

Sexual Reproduction for Same-Sex Couples? - alexbiz
http://www.chromosomechronicles.com/2009/07/29/sexual-reproduction-for-same-sex-couples/

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lotharbot
Being able to reproduce without needing functional male/female sex organs,
using only skin cells and technology, is an interesting step. It could
theoretically apply to same-sex couples, the elderly, children, or people with
various disabilities, injuries, or other forms of infertility.

The same-sex focus of this article (specifically, the "OMG this totally
defeats an objection to gay marriage" bit in the intro) is an unnecessary
politicizing of an otherwise technologically/biologically interesting concept.

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alexbiz
Very good point, I wasn't saying it totally defeats all objections to gay
marriage, just the specific reproductive argument against it. But I agree,
politics does tend to detract from science.

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lotharbot
In general, I think people who make the "reproductive" argument mean "
_natural_ biological reproduction".

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rsheridan6
It's a little tougher than this article makes it sound. iPS cannot do
everything that embryonic stem cells can do, and he cited a paper that has
been retracted: [http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/07/journal-
ed...](http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/07/journal-editor.html)

(bottom line - the "sperm" created for iPS don't really work as such)

It's still probably coming eventually. And why stop there? Polyamorous
n-tuples could have a kid who was a mix of varying proportions of the parents.

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JoeAltmaier
A lot of trouble for very little? If its absolutely important for your
children to be statistically correlated to you, beyond the 99.9% that all
humans are ALREADY correleated? It's been said that adoptive children are
sometimes loved too.

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rsheridan6
Four billion years of evolution have tended to make us prefer our own children
to those of others.

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JoeAltmaier
Which probably doesn't relate much to laboratory modification of your genome.

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rsheridan6
It relates to your previous comment.

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JoeAltmaier
It seems a very conscious act to go to the trouble to modify your genome in
the lab. Leaving little room for evolutionary impulse to be the guiding
factor.

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alexbiz
Women could actually outgrow their "need" for men in reproducing. Its kind of
scary.

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jules
Luckily for us evolution won't catch up any time soon :) They still have the
same hormones the same brains, etc.

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bpick
This strikes me as something that could be revolutionary. Specifically, it
stirs up memories of sci-fi novels and movies where advanced races have given
up sex and sexual reproduction because it's "Too messy."

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lsb
Whereas some enjoy it for that very reason.

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pavel_lishin
Can't wait for fundies to decry this as science overturning the will of god.

The same fundies whose infertile wives undergo medical treatment to enable
them to conceive.

