Subject: Submission: Dreaming in the Womb
From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 1997 23:20:32 -0500 (EST)

Op-Ed Article From:

THE PRO-LIFE ALLIANCE
OF GAYS AND LESBIANS

Post Office Box 33292
Washington, DC 20033
Tel: (202) 223-6697
Fax: (202) 265-9737
Internet:  Plagal [email-masked]

The following is submitted as a Op-Ed Article in connection with the 25th
Anniversary of the Supreme Court's tragic decision in Roe v. Wade by the
Pro-Life Alliance of Gays and Lesbians.  It may also be published as a Letter
to the Editor.

		A WORLD WITHOUT GAYS?  
BEAM ME UP, SCOTTY!

	"Well!" I fumed as we emerged from the movie house., "I guess as far as Star
Trek's concerned, there are still no gay people in the 24th Century."

	Greg and I had just seen Star Trek: First Contact, and as we walked out into
the December night I pointed out in exasperated detail that every other
minority group was represented among the crew of the Enterprise except gays
and lesbians.  Not that we needed to be popping out from every control panel
or beaming down on every transport just to make a point, I acknowledged, but
we needed at least to be there.  

	Greg flashed me a mischievous smile and replied, "Well, who knows?  Maybe
we're not there.  Maybe they finally found the gay gene and we were all
eradicated before the days of Kirk and Spock."

	He chuckled at his own joke, but suddenly he sobered.  "You know," he
continued thoughtfully, "it is possible, isn't it?  I mean, if science could
isolate the gay gene, we could be engineered out of existence --  and maybe
in the next thirty years instead of the next three hundred."

	And of course, we could be.  The discovery of the "gay gene", which most of
us are convinced exists, will be a double-edged sword for gays and lesbians
when and if it happens.  On the one hand, it would demolish forever the
argument that gays "choose" their orientation and are thus undeserving of
protected  minority status like African-Americans or the handicapped.  But on
the other hand, if the exact cause of our sexual orientation could be
determined, it would be no time at all before science offered a "cure" for
homosexuality --  perhaps not for those of us who are already legally
recognized as persons in our own right, but certainly for prospective parents
who might be "at risk" of giving birth to a gay son or lesbian daughter.  And
if the cure turned out to be too expensive --  well, there would be another
option for parents who didn't want the responsibility of bringing a
"different" child into the
world.  Thanks to Roe v. Wade, they could always choose abortion.     
	What's that you say?  No woman would choose to abort a child simply because
of his or her sexual orientation?  I'm "fearmongering" in an effort to drive
a wedge between gay activists and the pro-choice movement?  Not at all.  I'm
simply a gay man who's looking the facts squarely in the face and inviting my
brothers and sisters in the community to do the same.  

	If some women are already having abortions because the child they're
carrying is of the "wrong" sex, do you really think that women in the future
will hesitate to abort a child because he or she has the "wrong" sexual
orientation?  Remember, one of the grounds on which pro-choicers justify
abortion is that every child should be "wanted."  You don't want a gay child?
 Fine!  You can get rid of it.

	And such fears are anything but exaggerated.  For example, John Fortunato,
in Embracing the Exile, recounts that after a young man named Tim came out to
his parents, ". . . his mother approached him.  She put her arm around his
shoulders.  Tim took this to mean that she was going to accept him. 'Tim,"
she said, 'I've made only one mistake in my life.'  Tim asked her what she
meant.  'Twenty-two years ago,' she said, 'I should have had an abortion.'
 This is no isolated instance.  In the now-famous report on teen suicide that
Dr. Louis Sullivan suppressed during his tenure as United States Secretary of
Health and Human Services, there is an account of a gay teenager who was
thrown out of his home when his parent's discovered his sexual orientation.
 When he tried to reconcile with his parents by calling them from a pay
phone, the boy's mother told him point-blank that had she known when she was
carrying him that he would grow up to be homosexual, she would have aborted
him then and there.

	A rare case, you say?  Enlightened, liberal, and well-meaning parents
wouldn't dream of doing such a thing?  It's comforting to suppose so, but I
wouldn't bet on it.  In fact, some might very well decide that aborting their
unborn gay child would be in the child's  best interest.  As one woman I know
put it: "Why should I bring a child into the world whom I know is going to
have to deal with all this bigotry and hate?  Why bring up an innocent child
to face that?  So, yes, I would have an abortion if I knew my child would
grow up to be homosexual."

	In other words, "Trust me, dear, you're better off dead."

	Given the hard facts, the great question becomes, what are gays and lesbians
going to do now to prepare for a time when a woman's "right to choose"
becomes a hunting license to exterminate our kind?  For that time may well be
coming -- perhaps as soon as within the next two or three decades.  Do we
really think that we can educate society out of its anti-gay prejudices by
then?  Or do we as a lesbian and gay community need to reconsider the whole
issue of abortion?

	After all, if a woman's "right to choose" is absolute, then a woman is free
to have an  abortion for any reason _ even blind, irrational anti-gay
prejudice.  If gays and lesbians want to object to aborting the gay and
lesbian unborn on grounds that we are persons of worth and dignity who have a
right to grow up and lead productive and fulfilling lives, then we have
another issue to confront.  Because if we have a right to life, doesn't every
other unborn child have that same right? 

	In the end, gays and lesbians my find that for us, the issue of abortion
boils down to a choice between defending the lives of all unborn, or
sanctioning our own extinction.  As science closes in on the gay gene, "going
boldly where no one has gone before", it may be that more and more
"pro-choice" gays and lesbians are going to start listening to the arguments
of their pro-life brothers and sisters and then say, "Beam me up, Scotty." 

------------------
Tom Sena is the Founder and a current Vice-President of  the Pro-Life
Alliance of Gays and Lesbians (PLAGAL), which was  organized in 1990 to
advance the pro-life cause within the lesbian and gay community.  PLAGAL has
approximately five hundred members and active groups in Boston, Cleveland,
Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC.