Humans have long attempted to use science as a clumsy tool to separate groups of people into categories of superiority and inferiority. Cloaked in a veil of pseudoscience meant to give credibility to personal beliefs, this valuation of human beings has been applied to many differences including race, ethnicity, gender, and in Mr. Blasiak’s op-ed, sexuality. The historical and widely documented impact of this pseudoscientific practice on human lives is appalling. Biologically, the categories of male and female are referred to as an organism’s sex, not its gender as Mr. Blasiak suggests. This is a very important distinction because it is the difference between “I make egg cells” and “I am supposed to wear pink.” Earthworms are one counter example to Blasiak’s claim that “At any time, all multicellular organisms function as either male or female,” because when two earthworms copulate they both give and receive seminal fluid simultaneously. Interestingly, female whiptail lizards show two gender roles during mating behavior, but both subsequently reproduce asexually! According to Blasiak’s use of “mommy” as a female who contributes genetic material to an offspring, technology has in fact created healthy babies with two mommies and a daddy. A mother’s mitochondrial DNA known to carry dangerous mutations is replaced with another female’s mitochondrial DNA, thereby resulting in an embryo holding three people’s DNA. We live in a world of over seven billion human beings who, unlike blue jays and spiders, have developed very complex cultures. My husband and I chose to adopt, and it is my belief that my life’s work and service is my contribution to, in Blasiak’s words, “allow our species to survive and flourish.” Collective knowledge and behaviors will shape the future of mankind more than passing along a strand of my DNA.

Amanda Laughner

South Deerfield