some weird thoughts about making babies
This thought process was sparked by my friend Ron a couple years ago. This was soon after his nephew was born. It was pretty much a consensus that he was the best baby ever, and he was telling his sister-in-law that if he ever wanted to make a baby (he's gay), that he would want her to mother it. The logic is pretty sound. If a father and a mother make an awesome baby, then the father's brother and the same mother should make a similarly awesome baby.
Flash forward to basically now. In evolution class, we were talking about coefficients of relatedness. Basically, it's calculated how related you are to some based on how much identical DNA you have with them. For example, you share half of your DNA with your mom and half with your dad, so your coefficient of relatedness to either of them is 1/2. relatedness is also 1/2 for siblings. As you go further out, it's 1/4 for grandparents, aunts/uncles, and nieces/nephews, and only 1/8th for cousins. This concept is used in evolution to explain why animals sometimes help out their family members at their own expense: Although they might be burdening themselves and might not have as many offspring, if they save their sibling's life, and their sibling has a bunch of babies, their genes (or some of them, anyways) are still getting passed on.
ANYWAYS, I brought this back to Ron's comment. What would be the coefficient of relatedness between his nephew and this hypothetical baby? According to my calculations, it would be 3/8ths, which I believe would make them not half-brothers, but three-quarter brothers.
Then, I started thinking about possibilities for my baby-making. If I ever decide to settle down with someone (who, let's face it, is very likely to be male) and we want to raise a child, there are different ways of going about this. I know that the traditional thing to do is adopt, and there are many, MANY children out there who are without homes, but for the sake of discourse, let's say we want to raise a child who is genetically related to us. The next idea to probably come to mind is that one of us fertilize a surrogate mother, such that one of us is the true father. The problem with this is that only one of us would be genetically related to the child. Maybe we could make one each, but then they would be "mine" and "his" which doesn't feel right to me, and what if we only want one kid?
Let's take this one step further... what if the surrogate mother were my sister (for his sperm) or his sister, should he have one (for my sperm). This is better, since we would both be related to the child, but still, the coefficient of relatedness would be 1/2 for one father, and 1/4 to the other. As such, I determined that the most-related-yet-equal way to do it would be for the one's brother to fertilize the other's sister. This way, both of us would be related to the child by 1/4, as is the relatedness of an uncle.
So! I wanna know what people think. I am sure there are many fundamentalists out there who would think this to be the most perverse thing that homosexuals have ever done. I can understand that there might be something wrong with it, but I want to discuss secular morality, not religious. Do you think this would be okay? Do you think this would be a fucked up thing to put a child through? Do you think it's just weird?
Please share your thoughts. Don't be afraid to speak your mind; I won't get offended. I'm trying to wrap my head around this myself.
Thanks in advance for your contributions =)
Flash forward to basically now. In evolution class, we were talking about coefficients of relatedness. Basically, it's calculated how related you are to some based on how much identical DNA you have with them. For example, you share half of your DNA with your mom and half with your dad, so your coefficient of relatedness to either of them is 1/2. relatedness is also 1/2 for siblings. As you go further out, it's 1/4 for grandparents, aunts/uncles, and nieces/nephews, and only 1/8th for cousins. This concept is used in evolution to explain why animals sometimes help out their family members at their own expense: Although they might be burdening themselves and might not have as many offspring, if they save their sibling's life, and their sibling has a bunch of babies, their genes (or some of them, anyways) are still getting passed on.
ANYWAYS, I brought this back to Ron's comment. What would be the coefficient of relatedness between his nephew and this hypothetical baby? According to my calculations, it would be 3/8ths, which I believe would make them not half-brothers, but three-quarter brothers.
Then, I started thinking about possibilities for my baby-making. If I ever decide to settle down with someone (who, let's face it, is very likely to be male) and we want to raise a child, there are different ways of going about this. I know that the traditional thing to do is adopt, and there are many, MANY children out there who are without homes, but for the sake of discourse, let's say we want to raise a child who is genetically related to us. The next idea to probably come to mind is that one of us fertilize a surrogate mother, such that one of us is the true father. The problem with this is that only one of us would be genetically related to the child. Maybe we could make one each, but then they would be "mine" and "his" which doesn't feel right to me, and what if we only want one kid?
Let's take this one step further... what if the surrogate mother were my sister (for his sperm) or his sister, should he have one (for my sperm). This is better, since we would both be related to the child, but still, the coefficient of relatedness would be 1/2 for one father, and 1/4 to the other. As such, I determined that the most-related-yet-equal way to do it would be for the one's brother to fertilize the other's sister. This way, both of us would be related to the child by 1/4, as is the relatedness of an uncle.
So! I wanna know what people think. I am sure there are many fundamentalists out there who would think this to be the most perverse thing that homosexuals have ever done. I can understand that there might be something wrong with it, but I want to discuss secular morality, not religious. Do you think this would be okay? Do you think this would be a fucked up thing to put a child through? Do you think it's just weird?
Please share your thoughts. Don't be afraid to speak your mind; I won't get offended. I'm trying to wrap my head around this myself.
Thanks in advance for your contributions =)