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Silverfoxesclub-digest In this issue:
-Re: Gay couples fathering children together? (11) ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Fw: Gay couples fathering children together?
Ben, this makes me very uncomfortable. In reading the article as reproduced
here, I don't understand the source of the eggs.
This may be a good thing not only for gay couples but some of us that have
problems. I went through chemo about 8 years ago which caused problems with
producing "macho" sperm. Maybe they will be able to take some of my
lathargic sperm, reporduce them, send em to the gym for a workout, and give
me a chance at the second child I really wanted.
****** BEN::::response to your question asking how you "feel" about the human cloning experiments in Japan. Cloning in general sounds like something that would be abused. If it is so "easy" to clone someone, then humans would become "disposable". ..A friend or relative gets killed in a car accident.. Oh well, just scrape off some DNA from the windshield and make (clone) another one.
However, if it is easy for a gay man to have a child by one manner or
another, then there really should not be much objection if a gay man would
want to adopt a child. I think it is a wonderful possibility for some couples, but many would not have the maturity to follow through with the proper parenting required for the rest of one's life. Although I have two adult children with my former wife, and four grandchildren, there was a man with whom I would have been ecstatic if we could have had a child.
Re Al Boen's concern about the source of eggs, it would be from a
consenting woman with her genetic material removed from the otherwise
intact egg.
Check out
http://malepregnancy.com
an interesting site sorta on this subject.
personally think it is a feasible concept. :o) The URL http://malepregnancy.com sent in by Jamie helps to answer the question for me. If male partners can use their sperm to fertilize a human female's "sanitized" egg and one of them can carry the foetus to term, I have no moral principles to compromise in the matter of their having a child. However, I think there are too many people in the world already, and so I find Dennis's comment about adoption quite agreeable. Adoption of babies already here should be made easy for gay people who want to asssume the responsibility.
The breeders believe they have a right to as many offspring as the females
can bear no matter who tries to limit them, encouraged by the Pope and his
right-wing allies worldwide. The one-family-one-child policy in China has
been as effective as don't-ask-don't-tell in the United States military:
zilch. The breeding goes on, hardly unabated. Therefore, long live adoption,
and for those gays who want their personal sperm in the gene pool together,
go for it! While I marvel at the technological advances achieved over the past century, even in my lifetime (33 yrs), this prospect sends a freezing chill all the way down my spine and back up again. Too many times Man has tried to play God and suffered the consequences, or avoided it by the skin of his teeth. Man started to feed normally herbiovorous animals animal proteins and inflicted BSE on the world. He made Dolly, the cloned sheep, and also cloned cows, only to find that the "clock" inside the animals' cells was not reset to the time of conception but to the age of the "parent" from which the stem cells were harvested. And now scientists want to produce not just babies but even the gametes which make up the zygote in a test-tube! The thought makes me shudder - not so much because of ethical issues as because of the big unknown. It's true we've learned a hell of a lot about genetics, but if we still don't know enough about it to stamp out genetic diseases like cancer, how can we claim to know enough to create viable human egg cells? Nothing I can do or say will prevent these scientists from proceeding with their tests. If things *do* go wrong then at the best no fertilisation will take place, but at the worst the embryo will develop in to a deformed and/or malfunctional foetus. What do you do with it then? - and no, I'm not against abortion, but that's an entirely different issue. We mustn't lose sight of the fact that these are not just any old experiments. We're talking about human lives here, and possibly even the future of Mankind as a whole.
My bottom line is that I'd feel *much* more comfortable about it if we had a
better understanding of genetics than we do today.
Could someone send me the text of that website http://malepregnancy.com sent in by Jamie...? I tried to access it but
couldn't; I am confused as to how a man can carry a fetus, as he does not
have vital parts, it would seem to me, and not wanting to be totally
stupid, the baby would have to be removed by caesarian, right? Sure, Bob. A young man from Taiwan named Lee Mingwei (Mr. Lee), who now lives in Manhattan, is actually carrying a child in his stomach. There is an interview with him on the site, and Web cam connections to actually see him. He grew up in a Ch'an Buddhist monastery in Taiwan and seems to be fulfilling spiritual principles by doing this. I think he may be gay. Below is the essential text on the site for you to understand the process involved. There was a funny movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger a few years ago about a man using his body to incubate a child.
