> already have one leg up on the competition, would get yet another
> tick in the "plus" column in terms of success, conceivably 
> concetrating wealth and power even more tightly to a select few.
> 
Rich people seem quite selfish but not genetically selfish.

Why can't rich men [like those that get 1 Giga $] hire a thousand
women and have one or two thousand heirs, spreading their genes?
They could do it now or 200 years ago, with no technology, but
they don't. They usually have one or no children.

Modern rich women could also spread their eggs over a dozen host
mothers. But they don't.

Why would they change the pattern and worry about their genes?

> I certainly don't mean to sound like an alarmist hack SF writer. 
>  I'm just allowing for the possibility.
> 
Maybe the trait that makes people rich is defective for the gene
pool, and tends to eliminate itself :-)

Alberto Monteiro

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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Doug Pensinger]

On Mon, 17 Jul 2006 12:52:34 -0400 (EDT), Jim Sharkey 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:




Doug Pensinger wrote:
Jim Sharkey wrote:

I also wonder, if such tinkering becomes viable, does it have the
possibility of damaging an egalitarian society?

How so?


Well, I would imagine that such advances would only be available to
the wealthy, at least initially, possibly even for an entire
generation.  In which case, children of the wealthy, who arguably
already have one leg up on the competition, would get yet another
tick in the "plus" column in terms of success, conceivably
concetrating wealth and power even more tightly to a select few.


I imagine that even if the manipulation of traits becomes illeagal here it 
will be legal somewhere and rich people will have access to it anyway.  In 
any case, in the U.S. people from different social stratta have a tendency 
to mix so I'm not sure that there would be a problem.


I'd be interested to hear why Charlie feels that society would become more 
equal in the long run per his most recent comment...




I certainly don't mean to sound like an alarmist hack SF writer.  I'm
just allowing for the possibility.


We're all here at least partly for that reason - discussing 
possibilities.  8^)


--
Doug
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Charlie Bell]

On 17/07/2006, at 8:10 PM, Doug Pensinger wrote:
I imagine that even if the manipulation of traits becomes illeagal  
here it will be legal somewhere and rich people will have access to  
it anyway.  In any case, in the U.S. people from different social  
stratta have a tendency to mix so I'm not sure that there would be  
a problem.


I'd be interested to hear why Charlie feels that society would  
become more equal in the long run per his most recent comment...


Because whatever traits that contribute to discrimination would be  
weeded out. The population will likely become homogeneous...


Or not. I dunno. :)

Charlie
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Alberto Monteiro]

Charlie Bell wrote:
> 
> Because whatever traits that contribute to discrimination would be  
> weeded out. The population will likely become homogeneous...
> 
Yes, like the Y-chromossome that will be eliminated, ending up
with a lesbian society :-P

Alberto Monteiro

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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Julia Thompson]

Jim Sharkey wrote:

Dan Minette wrote:
Let's also assume that it rarely was used to get all boys or all 
girls, that most families who used it picked a girl if they had a 
boy and a boy if they had a girl.  Why would this be such a 
significant problem that the government had to ban it?


Certainly in *this* country, that would be the case.  Most families 
that I know with all boys would like their next child to be a girl, 
and vice-versa.  I think the problem lies in that many of the sex-
choice tourists (for lack of a better term) are not making their 
choice based on some paradigm of, well, balancing out the family 
ledger, so to speak.  I think a majority of them are coming here 
specifically to have a baby of a specific sex because that sex is

"better" than the other one.

I personally am repelled by the idea of choosing a baby's sex.  I 
don't see it as a practice that needs banning, but I do see where the
logical next step is "Why can't my baby be blond, or tall, or any 
number of other more desirable traits?" and I can further see why 
some people want to nip it in the bud, right or wrong.  My question 
is, at what point would the possible practice of "tinkering" with 
one's progeny before they're even conceived be banned?


I also wonder, if such tinkering becomes viable, does it have the 
possibility of damaging an egalitarian society?


Jim


The couple in this case thinks they have a good reason for sex selection:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=391264&in_page_id=1770&ct=5

I don't think that.

Julia
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Charlie Bell]

On 17/07/2006, at 8:33 PM, Alberto Monteiro wrote:


Charlie Bell wrote:


Because whatever traits that contribute to discrimination would be
weeded out. The population will likely become homogeneous...


Yes, like the Y-chromossome that will be eliminated, ending up
with a lesbian society :-P


Here we go again www.bigbustybrazilianlesbiansonheat.com,  
alberto, and come back when you've calmed down... ;)


Charlie
Might Have Made Up That URL Maru
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Jim Sharkey]

Alberto Monteiro wrote:
>Yes, like the Y-chromossome that will be eliminated, ending up
>with a lesbian society :-P

On one of the forums I frequent, there's a saying: "There's a 'Penny
Arcade' strip for every occasion."  This one must be Alberto's:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2002/11/04

:-D

Jim
If a pair of boobies is good, two pairs must be better Maru

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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[PAT MATHEWS]

From: Julia Thompson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

The couple in this case thinks they have a good reason for sex selection:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=391264&in_page_id=1770&ct=5

I don't think that.

Julia


B...

There was a science fiction story published some time ago in which gay men 
uniformly came only from Roman Catholic and Evangelical families - who had 
scruples against abortions. And, of course, were just as down on being gay.



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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Nick Arnett]

On 7/17/06, Alberto Monteiro <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


Yes. Selection by emotion evolved to chose traits that were
advantageous for our caveman ancestors, like bullying power
or capacity for deceit.

> I imagine that perhaps the mix of the two has advantages
> over either one, given that's how things have turned out so far.
>
Have they?


I'm fairly certain that human beings present have emotions and
rationality.  Those who devalue either one do so at their peril.  Is
there any question about this?  You seem to be suggesting that
emotions are bad to have.  Is it?

Nick

--
Nick Arnett
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Messages: 408-904-7198
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Alberto Monteiro]

Nick Arnett wrote:
>
>> Yes. Selection by emotion evolved to chose traits that were
>> advantageous for our caveman ancestors, like bullying power
>> or capacity for deceit.
>>
>>> I imagine that perhaps the mix of the two has advantages
>>> over either one, given that's how things have turned out so far.
>>
>> Have they?
> 
> I'm fairly certain that human beings present have emotions and
> rationality.
>
Yes

> Those who devalue either one do so at their peril.  Is
> there any question about this?  You seem to be suggesting that
> emotions are bad to have.  Is it?
> 
Yes - emotions are evil. Every "good" emotion can be rationalized
by logic, but "evil" emotions can't.

Alberto Spock

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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[jdiebremse]

--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Doug Pensinger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> OK, I'm sorry.  Your argument is fallacious because the chance
> that the male/female ratio becomes severely offset under current
> circumstances is  very close to zero.

Well, obviously I disagree.  You haven't really provided any
evidence to back your view that it "is very close to zero", other
than to refer me to Charlie's posts.  As near as I can tell,
Charlie's posts are a "long run" argument.   Well, in the "long run"
we're all dead.   In the meantime, that could be tens of millions of
people being born into unbalanced generations.

> But what indication do you have that any of this would ever
> happen?  You  can't make laws based on imaginary scenarios;
> _nothing_ would be legal!

If we couldn't make laws based on imaginary scenarios, we also
wouldn't have laws banning the sale of prescription drugs until they
have undergone clinical trials.

I also think that we have the experience of countries like India and
China to suggest that in the short term, it is possible for
misaligned incentives to cause parents to produce imbalanced
generations.

Here's the thing, Doug.   Either you agree that the State has a role
in preventing misaligned generations, or you don't.  I'm not at all
sure if you are denying the role of the State to prevent misaligned
generations, or are just saying that our particular State (the USA)
shouldn't be taking any action at this time.

> > Yes we are.   We are talking about conceiving a number of
> > children,
> > and "eliminating" the children of the undesired sex.
>
> Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy.  I mean really, are
> you going to ban sunglasses next because they might block the
> twinkle in Daddy's eye?

Abortion is the killing of an unborn child, plain and simple.

I can't believe that after all my years on the List you could still
bring up the tired old saw about "every sperm is sacred", as if you
*still* don't recognize where I see the difference.   Sigh.   It
makes me wonder why I bother coming back here...

