Yesterday it was reported that a group of scientists had put forward a new theory that epigenetic marks may play a key role in determining why people are gay. According to press reports, these “epi-marks” determine how genes are expressed and are normally “erased” between generations, but in cases where they are not erased, they may be passed on from a mother or father in a way that can lead to a child becoming gay.

Which means, according to Bryan Fischer, that homosexuality might be a “birth defect” which could lead prospective parents to choose abortion:

As I have said before, I suspect that not even homosexual activists today want the gay gene to be found, even if it exists, because of advances in prenatal genetic testing. It is now possible to routinely screen for 3500 genetic defects while a child is still in the womb.

So these activists rationally fear that preborn children who are detected with this gene will be aborted before they even have the chance to be born. After all, if 90% of babies in the womb who are diagnosed with Downs syndrome never draw their first breath, what are the chances that parents disposed to abortion will not exercise the same choice with regard to the gay gene?

The scientists in Koebler’s article, in my view, are now resorting to genetic subterfuge and are coming dangerously close to saying that homosexuality is the result of a genetic defect, a genetic abnormality. In other words, read from one angle, these same scientists are saying that homosexuality is the result of a birth defect.

…

So in other words, when something goes wrong genetically, and these markers are not erased, the epi-markers which provide an evolutionary advantage to parents instead do evolutionary damage to their offspring.

Now these researchers are quite at pains to avoid saying anything like this, but the logic to me seems inescapable: Homosexual children, on this theory, are born evolutionarily and genetically disadvantaged. They have been overexposed or underexposed to testosterone because something has gone wrong in the process of genetic transmission. In other words, they are the product of a genetic abnormality at best, a birth defect at worst.

… I expect many abortion-minded parents will want to know exactly how strong this epi-marker is in their unborn children so they can decide whether or not to exercise reproductive choice.

In fact, I expect that if this theory gains some currency, it will not be long before we have legislation from the homoexual lobby prohibiting “sex-selection” abortions on any child carrying this epi-marker.