The ability for parents to select the sex of their baby has been made possible by the advancement of technology with fertility procedures. Today’s parents want the option to select the sex of their baby and there are a plethora of reasons why a couple would want to take this route. John A. Robertson from Extending Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis mentions, one main reason is there are serious diseases that could be prevented by sex selection using preimplantation genetic diagnosis. Conversely, Marcy Darnovsky from Revisiting Sex Selection: The Growing Popularity of New Sex Selection Methods Revives and Old Debate; believe parents should not have the right to select the sex of their baby. He gives support that suggests selecting the sex of a baby is a slippery slope down the road of eugenics. Both sides of the issue offer strong points on whether parents should be allowed to select the sex of their baby.
Historically gender selection has been a part of our society for decades, perhaps not the most liked methods but couples have utilized all options. Couples who did not want either a boy or a girl would leave the baby at the door of a church, fire station, or orphanage. Some would take even more drastic steps such as killing the unwanted child. Some societies continue to use these practices however parents today have more advanced options to sex selection. There are technologies such as ultrasounds that can determine the sex of a baby; so parents can choose to abort or give up for adoption if they are not satisfied with the sex of the baby. In other countries such as china, where they have a policy that the government will only support one child has placed a lot of pressure on sex selection. Although there are methods that Ame...
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...ms and technological change (6th ed., pp. 485-491). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.
The Ethics Committee. (1999) Sex selection and preimplantation genetic diagnosis. Retrieved November11, 2013, from http://www.asrm.org/uploadedFiles/ASRM_Content/News_and_Publications/Ethics_Committee_Reports_and_Statements/Sex_Selection.pdf
Leigh, S. (1999) Choosing your baby's sex: What the scientists say. Retrieved November11,
2013, from http://www.babycenter.com/0_choosing-your-babys-sex-what-the-scientists-say_2915.bc?page=1
BMJ. (2001) Sex selection and preimplantation genetic diagnosis.
Retrieved November11, 2013, from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1121384/
Dena Davis in the 5th chapter of “Genetic Dilemmas: Reproductive Technology, Parental Choices, and Children’s Futures” explores the global attitudes, policies, and morality towards determination of sex. She begins with presenting empirical evidence of some preferences held in countries such as India or China where there is a clear desire for male children. This inclination is so deeply held that mothers can be socially and physically harmed when, by pure biological chance, they fail to produce a male child. Davis and others allow sex selection in these cases, purely in the interest of harm reduction of mothers and their daughters born into such a situation. This example is contrasted with so-called “western” societies, where the preference
A gynaecologist can easily perform an ultrasound and tell parents what gender to expect their child to be. Reasonably, parents have the choice to learn the gender or to keep it a surprise. However, For parents to know they are expecting a daughter by chance or for them to choose that they want a daughter are two different cases. There are a variety of methods that allow parents to choose the gender of their child. In some cases, there may be fear of passing down a sex-linked genetic disease and so a certain gender may be preferred to protect the child’s health. However, a contentious issue is whether or not gender selection for non-medical reasons is ethically defensible. There are three positions that one could take: gender selection can never, sometimes, or always be ethically defended. In this paper, I intend to argue that gender selection is always permissible.
Although science is at a peak for overwhelming and astonishing outbreaks, the ethical issues concerning these “out breaks” have been inadequately addressed. As the options that couples that are desperate to have a child expand, so do too the expectations of whom the child becomes. Couples are able to choose a donor, of either gender, based on characteristics that they see fit to their liking. Although imperfect, couples now have the ability to choose their child’s gender. “Medicine tends to be patient-driven at the moment.” Said Charles Strom, MD, PhD, director of medical genetics at Illinois Masonic Medical Center in Chicago. “A patient needs something and physicians do all they can to provide that service, and that sometimes makes one shortcut the ethical considerations.” With our vast
There is a lot of controversy regarding the use of technologies that allow sex selection. Modern science allows parents to choose the sex of their future child. Although this could be an effective way to determine genetic disorders, I do not support screening to be used solely for sex selection as this can lead to social inequality and gender bias.
Amniocentesis and ultrasound techniques are the most common ways for couples to determine the sex of the child before it is born. In the US, such tests are routine and not usually alarming, but in nations such as India and China those tests, and others, have become an issue of debate since the results could mean life or death. Until the 1980’s, people in poor countries could do little about their preference for sons before birth, ...
In a little more than a decade China will be losing its title as the world’s most populous country. More importantly China’s demographic have been changing due to unpredictable population changes. The need for a male heir and the One Child Policy has caused china’s gender ratio to be imbalanced. Reason being men are usually the main income-earners because they are more employable and earn higher wages for the same work. Since male babies have a greater income potential, they are less likely to be killed. The average male to female sex ratio was 118:100 in 2010. In rural areas if their first-born is a daughter or suffers from a physical or mental illness families can apply to try again. Families that apply to try again are subject to birth spacing or waiting 3 or 4 years to try again. Additional children will result in large fines up to ten times the average income. Families violating the policy are required to pay monetary penalties and may also lose their employm...