STEP 1: HORMONES
STEP 2: IMPLANTATION
STEP 3: EMBRYO GROWTH
STEP 4: GROWTH OF THE FETUS:
STEP 5: DELIVERY Sorry Ben: You probably expected an answer very quickly. I consider things as bovines chew. I sit and ruminate mentally. I rather think artificial production of life will be well received by the corporatist governers. They will at last be able to have the perfect labour supply that will not talk back. Engineering can produce the exact number of cyber slaves to keep things going. Street people will thus be prevented. Selective breeding in the tube for different physical traits will assure the right set of muscles are applied to the appropriate work. No doubt the ability to engineer human life will be a novelty at first, (Oh, let's give him blue eyes and ebony hair, and olive complexion, like your father.) No doubt everyone will read in the Beaulah Valley Bugle about how well the new system is working. Most will simply believe it, because the Bugle is the newspaper and "they" do not tell lies. Hack, cough, gag. It will take several mental flip-flops before the above fable could come about. I can imagine a biblical verse appearing from the slumber of several centuries to "bless" the production of children by gay people, children who will "serve." It used to be in some societies skin colour decided your place in the work force. Maybe it would be possible to even breed a nice lable on the left arm of each little engineered bundle. This would prevent kidnapping and child switching in hospitals, don't you know? Wouldn't want someone kidnapping our little gardener and mechanic from the nursery. Maybe it won't be that way at all. Maybe after several generations of proper breeding, the "serviants" will revolt and play dialectics and reactionaries. It certainly will be interesting living with the monsters from the tube. Probably the question is how to anticipate monsters who will want to produce monsters
There is always a possibility that something will go
right and human ingenuity will produce something other
than a system that controls wrongly. I am waiting
optimistically for this event, however, and my
optimism diminishes by the day. cyber-cynic
I was under the impression that HTML posts were either
discouraged or prohibited on this list (which is as it should
be for the good of all). However I'm getting a number of
posts that are not in the preferred 'plain text' format.
Headline:
1) Queer as Folk makes Tom Shaless Top 10
Text: (Ben Boxer sez: Hey, I told you so after I saw the first episode. More of this, and the world may start to think we are real people!) 2) Janet Jackson is facing a $10 million lawsuit from her estranged husband, Rene Elizondo, over money he claims he is owed for her Rhythm Nation 1814 album, and now the Scottish Daily Record reports that Elizondo is threatening to reveal sordid secrets about Jacksons private life if she doesnt pay up. Jackson, 33, says she is heterosexual, but Elizondo claims to have details of her liaisons with other women. (Ben Boxer sez: Go, Janet! Maintain Jackson family tradition. Do it, but deny it!) 3) Soulforce, a grassroots ecumenical group, and Dignity, a group for gay Catholics, plan to hold a series of protests at the Vatican from January 3 to January 7 against the churchs stand on homosexuality. The protesters will bring gifts for orphans, battered women, and people living in an AIDS hospice, which they will carry daily to St. Peters Square. The protesters will wear shirts that read Gods gay children bring gifts. Bless them. (Ben Boxer sez: Yes, bless them, Your Holiness, instead of damning the handiwork of God. That's supposed to be the work of the Devil. Are your wires crossed, Holy Father? People of your persuasion often point a finger at gay sufferers from AIDS and say they got the dread disease as a punishment from God. You have never corrected them. The Vatican announced today that you are suffering terribly from incurable Parkinson's disease. Is that YOUR punishment, sir? Are we now expected to feel compassion for YOU?) 4) Keith Elston, head of Outright Vermont, a group for gay and lesbian youth, was fired last month after calling a state education official at home to complain about the education departments denial of funds to the group. The education department had decided not to turn over $12,000 to Outright, although the money was allocated for that purpose. Conservatives in the state have complained that the group promotes homosexuality. (Ben Boxer sez: Perhaps the money should be spent promoting homophobia. State conservatives would doubtless agree to that.) 5) The housing commissioner for Baltimore was arrested at a bar in the city early Friday morning after allegedly disparaging patrons he believed to be gay. Paul Graziano, 47, was charged with disorderly conduct for refusing to leave the bar in the historic Fells Point waterfront district. Graziano admitted that he had been drinking too much and said he did not recall the incident. I blacked out during that period, Graziano said. I have no way to dispute it because I dont recall what happened.... Its certainly not representative of my feelings. Baltimore mayor Martin OMalley said he will not ask Graziano, who started his job in October, to resign. I think this persons character is that of a good and decent man who made a very bad mistake, said the mayor. (Ben Boxer sez: No homophobe is a good and decent man, drunk or sober.) 6) An unknown vandal scratched epithets condemning George W. Bush and gays last Friday on cars parked outside the Palo Alto, Calif., home of a former education adviser to the president-elect. The vandal damaged cars owned by neighbors of Bill Evers, a fellow at Stanford Universitys Hoover Institution. However, the worst damage was suffered by a Mercedes-Benz convertible owned by Everss wife. The car had its top slashed, side view mirror snapped off, and tires flattened. The vandal also scratched or wrote with an indelible marker Fascist and Nazi on the car as well as Fuck Bush and Fuck gays. They seem to be broad brushstrokes against everybody, police spokesman Dan Ryan said. They dont seem to have worked out their political philosophies, whoever did this.
(Ben Boxer sez: The above piece speaks for
itself, but I heard on Bill Maher's "Poliically
Incorrect" TV show the other night an amusing observation on the Bush
Administration: "They've got a Bush, a Dick and a Colin, i.e. "colon"; we
know what
those body parts are for.") Ben, you are so funny! "Do it, but deny it!" I love it! Actually, of all the Jacksons, I like Janet the best and think she is the most talented. Visually, of course, I don't know, but I do like some of her songs.
Bob and Harley
A note to all: ------------------------------ End of silverfoxesclub-digest V1 #97
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