> > I can only hope that you get the opportunity to join me in
> > supporting a ban on sex-selection abortions.
>
> I promise you that if sex selection via termination of pregnancy
> becomes a
> problem in the U.S., I'll write my congressperson.

How many times does it need to happen for it to be a "problem"?

JDG




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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Charlie Bell]

On 18/07/2006, at 3:12 AM, jdiebremse wrote:



Abortion is the killing of an unborn child, plain and simple.


Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy. An unimplanted embryo is  
not a pregnancy. Plain, and simple.


Charlie
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[jdiebremse]

--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Charlie Bell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> On 17/07/2006, at 6:50 AM, jdiebremse wrote:
>
> > --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Charlie Bell  wrote:
> >> On 15/07/2006, at 3:43 PM, jdiebremse wrote:
>  We weren't discussing abortion.
> >>>
> >>> Yes we are.   We are talking about conceiving a number of
> >>> children,
> >>> and "eliminating" the children of the undesired sex.
> >>
> >> As I pointed out elsewhere, this is the main assumption of
> >> difference. If you regard an undifferentiated pre-implantion
> >> ball
> >> of  cells as a "child", then of course you're going to have a
> >> different view to those who think humanity and sentience and so
> >> are sliding scales (that an adult has more rights than a child
> >> has
> >> more rights than an infant than a foetus than an embryo than a
> >> zygote than an ovum).
> >
> > I know that it is oh-so-fashionable in these parts to say that
> > everything comes in "shades of grey", and contrast that to pale-
> > conservative JDG who sees things in black-and-white, but
> > sometimes
> > things really are in black-and-white.   To put it another way,
> > the
> > right to life is like virginity - either you have it or you
> > don't.
>
> The question is, at what point does the "organism" become a fully-
> fledged member of the group? You say at conception. Possessing
> a full complement of chromosomes suddenly makes you fully human.
> Well, others disagree. Some think it's when implantation occurs.
> Others, at the point where the foetus is capable of independent
> survival (this is approximately my position at present). Others
> still, at birth or a
> specified time thereafter and still others, at the point when the
> child achieves full self-awareness.

That's all well and good Charlie, but at now point have you
defending your original assertion that rights are a "sliding
scale."   You have argued that different people have different
scales - but you have described all of those scales as being "black-
and-white."  You have not described any of them as being "sliding."


> >> A blastocyst is not a child to most people, John. Many, possibly
> >> most according to some studies, zygotes *fail to implant*
> >> and "die" in the toilet or soaked up in a panty-liner. The
> >> wastage
> >> is naturally huge.  Clearly, until they're able to implant,
> >> they're disposable, *biologically* speaking.
> >
> > Sorry, Charlie, but this is not sound logic.  The logical
> > conculsion
> > of what you are saying is that "if the infant mortality rate is
> > high, then infanticide is morally acceptable."   I hope that
> > makes
> > it clear.
>
> Utterly false connection. An infant is an independent and
> individual.  A blastocyst is not.

I completely disagree.  The zygote clearly exists in its own space,
has its own genetic code, and that genetic code is clearly human.  I
see no biological basis for classifying the cells of the zygote as
part of some other organisim, so therfore it is its own organism.
Also biologically speaking, this organism must be classified as the
member of some species, and that species is clearly homo sapiens
sapiens.  So, that's my view on an individual.  Out of curiosity -
what makes one an independent individual and what makes one a non-
individual in your mind?

> Cancer is undifferentiated balls of cells too. Is a tumour
> a "human"?

A tumor is clearly a growth of an existing individual.

JDG




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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[jdiebremse]

--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Ronn!Blankenship
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> At 02:49 AM Monday 7/17/2006, Charlie Bell wrote:
>
> >Cancer is undifferentiated balls of cells too. Is a tumour
> > a "human"?
>
>
> The obvious difference is that if left alone a blastocyst has a
> chance (if nothing goes wrong) of becoming a human being, whereas
> a tumor does not.

I don't think that "potential" has anything to do with it.  The
organism you are calling a blastocyst is a human being - it ain't a
cow, after all.

So, I see where you are going with this, but I think that your
answer was a little too simplistic.

JDG




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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[jdiebremse]

--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "Dan Minette" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> Well, if you are able to assume that the economic cost of choosing
> a baby's sex goes down, I thought I could assume that the price of
> oil would not go up...

For the recrord, I don't see how anything I said implied that the
price of oil would go up

> The problem I was thinking about was the fact that CO2 levels in
> the atmosphere would really go through the roof.

But this has nothing to do with the use of private jets, and
everything to do with a pollution externality.   Assuming that there
was a suitable carbon tax in place to account for the externality, I
can't think of anything inherently immoral about everyone owning
private jets.

> Let's assume that, in the future, there would be an easy, cheap
> method of
> picking the sex of a child, pre-conception.  Let's also assume
> that it rarely was used to get all boys or all girls, that most
> families who used it
> picked a girl if they had a boy and a boy if they had a girl.  Why
> would this be such a significant problem that the government had
> to ban it?

I don't know that this is a valid assumption.

For example, in the United States, parents whose first-born child is
a girl are quite a bit more likely  (sorry I don't have the exact
number handy) to have a second child than parents whose first-born
child is a boy.A couple with three girls is still 4 percent more
likely to try for a 4th child than a couple with three boys.  This
suggests that in a first iteration of a cheap and easy gender-
choosing scenario in the US, that we would end up with more boys
than girls.

Leaving that aside, as I mentioned earlier, I am unconformtable with
the idea that parents have the right to unilaterally alter another
human being's (i.e. their child's) genetic code in arbitrary ways
without the child's permission.

JDG




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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Charlie Bell]

On 18/07/2006, at 3:20 AM, jdiebremse wrote:



The question is, at what point does the "organism" become a fully-
fledged member of the group? You say at conception. Possessing
a full complement of chromosomes suddenly makes you fully human.
Well, others disagree. Some think it's when implantation occurs.
Others, at the point where the foetus is capable of independent
survival (this is approximately my position at present). Others
still, at birth or a
specified time thereafter and still others, at the point when the
child achieves full self-awareness.


That's all well and good Charlie, but at now point have you
defending your original assertion that rights are a "sliding
scale."   You have argued that different people have different
scales - but you have described all of those scales as being "black-
and-white."  You have not described any of them as being "sliding."


Huh? I thought it was clear - at different times, you have a  
different level of rights. You gain more rights as you achieve new  
levels. The right to vote, to drive, to healthcare, to drink. And the  
right to live. The question is not whether these exist, it's at what  
point they apply. You say, at conception the right to life is  
endowed. I say, at the point when you can survive as an individual  
without direct biological support from your mother, the right to life  
is endowed.


That's the sliding scale - the increase in rights. And the loss of  
rights too. A brain-dead shell on total life support is not a human,  
it's a cadaver with a heartbeat. The right to choose life passes to  
the relatives.







A blastocyst is not a child to most people, John. Many, possibly
most according to some studies, zygotes *fail to implant*
and "die" in the toilet or soaked up in a panty-liner. The
wastage
is naturally huge.  Clearly, until they're able to implant,
they're disposable, *biologically* speaking.


Sorry, Charlie, but this is not sound logic.  The logical
conculsion
of what you are saying is that "if the infant mortality rate is
high, then infanticide is morally acceptable."   I hope that
makes
it clear.


Utterly false connection. An infant is an independent and
individual.  A blastocyst is not.


I completely disagree.  The zygote clearly exists in its own space,
has its own genetic code, and that genetic code is clearly human.


So does a metastasis stage cancer cell.


I
see no biological basis for classifying the cells of the zygote as
part of some other organisim, so therfore it is its own organism.


It has no organs. How can it be an organism?


Also biologically speaking, this organism must be classified as the
member of some species, and that species is clearly homo sapiens
sapiens.  So, that's my view on an individual.  Out of curiosity -
what makes one an independent individual and what makes one a non-
individual in your mind?


Surviving without direct biological support. A new-born baby is an  
individual. It has broken the direct link, budded away from the  
mother. Individual. A ball of cells that is unimplanted is just a  
ball of cells.



Cancer is undifferentiated balls of cells too. Is a tumour
a "human"?


A tumor is clearly a growth of an existing individual.


