Would prenatal testing for sexual orientation undermine gay rights?

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Image via Pacific Standard. Credit StillFX/ShutterStock

In a New York magazine piece, “The Science of Gaydar,” writer David France looks at the growing scientific evidence for innate differences between gay and straight people. France ends by gazing toward the future, and asks the question, “What if prenatal tests were able to show a predisposition to gayness?”

Sure, it ought to be the case that defending the rights of parents to use this technology doesn’t ultimately undermine queer rights, but it seems hard to believe that in practice it won’t lead to support of the idea that one ought to try not to have a gay child—just as in practice the prenatal test for trisomy 21 (Down’s syndrome) has led to a general attitude that one ought to try not to have a child with trisomy 21.

Read the full, original story here: Should We Be Allowed to Choose the Sexual Orientation of Our Children?

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