Make what you want of this story at the Daily Mail On-line and the future Carl Djerassi, the inventor of oral contraceptives, sees of children being born without the necessity of sex. I think it further demonstrates the changing attitudes some have about procreation as an industry and children as a purchasable product. The strangest part, and the part that interested me most because it goes entirely unchallenged by the reporter, is the portion of the article in which Djerassi discusses the impact “the pill” had on culture. Oddly, an increase in STI’s is never even mentioned, but abortion does come up. Here is the highlight:
The Pill gave women freedom from the fear of pregnancy and the horror of backstreet abortion, but many see it as a cursed invention that is almost single-handedly to blame for the sexual revolution which brought about — as its critics see it — a wholesale collapse of moral values across the Western world.
Djerassi does not concur with this damning verdict on the legacy of his invention. He argues that society was changing anyway; the Pill just smoothed the way.
"The sexual revolution of the Sixties coincided with the introduction of the Pill — the Pill did not bring it about," he says bluntly. "The Pill came along at the right time, in the same period as hippy culture, the drug culture and rock ’n’ roll culture.
"That the Pill facilitated that direction is absolutely true, but I believe it would have happened anyway. Not as explosively, but more gradually. It would have happened in exactly the same way."
And he says it is a myth that everyone started having a lot more sex with multiple partners — that his invention effectively allowed the risk-free one-night stand to flourish as it never could before.
"Women were having sex before the Pill, but they were getting pregnant and having abortions. The Pill helped to stop that," he says. (HUH?!!) Emphasis and interjection mine.
I am sure am glad that the pill put a stop to women getting pregnant and having abortions! Great follow up question there by the reporter as well! I guess we can shut down the blog and call Scott home. The pill ended abortion. Good news! Deluded, perhaps?
HT: The Drudge Report
Jay - The Daily Mail forgot to mention at the start of the article that all of England and the majority of the Continent would be Muslim by 2050 because commercial propagation wouldn't keep up with natural reproduction. (Dammed terrorists and their little kids!)
ReplyDeleteYou bring up a point about procreation as an industry and I rarely see that, so I want to bounce something off you to see what you think.
Over the last year I've argued that legalizing same-sex marriage was tantamount to the government establishing a market in humanity, because such recognition of sterile couples promotes artificial propagation while downplaying natural familes. The observation is: if one sex is not necessary for a family, neither is the other. The two mono-sex pairs cancel each other out.
With children as products serious constitutional issues are raised between the 13th and 14th amendments. It becomes a strange argument - children are a hair away from being direct products for purchase, even in "love".
Besides the obvious points of eugnics through selective reduction, and the potential of a protracted legal civil war - much like the abortion issue - the horror of DNA manipulation await this brave new world.
Do you see anything logically wrong with such an argument?
Chris,
ReplyDeleteGive me some time to look at that and process it. I will be replying in more depth, but I am busy right now and did not want you to think I was ignoring the comment.
I take logical constructions very seriously and so I tend not to respnd to them without spending some time looking for holes.
God bless,
Jay