Really? Some cancer cells function like amoeba. Motile. Others grow  
in clumps. In fact, they can be removed and cultured indefinitely.  
They have human DNA. They feed, grow and multiply quite happily. So  
clearly, according to you, they're human.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa for an example of a human-cell  
culture.


Charlie
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[jdiebremse]

--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Charlie Bell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Abortion is the killing of an unborn child, plain and simple.
>
> Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy. An unimplanted embryo
> is not a pregnancy. Plain, and simple.

Not plain, and not simple.   What word would you have me use then?
I'm guessing murder isn't it.   So, what, then?

JDG - Not particularly amused by playing semantics...




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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[jdiebremse]

--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Julia Thompson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> The couple in this case thinks they have a good reason for sex
> selection:
> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?
in_article_id=391264&in_page_id=1770&ct=5
>
> I don't think that.
>

Wow... killing all the male embryos, simply because they are more
likely to potentially have a disease...   How long before we start
asking autistic children "how come your parents didn't abort you?"

I'm glad that I'm not the only one that finds that disturbing...

JDG



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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Charlie Bell]

On 18/07/2006, at 3:40 AM, jdiebremse wrote:


--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Charlie Bell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Abortion is the killing of an unborn child, plain and simple.


Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy. An unimplanted embryo
is not a pregnancy. Plain, and simple.


Not plain, and not simple.   What word would you have me use then?
I'm guessing murder isn't it.   So, what, then?

JDG - Not particularly amused by playing semantics...


You started the semantic game, by defining abortion contrary to most  
peoples' usage, and saying "plain and simple".


You're making it axiomatic that a zygote is a living being. A full  
human. Others disagree with this most basic premise, so is it any  
wonder that there'll never be agreement or compromise?


See, if one doesn't think that it's a "child" until it's capable of  
survival (around 22 weeks at best), then one's not going to see a pre- 
implantation embryo as human, and there is no amount of insisting on  
it being otherwise that'll change a thing.


If abortion is the termination of a pregnancy, and there is no  
pregnancy, then it's not an abortion. IVF discards pre-implantation  
embryos, but it creates humans too.


Charlie
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[jdiebremse]

--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Charlie Bell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> You started the semantic game, by defining abortion contrary to
> most   peoples' usage, and saying "plain and simple".

What are you basing your view of "most peoples' usage" on?   I would
love to see your evidence on this point.  So far as I know, I am
using abortion in the standard sense of the killing of a unborn
child.  Which brings me back to my question - what term would you
have me use for the killing of unborn unimplanted children?

> You're making it axiomatic that a zygote is a living being.

Do you wish to disagree that it is alive?   I think it is axiomatic.

> See, if one doesn't think that it's a "child" until it's capable
> of survival (around 22 weeks at best),

So, how does one measure this point?   And so one becomes human at
an earlier age today than one did 50 years ago?

JDG




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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[jdiebremse]

--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Charlie Bell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > I see no biological basis for classifying the cells of the
> > zygote as part of some other organisim, so therfore it is its
> > own organism.
>
> It has no organs. How can it be an organism?

Since when did having organs become a requirement for an organism?
I am sure that a couple paramecium would like to have words with you
about being an organism.

> > Also biologically speaking, this organism must be classified as
> > the member of some species, and that species is clearly homo
> > sapiens sapiens.  So, that's my view on an individual.  Out of
> > curiosity -
> > what makes one an independent individual and what makes one a
> > non-individual in your mind?
>
> Surviving without direct biological support. A new-born baby is
> an
> individual. It has broken the direct link, budded away from the
> mother. Individual.

Of course, I fail to see what direct biological support a free-
floating zygote has.   It seems that the direct biological support
only comes *after implantation.*   But you just argued to me that it
was this direct biological support that creates an abortion - so now
I am thoroughly confused.

> Really? Some cancer cells function like amoeba. Motile. Others
> grow
> in clumps. In fact, they can be removed and cultured
> indefinitely.
> They have human DNA. They feed, grow and multiply quite happily.
> So
> clearly, according to you, they're human.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa for an example of a human-cell
> culture.

It would seem to me that cancer cells likely fail at least one of
the two tests, or both.  For one, many cancer cells do not seem to
be individuals, any more than a free-floating blood cell is an
individual.

For two, the wikipedia entry you posted says that these cells in
this case are not human, but are instead of another genera.

JDG



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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[ritu]

JDG wrote:

> What are you basing your view of "most peoples' usage" on?   I would
> love to see your evidence on this point.  So far as I know, I am using
> abortion in the standard sense of the killing of a unborn child.

There is nothing standard about using the term 'abortion' to refer to
'killing an unborn child'. The standard defintion of abortion covers areas
like 'termination of pregnancy', or 'the expulsion of a foetus' [hint: in
the latter definition, do consider just where the foetus is supposed to be
expelled from]. In fact, in all my 34 years, you are the first person I've
ever come across who seems to think that clumps of cell on a petri dish
can be aborted. I would like to see *your* evidence that this is a
standard usage of the term.

> Which brings me back to my question - what term would you have me use
> for the killing of unborn unimplanted children?

Discarding foetuses, or implants, works for me.

And I must say that while I can easily think of implanted zygotes as
children [especially when they are mine], it is too much of a stretch for
me to consider unimplanted ones as kids. Might as well start feeling
guilty about deforestation everytime I eat a sprout...

Ritu

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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Doug Pensinger]

JDG wrote:


Well, obviously I disagree.  You haven't really provided any
evidence to back your view that it "is very close to zero", other
than to refer me to Charlie's posts.  As near as I can tell,
Charlie's posts are a "long run" argument.   Well, in the "long run"
we're all dead.   In the meantime, that could be tens of millions of
people being born into unbalanced generations.


Here's some evidence; Chinese sex ratio male/female 1.06/1  Indian sex 
ratio 1.07/1 this despite a extremely strong bias towards males and 
despite pre-birth methods to identify the sex of the child (ultrasound) 
for over 20 years.  You suggest that the U.S. could reach a ratio of 3:1 
in a short period of time despite having no sexual bias.  I'm sorry John, 
but the suggestion is absolutely off the scale ridiculous.




If we couldn't make laws based on imaginary scenarios, we also
wouldn't have laws banning the sale of prescription drugs until they
have undergone clinical trials.


Drugs often have unintended side effects.  Not imaginary.


I also think that we have the experience of countries like India and
China to suggest that in the short term, it is possible for
misaligned incentives to cause parents to produce imbalanced
generations.


Not anything remotely close to the 3:1 ratio that you have suggested 
_despite_ a strong cultural bias towards male offspring.



Here's the thing, Doug.   Either you agree that the State has a role
in preventing misaligned generations, or you don't.


Sure they have a role: monitor the ratio and if it looks like there might 
be a problem take appropriate action.


I'm not at all

sure if you are denying the role of the State to prevent misaligned
generations, or are just saying that our particular State (the USA)
shouldn't be taking any action at this time.


Neither.  I'm saying the state has a role if and when there is a problem.


Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy.  I mean really, are
you going to ban sunglasses next because they might block the
twinkle in Daddy's eye?


Abortion is the killing of an unborn child, plain and simple.


That's your definition, not common usage.


I can't believe that after all my years on the List you could still
bring up the tired old saw about "every sperm is sacred", as if you
*still* don't recognize where I see the difference.


I know where you see the difference but I think you are being pedantic and 
I think that you tend to focus on the symptoms of a problem rather than 
the problem itself. Here you are focusing on a procedure that allows folks 
to choose the sex of their child, but the problem is the _attitude_ (in 
places like China) that creates the desire for male children and a 
male/female offset.  Change the attitude and you go a long way towards 
solving the problem.  But if you prohibit the procedure, chances are 
people will find a way to do it anyway because you haven't changed their 
attitude.


With abortion in general you again focus on prohibiting them while the 
real problem in most cases is unwanted pregnancy.  If you reduce unwanted 
pregnancy you will reduce the call for abortion.  If you outlaw abortion 
in South Dakota, people will go to Minnesota to get one.  You haven't 
solved anything.



How many times does it need to happen for it to be a "problem"?


As with many other things, it's a judgment call.

I’ve got to say, I admire your tenacity.  I barely have the time and/or 
patience to keep up with you alone.  If I had two or three other people 
pounding on me, I’d probably give up.


