Technology allows sex selection

Are we playing with things that should be left alone? I understand the desire to pick the sex of your child, but mother nature had reasons for doing things, if we turn into a world that chooses the sex of our children we may be opening a pandora's box.

Kristen and John Magill adore all three of their daughters -- 11-year-old twins and a 5-year-old baby sister. But when they began to plan for their next -- and last -- child, the Magills really wanted a boy.So the Magills combined a family trip to Disneyland in August with a stop at a Los Angeles fertility clinic that enables couples to pick the sex of their babies. Kristen is now expecting twin boys.

www.msnbc.msn.com...

the practice, which is prohibited in many countries, uses expensive medical care for frivolous purposes, destroys some embryos just because they are the "wrong" sex, and promotes gender discrimination. Moreover, the critics say, the trend is a dangerous first step toward transforming childbirth from a natural process full of surprise and wonder into just another commodity in which a baby's features are picked like options on a new car.

This practice has trouble written all over it! I don't know what all the implications could be, but I know that it is wrong! I have three children and part of the wonder of it is not knowing what to expect. God or nature has a plan that should be left alone!

Although I understand the perils of technology of this nature, I cant say that it will pose a problem in the big picture. Not if it stays an optional, expensive, elitist procedure.

You mentioned that its not allowed in some other countries and its an expensive process. This alone would keep the practice in check. The US only represents a small fraction of the worlds population. And the amount of people who actually have this available to them im sure is hardly measurable against the worlds population. I.e. the impact could hardly be measured.

Now, if this technology became legal and available to the entire world, then things would become interesting to say the least. Natural selection and evolution has made human reproduction the way it is for a reason and I agree that the ability to choose a gender would alter that in ways we could never predict.

In the example you stated I dont see any issues. After all, they didnt resort to this technique until they already had three girls. As far as having twins is concerned, thats a by product to fertility help, not gender selection.

This is definatly something that needs to be watched very closely.

Originally posted by jeeze louise
destroys some embryos just because they are the "wrong" sex, and promotes gender discrimination.

its an artificial insemination technique in which the parents are given multiple embryos to choose from. If they choose a boy over a girl, or vice versa, well, so be it. Most artificial insemination techniques and in vitro fertilization methods require that multiple eggs be harvested and multiple otherwise viable embryos be created and selected from.


But if you think sex selection is disturbing, think about selecting for brith defects, like, deafness. Surveys and studies have shown that some deaf parents would prefer to have a deaf child, many are willing to do genetic screening to make sure that they are having one, and some have even said that if they hah a hearing child that they'd have an abortion until they conceived a deaf one.

Conversely, many hearing parents would have abortions to prevent the birth of a deaf child, or a mentally handicapped child, or a deformed child.

With more genetic testing, people will be able to choose from a suite of features.

In some countries, liek India I beleive, the elimination of female children in favour of male children is starting to lead to a shift in the sexual demographics, with more men than women. Normally there are slightly more women than men.

[edit on 14-12-2004 by Nygdan]

I think things like this have a trickle down effect. What starts out as a good idea gets mutated and spreads, first you pick the sex of the child, then it turns to more mundane choices, might be that you want a blond little boy, or a little extra height, or the skinny gene. Anyway my point is things always get carried away, then mutations occur. Mother nature had a plan, and its proven to be a good one, once we start playing around with things we don't fully understand problems start popping out, I heard of something called the chaos therory, I am sure it can explain it far better that I can.

This may be the next step in evolution, and in my opinion may be the largest step we've ever taken evolutionarily in one quick swoop. Aside from the people wanting children with birth defects, if this procedure becomes more readily available to average people, then I think there will be a dramatic decrease in handicapped children and such, which will mean future generations will probably have less and less chances of having handicapped kids in the first place.

Is it playing God? Well, from my understanding if there is a God, he/she wouldn't let us "play" him/her like that. Cloning poses a similar question, but I don't think if it was such an abomination that God would allow us to do it. From what I understand, the male/female bodies are quite similar, there's just a few genes that differ between the two or something. Some babies are born with more than one sex, (or no sex...whatever), and the parents are forced to choose the baby's sex, otherwise leave the baby as a natural-born hermaphrodite. www.abc.net.au...

Does it encourage gender discrimination? I don't think so. Most people who want kids know whether they want a boy or girl, I don't think it's ever been described as discrimination to say you "wanted" a boy or girl specifically. Will it cause an inbalance in the ratio of men:women in the world? I doubt it, I think there's a pretty good balance in the ratio of people who want boys to the people who want girls.

I personally don't see anything wrong with it.

[edit on 14/12/04 by an3rkist]