Timothy F. Murphy

A critical review of the debate over the still-hypothetical possibility of prenatal intervention by parents to select the sexual orientation of their children. Parents routinely turn to prenatal testing to screen for genetic or chromosomal disorders or to learn their child's sex. What if they could use similar prenatal interventions to learn (or change) their child's sexual orientation? Bioethicists have debated the moral implications of this still-hypothetical possibility for several decades. Some commentators fear that any scientific efforts to understand the origins of homosexuality could mean the end of gay and lesbian people, if parents shy away from having homosexual children. Others defend parents' rights to choose the traits of their children in general and see no reason to treat sexual orientation differently. In this book, Timothy Murphy traces the controversy over prenatal selection of sexual orientation, offering a critical review of the literature and presenting his own argument in favor of parents' reproductive liberty. Arguing against commentators who want to restrict the scientific study of sexual orientation or technologies that emerge from that study, Murphy proposes a defense of parents' right to choose. This, he argues, is the only view that helps protect children from hurtful family environments, that is consistent with the increasing powers of prenatal interventions, and that respects human futures as something other than accidents of the genetic lottery.

Ethics, Sexual Orientation, and Choices about Children

Nietzsche as Educator

Tim Murphy

Loriann Hoff Oberlin

Examines the causes, characteristics, and stages of uncontrollable anger in children; and provides parents suggestions on ways to cope by helping children understand their feelings and interact with others.

Regaining Control when Your Child is Out of Control

The Angry Child

Gay Science is the first comprehensive examination of the ethical questions surrounding sexual orientation research. Bioethicist Timothy Murphy presents the views of many gay men and women who detect ominous motives behind this research. If a genetic marker were discovered for homosexual tendencies would genetic screening be used to further discriminate against gay people? If a method for changing sexual orientation were developed would it would be forced upon gay adults, or children whose parents suspected they might grow up to be gay? Given the potential for its misuse, is sexual orientation research fundamentally unethical? Murphy acknowledges that much of sexual orientation research to date has been bad science, questionable in its motives and methodologically unsound. He examines the social and historical conditions, from the 1880s to the present, that spawned this research and reviews the findings that have often perpetuated confusion about homosexuality. He assesses five major studies on sexual orientation undertaken in the 1990s, from neuroanatomist Simon leVay's study of certain brain structures in gay men to the work of psychologist Joseph Nicolosi. He questions the flawed and simplistic assumptions about sexuality made by much of this research, Murphy argues that a true science of sexual orientation would not be focused exclusively upon homosexuality nor presuppose its pathology. Throughout the book Murphy argues that concerns about the potential misuses of this research do not justify its prohibition. Tackling gay science's most troubling aspects, he contends that if this research leads to the development of effective sexual orientation therapies, informed adults should have the choice to undergo them; he also examines the factors that weigh in favor of a parental right to choose or attempt to influence the sexual orientation of a child, and the ethical limits to such a right. Pointing to the potential benefits of sexual orientation research as well as acknowledging its potential for harm, Murphy ultimately defends gay science in the name of free scientific inquiry. Gay Science argues that the way to ensure the future of gay people is not through censoring sexual orientation research but through working toward a society which uses reseach as a way of dinstinguishing myth from fact and not as an instrument of discrimination.

The Ethics of Sexual Orientation Research

Gay Science

The Reader's Guide to Lesbian and Gay Studies surveys the field in some 470 entries on individuals (Adrienne Rich); arts and cultural studies (Dance); ethics, religion, and philosophical issues (Monastic Traditions); historical figures, periods, and ideas (Germany between the World Wars); language, literature, and communication (British Drama); law and politics (Child Custody); medicine and biological sciences (Health and Illness); and psychology, social sciences, and education (Kinsey Report).

Reader's Guide to Lesbian and Gay Studies

Marc A. Lappé

The Human Genome Project is an expensive, ambitious, and controversial attempt to locate and map every one of the approximately 100,000 genes in the human body. If it works, and we are able, for instance, to identify markers for genetic diseases long before they develop, who will have the right to obtain such information? What will be the consequences for health care, health insurance, employability, and research priorities? And, more broadly, how will attitudes toward human differences be affected, morally and socially, by the setting of a genetic “standard”? The compatibility of individual rights and genetic fairness is challenged by the technological possibilities of the future, making it difficult to create an agenda for a “just genetics.” Beginning with an account of the utopian dreams and authoritarian tendencies of historical eugenics movements, this book’s nine essays probe the potential social uses and abuses of detailed genetic information. Lucid and wide-ranging, these contributions will interest bioethicists, legal scholars, and policy makers. Essays: “The Genome Project and the Meaning of Difference,” Timothy F. Murphy “Eugenics and the Human Genome Project: Is the Past Prologue?,” Daniel J. Kevles “Handle with Care: Race, Class, and Genetics,” Arthur L. Caplan “Public Choices and Private Choices: Legal Regulation of Genetic Testing,” Lori B. Andrews “Rules for Gene Banks: Protecting Privacy in the Genetics Age,” George J. Annas “Use of Genetic Information by Private Insurers,” Robert J. Pokorski “The Genome Project, Individual Differences, and Just Health Care,” Norman Daniels “Just Genetics: A Problem Agenda,” Leonard M. Fleck “Justice and the Limitations of Genetic Knowledge,” Marc A. Lappé This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1994.

Timothy F. Murphy

About

Books

Join the club