--
Doug
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Richard Baker]

JDG said:


A tumor is clearly a growth of an existing individual.


Would you consider a clone to be a person? After all, clones are  
"growths of an existing person" too, and being or not being a growth  
of an existing person doesn't seem to be a particularly strong  
condition for establishing personhood.


Rich

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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[jdiebremse]

Doug,

I had no idea you were taking my 75% ratio literally.   Sorry about
that.

> With abortion in general you again focus on prohibiting them while
> the real problem in most cases is unwanted pregnancy.  If you
> reduce unwanted  pregnancy you will reduce the call for abortion.
> If you outlaw abortion
> in South Dakota, people will go to Minnesota to get one.  You
> haven't
> solved anything.

That's like saying that the problem isn't robbery, its that other
people have more stuff than me!And like saying that if you
outlaw murder, people will still commit murders - you haven't solved
anything.

Sorry, but a societal recognition that human life begins at
conception, and a general prohibition on abortion will certainly
reduce the number of abortions from today's level.

> I've got to say, I admire your tenacity.  I barely have the time
> and/or  patience to keep up with you alone.  If I had two or three
> other people pounding on me, I’d probably give up.

Given how many people are dying, I sometimes wonder if I have any
other choice.  Or as the pro-choice Michael Kinsley recently put it:
 "sincere right-to-lifers deserve respect as that rarity in modern
American politics: a strong interest group defending the interest of
someone other than themselves."

Thanks for the compliment.

JDG





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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Robert Seeberger]

jdiebremse wrote:
> Doug,
>
> I had no idea you were taking my 75% ratio literally.   Sorry about
> that.
>
>> With abortion in general you again focus on prohibiting them while
>> the real problem in most cases is unwanted pregnancy.  If you
>> reduce unwanted  pregnancy you will reduce the call for abortion.
>> If you outlaw abortion
>> in South Dakota, people will go to Minnesota to get one.  You
>> haven't
>> solved anything.
>
> That's like saying that the problem isn't robbery, its that other
> people have more stuff than me!And like saying that if you
> outlaw murder, people will still commit murders - you haven't solved
> anything.
>
> Sorry, but a societal recognition that human life begins at
> conception, and a general prohibition on abortion will certainly
> reduce the number of abortions from today's level.

Should women who get abortions get the death penalty?
Or just 10 years?
Or [with irony] 18 years?
If you want abortion to be a crime you must have some kind of penalty 
in mind and you must want to put more people in our overcrowded 
prisons otherwise it is no use criminalizing abortion.
You do understand this will be a very frequently avoided, evaded, and 
broken law?

How much jail time should the doctor(if it is indeed a medical 
professional) get?
Should a jailbird doctor have his/her medical liscense 
revokedpermanantly?

>
>> I've got to say, I admire your tenacity.  I barely have the time
>> and/or  patience to keep up with you alone.  If I had two or three
>> other people pounding on me, I’d probably give up.
>
> Given how many people are dying, I sometimes wonder if I have any
> other choice.  Or as the pro-choice Michael Kinsley recently put it:
>  "sincere right-to-lifers deserve respect as that rarity in modern
> American politics: a strong interest group defending the interest of
> someone other than themselves."
>
> Thanks for the compliment.
>
I admire you for taking a moral stand, even though I feel that 
criminalizing abortion would be unwise.

xponent
Consequences Maru
rob 


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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[ritu]

Robert Seerberger wrote:

> Should women who get abortions get the death penalty?
> Or just 10 years?
> Or [with irony] 18 years?
> If you want abortion to be a crime you must have some kind of penalty
> in mind and you must want to put more people in our overcrowded
> prisons otherwise it is no use criminalizing abortion.

Maybe we can just brand 'baby-killers' on their foreheads and let them go
free

> You do understand this will be a very frequently avoided, evaded, and
> broken law?

More importantly, it will lead to a sudden spike in back alley abortions
and deaths/medical complications resulting from unhygienic
conditions/minstrations of a quack.

> How much jail time should the doctor(if it is indeed a medical
> professional) get?

And are there any acceptable exceptions? Like danger to the mother's
health? For the doctor *is* bound to consider his patient's well-being
first, and the unborn baby hasn't hired the doctor...

Also, once, if, the abortion rates go down, who does what to ensure that
the unwanted born babies are nurtured properly?

Ritu

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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Alberto Monteiro]

Ritu wrote:
>
>> You do understand this will be a very frequently avoided,
>> evaded, and broken law?
> 
> More importantly, it will lead to a sudden spike in back alley
> abortions and deaths/medical complications resulting from
> unhygienic conditions/minstrations of a quack.
> 
Maybe this is a Good Thing(tm), as it will improve the human
race with lots of Darwin-awards, culling motherlovelessness
from the human gene pool!

Alberto Monteiro

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RE: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Dan Minette]

> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
> Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Wednesday, July 19, 2006 1:08 PM
> To: Killer Bs Discussion
> Subject: Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex
> Importance: High
> 
> And are there any acceptable exceptions? Like danger to the mother's
> health? For the doctor *is* bound to consider his patient's well-being
> first, and the unborn baby hasn't hired the doctor...
> 
> Also, once, if, the abortion rates go down, who does what to ensure that
> the unwanted born babies are nurtured properly?

Well, the unwanted ones could be humanely killed after 10 days, like the
ASPCA does. 

Now, I know that's a sarcastic...but the sarcasm wasn't really aimed at you.
The purpose of it is to illustrate how different fundamental assumptions
result in different reasonable statements.  Reason allows us to develop
theorems from axioms.  It can also show inconsistencies between different
axioms.  But, we cannot distinguish between self-consistent axiom sets by
logic alone.  One needs an outside reference.

So, I don't think it is helpful to make arguments based on one's own axiom
set and then expect them to sound "reasonable" to someone who holds a
different axiom set.  What we can do is look at the consequences of various
definitions.  I'll give an off the wall example.  If one defines humans as
the literate animal, and that one must be literate to be human, than it is
not murder to kill anyone who cannot read and writefor whatever reason.
I'd bet dollars to donuts that no one on this list believes this, but I hope
it illustrates the idea.


Dan M.


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RE: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Alberto Monteiro]

Dan Minette wrote:
> 
> So, I don't think it is helpful to make arguments based on one's own 
> axiom set and then expect them to sound "reasonable" to someone who 
> holds a different axiom set.  
>
Or we can hold "all" sets of axioms, assign a prior probability
to each of them, then apply Bayesian analysis with real world
examples and get a posteriori probability for each sets. And
then decide based on some conservative criterium, like "do not
kill if it's murder with 5% or more probability".

Alberto Monteiro

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RE: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[ritu]

DanM wrote:

> > And are there any acceptable exceptions? Like danger to the mother's
> > health? For the doctor *is* bound to consider his patient's well-being
> > first, and the unborn baby hasn't hired the doctor...
> >
> > Also, once, if, the abortion rates go down, who does what to ensure
> > that the unwanted born babies are nurtured properly?
>
> Well, the unwanted ones could be humanely killed after 10 days, like the
> ASPCA does.

Eh? But what happens to he right to life from the moment of conception
then? Does that right end after birth?

> Now, I know that's a sarcastic...but the sarcasm wasn't really aimed at
> you. The purpose of it is to illustrate how different fundamental
> assumptions result in different reasonable statements.

But wasn't the fundamental assumption here each individual's right to
life? Even *before* they can take care of themselves? How does that change
just because the baby is out of the uterus? And babies can't take care of
themselves - they still need nurturing, especially for the first couple of
years. And in the absence of that nurturing, they can die. Or receive
crippling physiological and/or psychological injuries.

> So, I don't think it is helpful to make arguments based on one's own
> axiom set and then expect them to sound "reasonable" to someone who
> holds a different axiom set.

Could you please explain the bit about different axiom sets? Is it because
I think that the right to life is enjoyed even after birth and JDG was
just talking about until birth? That's not different axiom sets, Dan. That
is just a difference in the length of time we are considering. Everything
else is the same - the individual, and his/her right to life.

Ritu
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[David Hobby]

Alberto Monteiro wrote:

Dan Minette wrote:
So, I don't think it is helpful to make arguments based on one's own 
axiom set and then expect them to sound "reasonable" to someone who 
holds a different axiom set.  


