Hacker News Reader

Comment by natecavanaugh | Hacker News Reader

Your other comments make me think you're someone who appreciates an honest discussion, so thanks for that. I do have an honest question of the reverse. Those most in favor of homosexuality are also those okay with abortion.

But if parents started aborting because they were homosexual, would there be any sort of moral/ethical issue?

Other comments have rightly commented it could be inverse (selecting for homosexuality), but I think all pro-lifers would prefer anyone being born, and allowing them to be responsible for their own soul, so that answer is easier for me to imagine.

View on HN

> Other comments have rightly commented it could be inverse (selecting for homosexuality)

I brought it up elsewhere, but this is an idea suggested in the book "The Forever War" as a way to control the population expansion.

I don't have a problem with (the concept) people selecting OUT homosexual children because I believe that there are people who will remain who will select them IN.

On a deeper level, I suspect that homosexuality is more complex than a few genetic markers - that there are epigenetic pressures there as well, and that there is a social/biological reason for their existence.

Homosexuality isn't a recent development, it isn't some "modern" issue. The Native Americans had a very different take on homosexuals than we do currently. Our outlook has shifted several times in the last few hundred years as well (the interwar period in Europe as an example). There are even some stunning modern examples that are rather counter intuitive to those who are ill informed (Iran and its views on trans genders).

> But if parents started aborting because they were homosexual, would there be any sort of moral/ethical issue?

Not more so than terminating a pregnancy for any other reason.

Doesn't sound like it.

Usually it's for some reason that's justifiable, e.g. don't have the means to support it, don't want a child ever/at this moment in my life, teenage pregnancy, product of rape, fetus has some inherited disease, etc.

Merely dropping a child because it'll be gay, while being ok to keep another that wouldn't is not exactly of that nature.

Even the most casual reasoning for abortion ("I don't want a child, period") doesn't imply anything more, whereas this can be seen as implying you hate gay people.

> fetus has some inherited disease

By your logic, if homosexual attraction had genetic causes, could it not also be seen as "some inherited disease"?

You're doing a great deal of question begging. You're beginning with an ideological stance vis-a-vis homosexual attraction that is exactly a point of issue, and then tailoring moral arguments to suit the position. You've confused "the position that homosexual attraction is disordered" with "hating gay people" and then unjustifiably construed "hating gay people" as not entailed by the desire to terminate a pregnancy for whatever reason, i.e., it's okay to terminate a pregnancy for whatever reason unless the reason is that the fetus is genetically conditioned for homosexual attraction, in which case it isn't okay because that would be an act of hate against gay people by virtue of my prior ideological commitments.

You must see the absurdity of that line of thought.

The position of sound anti-abortionists would be that no matter the characteristics of the fetus, the fetus is a human being and the killing of any innocent human being is immoral. Your position, on the other hand, seems to be very ad hoc, relying on special pleading that is driven by prior sui generis ideological commitments.

Firstly, homosexuality has been declassified as a disorder by American psychological and psychiatric associations for several decades now [1]

Secondly, how is terminating a pregnancy because the fetus is going to be a homosexual person different from terminating because of a specific gender of the fetus? For example, in India aborting because the fetus is female is illegal or it’s rather illegal to find the gender of the baby before he or she is born.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_and_psychology Edit: typos

>By your logic, if homosexual attraction had genetic causes, could it not also be seen as "some inherited disease"?

Since it doesn't affect one's capacity to live, work, perform, etc and general health, then it could be seen as such (if one was willing to) but not justifiably more than e.g. having blue eyes.

You're talking about rationalisations. The subjective ethical considerations depend on the context in which the decision is taken, and none of this discovery changes the context.

>You're talking about rationalisations.

And morality is all about rationalizations.

>The subjective ethical considerations depend on the context in which the decision is taken, and none of this discovery changes the context.

Of course it does, as it adds another factor one can request an abortion for -- and the preference against or for that (having a gay baby) is not morally seen as neutral as e.g. not wanting a sickle cell anemic baby.

> Those most in favor of homosexuality are also those okay with abortion.

I am not sure this is the case. In the GP comment, he took a population for whom both elements (homosexuality and abortion) are forbidden. You are not allowed to support either of them.

If you are not in that population, you can have an opinion on either element, independently.

This said, a liberal perspective for one element may (or is more likely) to also be true for the other one.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com