China developed into a patriarchy society, on page 445 patriarchy is defined as a group in which men-as-a-group dominates women-as-a-group; authority is vested in males. China has over four thousand years of culture and history, being one of the oldest societies in the world. With the population of China growing out of control, China took drastic measures to get a control on the amount of people being born in China. With their being around four billion people living in the world, one in five of the total population resides in China. Food and medicine became scarce and something had to be done. Laws were put into effect that families could only have one child, and if the laws were broken families would face large fines. This became the largest population effort in history, and could be the cause of devastation on China in the near future. Instantly males became the preferred gender over females, and families would take drastic measures if they had a female first. But why is male preferred over female? Because males carry on the family name and males work to help pay bills and never leave, but instead stay to support the family. Females would be given away, sold, abandoned, or even worse, killed, to prevent being fined for having two children. This is the reason why majority of adoptions from China are baby girls. Every baby girls has a story, whether abandoned in a park, or left in the market, each has a tragic start to life. And with only 100,000 baby girls a year being tracked, what is happening to the rest of the babies? Are they being sold, given away? Maybe sweat shops, or human trafficking is the answer. None of the babies have social workers, so their stories are questionable. It could b...
...ce and male to female ratio. G.I Serour states: “It is argued that gender selection for nonmedical reasons will reinforce this male preference pattern, lead to a serious distortion of the sex ratio, identify gender as a reason to value one person over another, or contribute to society's gender stereotyping.” (Transcultural Issues In Gender Selection). In conclusion many of the signs point to the idea and practice of gender selection being unethical and an immoral concept. Selecting the gender of your child for nonmedical reasons before it naturally happens is unethical and also unsafe. Introducing destructive processes and tools into the body is bad enough on its own but using them while a baby is developing is absolutely absurd. Babies should have the opportunity to naturally develop into what they were meant to be, not what their parents would prefer them to be.
Sex selection is when one uses medical techniques to conceive the preferred gender. This practice brings up questions about sex discrimination, stereotypes, reproductive autonomy, and ethics of choosing children with certain traits. In the U.S, many organizations are against sex selection but have yet taken a position. Sex selection is connected with the idea of a certain gender being superior. People think of gender as categories, either boy or girl, not as a fluid. Some say allowing sex selection is another way to allow abortions; while others say it is better to choose the gender then kill the child all together. Clinics allow sex selection for the first or only child. More common is using sex selection for family balancing. In America, family balancing is used so parents can have a balanced amount of gender. In China, family balancing is used to fix the dominance of males from using sex selection for males in an overloaded
to have abortions in the second trimester of pregnancy were protected by the U.S. Constitution.
Abortion is a very sensitive, yet popular, topic that is plaguing the United States. According to Merriam-Webster, abortion is, “A medical procedure used to end a pregnancy and cause the death of a fetus.” (n.d.). According to Griffin-Carlson &Mackin (1993), “In 1988, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported that there were 1,371,285 abortions in the United States, 25% of which were obtained by women under 19. Researches at the National Center for Health Statistics estimated that of the 1.1 million pregnancies among teenagers in 1981, 40% ended in abortion, 13% in miscarriage, and 47% in live births (p. 1). Abortion is a sensitive topic because there are many individuals who believe that abortion is murder. On the other hand, there are others that believe that it is up to the mom to make the decision regarding the fetus, whether it is death or the continuation of life. The controversy surrounding this topic is vast, that it has even been taken to Congress, in hopes of making it illegal to receive/perform abortions. When a pregnant minor is thrown in the scenario, the arguments intensify. This paper will delve into the topic of whether minors should be required to receive parental consent for abortions.
Genetic Engineering is harmful because it has produced Gendercide in countries such as China and India. Genetic engineering allows sex selection to become easier. The imbalance between genders continues to rise. Clayton Farris states, “In China the imbalance between sexes was 108 boys to 100 girls in the late 1980s, for the generation of of the early 2000s it was 124 to 100. In some chinese provinces is an unprecedented 130 to 100”(Farris 63).The imbalance between sexes is “unprecedented”. Parents constantly use genetics to get the gender they value. Many parents choose boys in China which leads to the outrageous number of “130 to 100”. Chinese parents value men more than women in their culture. Sex selection gives them the opportunity to get what they want. Their desire sex leads them into Gendercide. Genetic
Is it logical for a mother to determine the sex of the baby before the baby is born? Selective Abortion is where a fetus has some kind of undesirable characteristics or there are too many fetuses are in the uterus and the parent(s) have voluntarily chosen to dismantle that undesirable characteristic of the fetus before the baby is born. Selective Abortion is not common in North America; on the other hand, it is very common in other countries and various cultures. Selective Abortion is completely going against the right of actually having a child and knowing that God has given you this precious gift for a reason and there is no excuse on why one would need to mess that up.
When expecting parents want to identify the sex of their child, occasionally the doctor will inform them to paint the nursery blue or pink rather than tell them the actual sex. More often than not they know which to expect, a boy or a girl, dependent on the color, and how to stock the nursery, with trucks or dolls, why is it that children are separated according to gender, and so early in life too? Sex is a reflection of biological organs, while gender is a state of mind. The concept of gender is so deeply rooted in society it becomes difficult to pinpoint its effects as learned rather than natural occurrences (Devor 383). It seems just natural for women to be the care givers and men the providers. Behaviors people become comfortable with are exhibited openly towards their children. Susan D. Witt states:
Determining whether to divulge the gender of a child should be a personal choice. Society should not dictate whether one chooses to disclose the sex of their child. At conception, the gender is determined by chromosome characteristics and it will be the male (male semen) that dictates whether the baby will be a boy or girl. Nowhere in any literature that has been read or published that it states that “society” is the determining factor whether a girl or boy will be conceived. Society suggests that knowing the gender is routine, but what may be considered routine for some is not necessarily customary for all. If one chooses to stray away from what is considered to be “normal” it poses or present an issue. Individuals are instantaneously met with opposition or back lash due to nondisclosure of the sex of their child whether it is unborn or born. A typical argument would be as to what color clothing to bring for the unborn or born child, should one bring pink or blu...