Or we can hold "all" sets of axioms, assign a prior probability
to each of them, then apply Bayesian analysis with real world
examples and get a posteriori probability for each sets. And
then decide based on some conservative criterium, like "do not
kill if it's murder with 5% or more probability".

Alberto Monteiro


Alberto--

Interesting, but there might be some obstacles.  There are
an infinite number of axiom sets based on the pronouncements
of gods.  I imagine that we would have some difficulty
agreeing on what probability to assign them.  : )

(The obvious solution is to assign all gods probability
zero, but that too might prove unpopular...)

---David

Infinity is messy  Maru
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RE: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Dan Minette]

> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
> Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Wednesday, July 19, 2006 9:58 PM
> To: brin-l@mccmedia.com
> Subject: RE: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex
> 
> DanM wrote:
> 
> > > And are there any acceptable exceptions? Like danger to the mother's
> > > health? For the doctor *is* bound to consider his patient's well-being
> > > first, and the unborn baby hasn't hired the doctor...
> > >
> > > Also, once, if, the abortion rates go down, who does what to ensure
> > > that the unwanted born babies are nurtured properly?
> >
> > Well, the unwanted ones could be humanely killed after 10 days, like the
> > ASPCA does.
> 
> Eh? But what happens to he right to life from the moment of conception
> then? Does that right end after birth?

No, absolutely not.  But, I've heard this argument many times with respect
to abortion and have not heard it once with respect to infanticide.  There
is no pro-choice movement with respect to infants.  Let's assume, for
arguments sake, that abortion and infanticide are considered equally
wrongbut that letting unwanted children live is also wrong.  Since fewer
children would die if you gave the children a chance to be born and
selected, then that would be the lesser evil.  Right to life people would
then have the challenge of finding people ready to adopt within 10 days.
That rule would at least give pro-life people a chance to save their lives.


Now, I admit, I am guessing that you don't make the same argument with
respect to the legality of infanticide.  Also, referencing the damage to
women in back alley abortions as a counter to ending abortions, if the right
of an unborn child was equal to the right of the woman who carried that
child, then shouldn't protecting the child against getting killed be more
important than ensuring that it is safe for the mother to kill her child?


> But wasn't the fundamental assumption here each individual's right to
> life? Even *before* they can take care of themselves? 

Absolutely.  In a sense, I'm arguing that your statements tacitly assume
that there is a significant difference in the state before and after birth.
Again, I may be surprised by your views on the treatment of childrenand
I don't believe I can tell you what you think.  I'm just using the general
principal that if A and B are equivalent, then a statement that is correct
when A is the subject is also correct when B is the subject.

>How does that change
> just because the baby is out of the uterus? And babies can't take care of
> themselves - they still need nurturing, especially for the first couple of
> years. And in the absence of that nurturing, they can die. Or receive
> crippling physiological and/or psychological injuries.

It doesn't.  That's why it was a sarcastic statementI don't really mean
it.  But, if I had a choice between certain death and a chance at a long
full life ahead of me I'd take the latter.  I assume most folks would. 
 
> Could you please explain the bit about different axiom sets? Is it because
> I think that the right to life is enjoyed even after birth and JDG was
> just talking about until birth? That's not different axiom sets, Dan. That
> is just a difference in the length of time we are considering. Everything
> else is the same - the individual, and his/her right to life.

The fundamental axiom difference is this: the pro-life position holds that
fetuses are humans with human rights.  The pro-choice position holds that
they are not.

Dan M. 


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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[jdiebremse]

--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "Robert Seeberger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> Should women who get abortions get the death penalty?

Actually I don't believe in the death penalty... except in extreme
cases (i.e. the level of Osama bin Laden or John Allen Muhammad.)

JDG




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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[ritu]

DanM wrote:

> > Eh? But what happens to he right to life from the moment of conception
> >then? Does that right end after birth?
>
> No, absolutely not.  But, I've heard this argument many times with
> respect to abortion and have not heard it once with respect to
> infanticide.  There is no pro-choice movement with respect to infants.

I'll point this out only once, but it is applicable to various parts of
your post: You seem to be arguing this in the framework of the US abortion
debate, and you seem to be expecting me to do the same. I am not sure why.
I was asking questions I consider worth asking, to ascertain just what JDG
thinks. But, or so I feel, you perceived these as the standard pro-choice
arguments. I could be wrong but that seems to be the most valid reason for
why I can't understand some parts of your answers.

Now, moving on to the quoted text: Dan, just what *could* be a 'pro-choice
movement for infants'? What is the choice here? To treat them well or not?

> Let's assume, for arguments sake, that abortion and infanticide are
> considered equally wrongbut that letting unwanted children live is
> also wrong.  Since fewer children would die if you gave the children a
> chance to be born and selected, then that would be the lesser evil.
> Right to life people would then have the challenge of finding people
> ready to adopt within 10 days. That rule would at least give pro-life
> people a chance to save their lives.

You lost me somewhere there. I have no idea what your point is. Surely you
are not advocating that a woman goes through an unwanted pregnancy to give
birth to a child who might be killed 10 days later if the Right-to-Lifers
don't deliver? I mean, why? So that the Right-to-lifers have the chance to
do something worthwhile? Why does the society, or that mother or that
child owe them so much? Try as I might, I can see *no* sense in that
hypothesis.

> Now, I admit, I am guessing that you don't make the same argument with
> respect to the legality of infanticide.

What? That they should be killed if the parents don't promise to take good
care of them within 10 days of birth? Hell, no. Not when I come from a
society and polity which has been fighting *against* female infanticide
for decades. So not only is infanticide illegal, we no longer depend on
the promises of the parents either. Currently, we are paying parents of
girls a small lump sum at birth, monthly stipends for their daughters'
food, two meals in school and a daily sum for attending school, and
setting aside a fund for their marriage expenses. The taxpayers are paying
for it, and willingly. For these are the biggest problems when it comes to
assuring a decent life for the girl child: that the parents don't kill her
because they worry about her dowry, that her parents feed her, and that
they send her to school.

> > Also, referencing the damage to women in back alley abortions as a
> > counter to ending abortions, if the right of an unborn child was equal
> > to the right of the woman who carried that child, then shouldn't
> > protecting the child against getting killed be more important than
> > ensuring that it is safe for the mother to kill her child?

Well, I can see no way on ensuring that all pregnant women report their
pregnancies, and their unwillingness to be pregnant, to someone who might
stop them from the abortion attempts. So, as far as I can see, the choice
is between losing one life or two.

> > But wasn't the fundamental assumption here each individual's right to
> > life? Even *before* they can take care of themselves?
>
> Absolutely.  In a sense, I'm arguing that your statements tacitly assume
> that there is a significant difference in the state before and after
> birth.

Umm, Dan, that is not an assumption, that is a fact. There *is* a
difference between a zygote in a petri dish, and one implanted inside a
uterus. A difference between a zygote and a 4 month foetus, a difference
between the latter and a seven month foetus, one between the latter and a
new born baby, another between the latter and a toddlerright until the
difference between an old man and a dead man.

> Again, I may be surprised by your views on the treatment of
> children

If this had been written by anyone else, I'd be wondering how sheltered a
life they had led. But since I know what your wife does, I can only assume
that you are not refering to my statement that kids can be, and are,
horrifically abused, or abandoned, or killed, or hurt. So what are you
refering to?

> > How does that change
> > just because the baby is out of the uterus? And babies can't take care
> > of  themselves - they still need nurturing, especially for the first
> > couple of  years. And in the absence of that nurturing, they can die. 
> > Or receive  crippling physiological and/or psychological injuries.
>
> It doesn't.  That's why it was a sarcastic statementI don't really
> mean it.  But, if I had a choice between certain death and a chance at

Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Doug Pensinger]

JDG wrote:


That's like saying that the problem isn't robbery, its that other
people have more stuff than me!And like saying that if you
outlaw murder, people will still commit murders - you haven't solved
anything.


That's one way of looking at it.  Another is that we do everything we can 
to treat the root problem with robbery; we teach our children that its 
wrong, we lock our doors etc. etc., but we don't take the prevention of 
the conditions that lead to abortions as seriously because many of our 
religions are against the solutions that have been proven to work well 
(such as sex education and contraception.)  Another problem with your 
analogy is that just about everyone agrees that robbery is flat out wrong 
while a large majority disagree with your view that the only time an 
abortion should be allowed is when the life of the mother is in jeopardy.



Sorry, but a societal recognition that human life begins at
conception, and a general prohibition on abortion will certainly
reduce the number of abortions from today's level.


That may be true, but such recognition is highly unlikely to happen.  I 
think that you dedication is laudible but that you are tilting at 
windmills.  I would think that changing the Catholic Church's stance on 
contraception would also be effective in reducing the number of abortions, 
and that it would be easier to accomplish.



Given how many people are dying, I sometimes wonder if I have any
other choice.  Or as the pro-choice Michael Kinsley recently put it:
"sincere right-to-lifers deserve respect as that rarity in modern
American politics: a strong interest group defending the interest of
someone other than themselves."



Thanks for the compliment.


8^)

--
Doug
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Brother John]

At 11:48 AM 7/19/2006, Alberto Monteiro enlightened us with:

Maybe this is a Good Thing(tm), as it will improve the human
race with lots of Darwin-awards, culling motherlovelessness
from the human gene pool!


This has always been my feeling, but this is the first time I've 
admitted it to anyone.  I'm far too politically correct.



John W. Redelfs[EMAIL PROTECTED]
===
Is World of Warcraft the new golf?  The mainstream media
is starting to say so.  Let me know if you play.  Maybe we
can get together.
===
All my opinions are tentative pending further data. --JWR 


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RE: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Dan Minette]

> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
> Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Thursday, July 20, 2006 12:04 AM
> To: brin-l@mccmedia.com
> Subject: Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex
> 
> DanM wrote:
> 
> > > Eh? But what happens to he right to life from the moment of conception
> > >then? Does that right end after birth?
> >
> > No, absolutely not.  But, I've heard this argument many times with
> > respect to abortion and have not heard it once with respect to
> > infanticide.  There is no pro-choice movement with respect to infants.
> 
> I'll point this out only once, but it is applicable to various parts of
> your post: You seem to be arguing this in the framework of the US abortion
> debate, and you seem to be expecting me to do the same. I am not sure 
> why.-

Because questions about human rights before birth are, inherently, questions
concerning abortion.  They don't affect what happens after birth.  



> I was asking questions I consider worth asking, to ascertain just what JDG
> thinks. But, or so I feel, you perceived these as the standard pro-choice
> arguments. I could be wrong but that seems to be the most valid reason for
> why I can't understand some parts of your answers.

OK, it may be coincidental that you use the exact same arguments that
pro-choice people do.  But, I cannot understand the 

> Now, moving on to the quoted text: Dan, just what *could* be a 'pro-choice
> movement for infants'? What is the choice here? To treat them well or not?

The choice would be to allow new mothers to kill their infants.  Some do,
and they are charged with murder.  In other cultures, such as ancient Rome,
the patriarch of the family had the right of life and death over every
member of his family.

> > Let's assume, for arguments sake, that abortion and infanticide are
> > considered equally wrongbut that letting unwanted children live is
> > also wrong.  Since fewer children would die if you gave the children a
> > chance to be born and selected, then that would be the lesser evil.
> > Right to life people would then have the challenge of finding people
> > ready to adopt within 10 days. That rule would at least give pro-life
> > people a chance to save their lives.
> 
> You lost me somewhere there. I have no idea what your point is. Surely you
> are not advocating that a woman goes through an unwanted pregnancy to give
> birth to a child who might be killed 10 days later if the Right-to-Lifers
> don't deliver? I mean, why? 

So the child has at least a chance to live. Think of the pro-life group as
an advocacy group for those who cannot speak for themselves.  The most
critical right of any human being is the right to life.  If someone has no
right to stop another from killing them, then they have no rights at all.

>So that the Right-to-lifers have the chance to
> do something worthwhile? Why does the society, or that mother or that
> child owe them so much? 

No-one owes pro-lifers them anything.  The thesis is that the mother and
society owe the child at least a chance at life.  For a right-to-life
person, every child has an inalienable right to life.  The only possible
exception is when their right to life conflicts with the right to life of
the mother.  The mother's health is important, of course, but not as
critical as the child's life.  One would wish, of course, to choose both,
but when push comes to shove, the right to life predominates.  

I'll use pro-life language here, to illustrate the point.  In a society, the
right to life is the paramount right.  No one has the right to kill another
person.  In particular no-one has the right to kill innocent life in cold
blood.  That's what abortion is, the cold blooded killing of innocence.  

The scenario I proposed was a "half-a-loaf" thought.  If it is impossible to
stop all murder, it is still worthwhile to stop some.  And, with this
scenario, the right-to-life people have at least a chance to save every
child's life.  A chance to save a human life is better than no chance to
save a human life.

Again, to be clear, the rights I am discussing are the rights of the child
to life.  The pro-life group is an advocacy group for the rights of
others...the rights of unborn human beings to live.


>Try as I might, I can see *no* sense in that
> hypothesis.

Did my explanation help?



> > Now, I admit, I am guessing that you don't make the same argument with
> > respect to the legality of infanticide.
> 
> What? That they should be killed if the parents don't promise to take good
> care of them within 10 days of birth? Hell, no. Not when I come from a
> society and polity which has been fighting *aga

Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Charlie Bell]

On 20/07/2006, at 12:23 AM, Dan Minette wrote:



So, I don't think it is helpful to make arguments based on one's  
own axiom

set and then expect them to sound "reasonable" to someone who holds a
different axiom set.  What we can do is look at the consequences of  
various

definitions.


This is the point I was heading for.

Now, I don't think it's wrong to say that human life starts at  
conception, but I just think it's meaningless, as a zygote isn't  
actually any more human than an ovum - it's still a single cell.  
Sure, it's been given the infusion of extra DNA and the biological  
kick that'll



I'll give an off the wall example.  If one defines humans as
the literate animal, and that one must be literate to be human,  
than it is
not murder to kill anyone who cannot read and writefor whatever  
reason.
I'd bet dollars to donuts that no one on this list believes this,  
but I hope

it illustrates the idea.


It's a good example.

Here's another, to illustrate the point - a fertility clinic is on  
fire. The fire service is 20 minutes away, and can't help. On one  
floor, there are 100 infants. On another, is the frozen embryo  
storage facility, with 100 liquid nitrogen storage containers, each  
containing 100 embryos. You can only keep the fire from getting to  
one of the floors long enough to clear it, the other will be lost.  
What do you do?


I'd be willing to bet that nearly everyone would save the 100 infants  
over the 10,000 embryos. Because, no matter how much the "right to  
life" is espoused, no matter how much some people talk of embryos as  
"children" and claim they see them as equal, people do value babies  
more. And if you can understand why, then you can understand why  
abortions up to 1/3 to 1/2 of the way through pregnancy are not  
considered murder by a lot of people.


Charlie
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Charlie Bell]

On 21/07/2006, at 4:32 PM, Charlie Bell wrote:



Now, I don't think it's wrong to say that human life starts at  
conception, but I just think it's meaningless, as a zygote isn't  
actually any more human than an ovum - it's still a single cell.  
Sure, it's been given the infusion of extra DNA and the biological  
kick that'll


...set off cell division, but that cell division will not progress  
beyond a certain point without implantation.


Hate it when I do that. Blame the jet lag.

Charlie.
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Gary Denton]

Technically, 10,000 frozen embryos could be considered equal to 1,666
children considering the success rate of implantation.  You could make
a case to rescue those instead of a hundred infants but in nearly all
foreseeable circumstance I wouldn't.

I don't consider frozen dots human... These periods are the size of a
frozen human embryos.

There are 400,000 frozen embryos in the United States.  Suppose I save
Bush and the Snowflake clinic a lot of time and just run around and
adopt them all.  I'll store them in an ice cream container in my
freezer. While trying to decide how to choose who I'll give them to my
freezer gets too hot. It may be just the normal temperature I run it
at could be too warm for long term embryo viability, but it looks like
they spoil.  I don't want spoiled stuff in my freezer. I have also
been getting afraid anyway I might confuse it with ice cream in the
dark and am worried what they would taste like. So I toss them into my
garbage.  One melting pail of 400,000 embryos, adios.

Now, am I the individual biggest mass murderer in US history?  Or am I
someone who just took out the garbage?


On 7/21/06, Charlie Bell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


On 20/07/2006, at 12:23 AM, Dan Minette wrote:

>
> So, I don't think it is helpful to make arguments based on one's
> own axiom
> set and then expect them to sound "reasonable" to someone who holds a
> different axiom set.  What we can do is look at the consequences of
> various
> definitions.

This is the point I was heading for.

Now, I don't think it's wrong to say that human life starts at
conception, but I just think it's meaningless, as a zygote isn't
actually any more human than an ovum - it's still a single cell.
Sure, it's been given the infusion of extra DNA and the biological
kick that'll

> I'll give an off the wall example.  If one defines humans as
> the literate animal, and that one must be literate to be human,
> than it is
> not murder to kill anyone who cannot read and writefor whatever
> reason.
> I'd bet dollars to donuts that no one on this list believes this,
> but I hope
> it illustrates the idea.

It's a good example.

Here's another, to illustrate the point - a fertility clinic is on
fire. The fire service is 20 minutes away, and can't help. On one
floor, there are 100 infants. On another, is the frozen embryo
storage facility, with 100 liquid nitrogen storage containers, each
containing 100 embryos. You can only keep the fire from getting to
one of the floors long enough to clear it, the other will be lost.
What do you do?

I'd be willing to bet that nearly everyone would save the 100 infants
over the 10,000 embryos. Because, no matter how much the "right to
life" is espoused, no matter how much some people talk of embryos as
"children" and claim they see them as equal, people do value babies
more. And if you can understand why, then you can understand why
abortions up to 1/3 to 1/2 of the way through pregnancy are not
considered murder by a lot of people.

Charlie


--
Gary Denton
Odds&Ends - http://elemming.blogspot.com
Easter Lemming Liberal News -http://elemming2.blogspot.com
http://www.apollocon.org  June 22-24, 2007
I ncompetence
M oney Laundering
P ropaganda
E lectronic surveillance
A bu Ghraib
C ronyism
H ad enough?
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Ray Ludenia]

On 21/07/2006, at 4:47 PM, Charlie Bell wrote:


Hate it when I do that. Blame the jet lag.


Welcome to our newest Aussie member!

Regards, Ray.

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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Charlie Bell]

On 21/07/2006, at 9:14 PM, Ray Ludenia wrote:



On 21/07/2006, at 4:47 PM, Charlie Bell wrote:


Hate it when I do that. Blame the jet lag.


Welcome to our newest Aussie member!


Cheers Ray. We'll come down and see you sometime, but probably not  
'til October at the earliest - it's a bit hectic at the mo.


Charlie
GCU Not Actually Australian Yet, But Resident
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[jdiebremse]

--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Charlie Bell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Here's another, to illustrate the point - a fertility clinic is
> on fire. The fire service is 20 minutes away, and can't help. On
> one floor, there are 100 infants. On another, is the frozen
> embryo storage facility, with 100 liquid nitrogen storage
> containers, each containing 100 embryos. You can only keep the
> fire from getting to one of the floors long enough to clear it,
> the other will be lost.
> What do you do?
>
> I'd be willing to bet that nearly everyone would save the 100
> infants  over the 10,000 embryos. Because, no matter how much
> the "right to life" is espoused, no matter how much some people
> talk of embryos as  "children" and claim they see them as equal,
> people do value babies more. And if you can understand why, then
> you can understand why
> abortions up to 1/3 to 1/2 of the way through pregnancy are not
> considered murder by a lot of people.

This is, of course, an absurd hypothetical, sort of like the
questions we used to ask as a kid - would you rather slide down a
set of razors into a pool of rubbing alcohol or be burned alive?

Anyhow, if one changes the example such that on the second floor are
150 Senior Citizens, I suspect that most people save the infants
first.   Of course, I doubt that you would then be reaching the
conclusions that Senior Citizens don't have the "right to live" or
that Senior Citizens aren't equal, and that killing a citizen isn't
murder.

QED.

JDG




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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Brother John]

Gary Denton wrote:


Technically, 10,000 frozen embryos could be considered equal to 1,666
children considering the success rate of implantation.  You could make
a case to rescue those instead of a hundred infants but in nearly all
foreseeable circumstance I wouldn't.

I don't consider frozen dots human... These periods are the size of a
frozen human embryos.

There are 400,000 frozen embryos in the United States.  Suppose I save
Bush and the Snowflake clinic a lot of time and just run around and
adopt them all.  I'll store them in an ice cream container in my
freezer. While trying to decide how to choose who I'll give them to my
freezer gets too hot. It may be just the normal temperature I run it
at could be too warm for long term embryo viability, but it looks like
they spoil.  I don't want spoiled stuff in my freezer. I have also
been getting afraid anyway I might confuse it with ice cream in the
dark and am worried what they would taste like. So I toss them into my
garbage.  One melting pail of 400,000 embryos, adios.

Now, am I the individual biggest mass murderer in US history?  Or am I
someone who just took out the garbage?


On 7/21/06, Charlie Bell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:



On 20/07/2006, at 12:23 AM, Dan Minette wrote:

>
> So, I don't think it is helpful to make arguments based on one's
> own axiom
> set and then expect them to sound "reasonable" to someone who holds a
> different axiom set.  What we can do is look at the consequences of
> various
> definitions.

This is the point I was heading for.

Now, I don't think it's wrong to say that human life starts at
conception, but I just think it's meaningless, as a zygote isn't
actually any more human than an ovum - it's still a single cell.
Sure, it's been given the infusion of extra DNA and the biological
kick that'll


You can say it's not human if you like, but genetically you are just 
wrong.  It is distinctly human and not of any other living species.  
Furthermore, it is alive.  If it were not, there would be no need to 
kill it. --JWR


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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Gary Denton]

On 7/22/06, Brother John <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Gary Denton wrote:

> Technically, 10,000 frozen embryos could be considered equal to 1,666
> children considering the success rate of implantation.  You could make
> a case to rescue those instead of a hundred infants but in nearly all
> foreseeable circumstance I wouldn't.
>
> I don't consider frozen dots human... These periods are the size of a
> frozen human embryos.
>
> There are 400,000 frozen embryos in the United States.  Suppose I save
> Bush and the Snowflake clinic a lot of time and just run around and
> adopt them all.  I'll store them in an ice cream container in my
> freezer. While trying to decide how to choose who I'll give them to my
> freezer gets too hot. It may be just the normal temperature I run it
> at could be too warm for long term embryo viability, but it looks like
> they spoil.  I don't want spoiled stuff in my freezer. I have also
> been getting afraid anyway I might confuse it with ice cream in the
> dark and am worried what they would taste like. So I toss them into my
> garbage.  One melting pail of 400,000 embryos, adios.
>
> Now, am I the individual biggest mass murderer in US history?  Or am I
> someone who just took out the garbage?
>
>
> On 7/21/06, Charlie Bell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>>
>> On 20/07/2006, at 12:23 AM, Dan Minette wrote:
>>
>> >
>> > So, I don't think it is helpful to make arguments based on one's
>> > own axiom
>> > set and then expect them to sound "reasonable" to someone who holds a
>> > different axiom set.  What we can do is look at the consequences of
>> > various
>> > definitions.
>>
>> This is the point I was heading for.
>>
>> Now, I don't think it's wrong to say that human life starts at
>> conception, but I just think it's meaningless, as a zygote isn't
>> actually any more human than an ovum - it's still a single cell.
>> Sure, it's been given the infusion of extra DNA and the biological
>> kick that'll
>
You can say it's not human if you like, but genetically you are just
wrong.  It is distinctly human and not of any other living species.
Furthermore, it is alive.  If it were not, there would be no need to
kill it. --JWR


It is not a free-standing individual but is at the stage of a
symbiotic parasite.   My definition of live human begins at a  later
stage.

 <-isn't this picture of frozen embryos cute.

--
Gary Denton
Odds&Ends - http://elemming.blogspot.com
Easter Lemming Liberal News -http://elemming2.blogspot.com
http://www.apollocon.org  June 22-24, 2007
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[John W Redelfs]

On 7/22/06, Gary Denton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:



> You can say it's not human if you like, but genetically you are just
> wrong.  It is distinctly human and not of any other living species.
> Furthermore, it is alive.  If it were not, there would be no need to
> kill it. --JWR

It is not a free-standing individual but is at the stage of a
symbiotic parasite.   My definition of live human begins at a  later
stage.



If there is a God, I wonder where his definition of a live human being
begins, and does he feel it is morally OK for each of us to have our own
personal definition that is different from his?  Is there any way to find
out without merely guessing or theorizing?  If we place the point at which
the organism is "viable," and can survive outside the womb without a
mother's love and care, then we deny the label "human" to many children and
even some adults.  Perhaps we should just kill every human organism that is
helpless and cannot sustain itself.  It would certainly solve a lot of the
problems with the elderly, the homeless, the handicapped, and the starving
poor of Africa and North Korea.  I'm not sure that even atheists and
agnostics would find that morally acceptable, although I cannot imagine why
not.  From my perspective, God is the source of all moral law.  And if there
is no God, or if his will is unknowable, then all things are equally moral.
And to be more precise, the concept of morality ceases to exist.  Of course,
that is just from my perspective.  People think and believe in a marvelous
variety of ways.  It seems to be as much a unique quality for each
individual as his face or his fingerprints.  We love to think that our
attitudes are all the result of reason, logic and carefully though out
positions.  But my observation over 61 years indicates to me that people
don't even know why they feel and believe as they do.  It is all determined
by mental processes that take place far deeper than that part of the mind
which we are aware of or have conscious control of.  And happiness for each
individual depends on how well we are able to live according to what we
really believe on this deeper, involuntary level.  People who outrage their
inner most convictions, the ones we are not even aware of on a conscious
level, can never be happy and often end up either suicidal or
self-destructive or both.

Just to be on the safe side, I personally opt for preserving all human life
from a zygote to a completely senile person well over a hundred years of
age. Why kill them?  They are going to die anyway.  Every living thing
does.  All we have to do is be more patient.  That some are unwilling to
wait for natural death seems morally risky to me.  Some women who abort
their children never recover emotionally but spend the rest of their lives
agonizing over the choice they made.  And this is undoubtedly true
regardless of what stage of development the unborn child was.  Not being a
woman who has ever aborted an unborn child, I cannot speak from experience.
But I imagine that for some women recovering from a youthful and foolish
decision to get an abortion is like trying to recover from sexual child
molestation.  There is a sense in which all of us are children and always
will be.

John W.
Redelfs
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
***
Do you play World of Warcraft?  Let me know.  Maybe we can play together.
***
All my opinions are tentative pending further data. --JWR
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Charlie Bell]

On 22/07/2006, at 8:14 PM, Brother John wrote:



Now, I don't think it's wrong to say that human life starts at
conception, but I just think it's meaningless, as a zygote isn't
actually any more human than an ovum - it's still a single cell.
Sure, it's been given the infusion of extra DNA and the biological
kick that'll


You can say it's not human if you like, but genetically you are  
just wrong.  It is distinctly human and not of any other living  
species.  Furthermore, it is alive.  If it were not, there would be  
no need to kill it. --JWR


Again I refer to HeLa cells. I haven't had a chance yet to respond to  
JDG's point, so I will here, because it's an important issue - being  
a human cell and being a human being are not the same thing.


A reminder, I referred to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa to show a  
case of free-living human cells.


JDG replied thus, a valid objection:

"It would seem to me that cancer cells likely fail at least one of  
the two tests, or both.  For one, many cancer cells do not seem to be  
individuals, any more than a free-floating blood cell is an individual."


True, many cancer cells do not. But some cancer cells are very close  
to amoebae in structure and behaviour, and multiply by binary  
fission. Is that not individualism?


His second objection was not valid.

"For two, the wikipedia entry you posted says that these cells in  
this case are not human, but are instead of another genera."


This using of "what things are called" to define what they are is a  
classic trick, but it's also a serious error. The map is not the  
territory. The same trick is used by creationists arguing against  
human evolution. As hominid fossils are divided by the genus _Homo_  
and others such as _Australopithecus_, and newly discovered fossils  
in the hominid family are placed in one of these groups, it's used as  
an argument that there are no transistional fossils between "ape" and  
"human". If it's in _Homo_, it's human, if it's not, it's not. Even a  
cursory look at the fossils shows you the stupidity of this line of  
reasoning, just as a walk across the border between two countries  
shows the arbitrariness of human national borders - there's rarely a  
geological or topological boundary, unless it's a coastline or a  
river, and even then it's still arbitrary.


HeLa cells have human DNA. They're tumour cells from a human cervical  
cancer patient. It has been proposed that as these cells are free- 
living that they could constitute an incidence of speciation, and a  
new name has been suggested (but is not universally accepted).


But the point remains. These are free living human cells, with a full  
complement of human DNA. That someone has suggested they're a new  
species is beside the point - these are free-living human cells... so  
why aren't they human beings with the same rights as the rest of us?


So, back to the start... "Genetically, you are just wrong". I'm not  
saying it's not a human cell. I'm not saying it's not human. I'm  
saying it's not the same as a human being, just as an egg isn't a  
chicken, and an acorn isn't an oak tree, and just as a HeLa cell  
isn't a human, even though it is genetically human and not of any  
other living species.


"Killing a cell" and killing a person aren't the same thing either.

Just to make it clear, this is what we're talking about having "full  
human rights":


http://www.advancedfertility.com/pics/8cellicsi.jpg

That's it. That's what these frozen embryos are.

Charlie.

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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[Charlie Bell]

On 23/07/2006, at 12:07 AM, jdiebremse wrote:



This is, of course, an absurd hypothetical, sort of like the
questions we used to ask as a kid - would you rather slide down a
set of razors into a pool of rubbing alcohol or be burned alive?



Maybe so.


Anyhow, if one changes the example such that on the second floor are
150 Senior Citizens, I suspect that most people save the infants
first.   Of course, I doubt that you would then be reaching the
conclusions that Senior Citizens don't have the "right to live" or
that Senior Citizens aren't equal, and that killing a citizen isn't
murder.


Nice sidestep, and nice way to avoid the answer.

And this:

http://www.advancedfertility.com/pics/8cellicsi.jpg

is not a citizen.

Charlie
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Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex

[jdiebremse]

--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Charlie Bell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> His second objection was not valid.
>
> "For two, the wikipedia entry you posted says that these cells in
> this case are not human, but are instead of another genera."
>
> This using of "what things are called" to define what they are is
> a  classic trick, but it's also a serious error.
>
> HeLa cells have human DNA. They're tumour cells from a human
> cervical  cancer patient. It has been proposed that as these cells
> are free- living that they could constitute an incidence of
> speciation, and a  new name has been suggested (but is not
> universally accepted).
>
> But the point remains. These are free living human cells, with a
> full complement of human DNA. That someone has suggested they're a
> new species is beside the point - these are free-living human
> cells... so why aren't they human beings with the same rights as
> the rest of us?

Do the cells *really* have human DNA?   The wikipedia mentions their
extraordinary reproductive properties - don't these properties
necessitate some sort of change in the DNA?   After all, if you took
cells from my Mom's cervix, they wouldn't keep propagating in a
laboratory.   This possibility that they have non-human-DNA is
perhaps particularly instructive if further proof is assembled for
the theory that a virus is at the root of many cancers.

The possibility of HeLa being a separate species is hardly "beside
the point" - it is the point.   If HeLa cells are not human, then
they don't have human rights - they would have all the rights of a
paramecium.   In all honesty, I can't even understand for a second
how you could argue that the humanity or non-humanity of the HeLa
is "beside the point" - but perhaps that is at the heart of our
failure to communicate.

> "Killing a cell" and killing a person aren't the same thing either.

At the heart of the issue is individuality.   Killing a cell from an
individual is one thing, killing an entire individual is another.

> Just to make it clear, this is what we're talking about
> having "full
> human rights":
>
> http://www.advancedfertility.com/pics/8cellicsi.jpg

Of course, the images are ancillary to your argument, because you
dont think that this: http://tinyurl.com/hwenv has human rights
either.

JDG





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