“Should parents have the right to choose the gender of their future child? Should it be legalised in Australia for non-medical reasons?”
Whether gender selection should be legalised in Australia for all parents to have the right to select the gender of their baby or whether it should stay illegal with the exception of issues caused by sex-linked medical diseases creates a discussion. Selections of different conditions which give a variety of different perspectives of gender selection are gathered and discussed. Some topics that will be discussed will be; what gender selection is and how it works, who would be able to access this process and how much would it cost the average person, whether or not it should be legalised, why is it currently illegal in Australia and what local survey participants think about the topic.
What is gender selection, what are the different processes and how does each of the processes work? Gender selection is when a couple are so desperate to get a specific gender they go to an In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) clinic and ask them to do a test that will determine the gender of the embryo. Gender selection has a variety of ways that people believe help choose the gender of the baby such as the Ericsson method, the Shettles Method, the Whelan Method and sex selection kits, none of the above have been supported scientifically so they will not be discussed any further (IVF-info.org, 2013). According to the IVF-info website the two that are most popular and are guaranteed to be successful to some degree are the Pre—implantation gender diagnosis (PGD) and the Microsort Method. The PGD method is proven to be almost 100% successful whereas the Microsort Method has a 90% success rate for females and 74% succes...
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...oc.gov/law/help/sex-selection/australia.php [Accessed 16 Mar. 2014].
3. IVF info
In-text: (IVF-info, 2013)
Bibliography: IVF info, (2013). [online] Available at: http://ivf-info.org/gender-selection [Accessed 15 Feb. 2014].
4. BBC News - Couples should be able to choose their baby's sex
In-text: (Wilkinson, 2014)
Bibliography: Wilkinson, S. (2014). BBC News - Couples should be able to choose their baby's sex. [online] News.bbc.co.uk. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8665282.stm [Accessed 24 Feb. 2014].
5. It's a Boy! It's a Girl! It's Whatever the Parents Should Want it to Be!
In-text: (English, 2014)
Bibliography: English, C. (2014). It's a Boy! It's a Girl! It's Whatever the Parents Should Want it to Be!. [online] PolicyMic. Available at: http://www.policymic.com/articles/15191/sex-selection-of-fetuses-is-a-parental-right [Accessed 25 Feb. 2014].
A single moment, a single movement, a single protest against the system is the first step to finding change. For every parent that says “leave my child intact”, it would be one day closer to a time when it will be socially appalling to cosmetically alter an infant child who is incapable of consent or comprehension. The fluidity, complexity, and ambiguity of human sexuality extends far beyond sexual preference and onward into gender and sex. Accepting that some things will never fit within a textbook definition, and celebrating difference rather than condemning it, would fulfil the dream of many minds such as Fausto-Sterling and Butler as well as the author. Only time and individuals that dare to reject the flawed system can ease the binds of ignorance that tie society so tightly to an outdated Victorian mindset of sex and gender.
There are means to select the gender of one’s child and everyone should be allowed the option of using these means to select the gender of their child if that is what they want. People should always be allowed the choice. Gender selection should always permissible because restricting it would be limiting the ri...
When looking at the development of abortion policy, it is clear that it has always been a subject of controversy. Campaigns for the legalisation of...
Sex-selective abortion is the practice of terminating a pregnancy based on the predicted sex of the fetus. The selective abortion of female fetuses is most common in areas where cultural norms value male children over female children, especially in parts of Taiwan, Korea, China, and India. A 2005 study estimated that over 90 million females were "missing" from the expected population in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, India, Pakistan, South Korea and Taiwan alone, and suggested that sex-selective abortion plays a role in this deficit. India eliminates over half a million healthy girl fetuses annually, simply because of their gender.
Over the course of the last century, abortion in the Western hemisphere has become a largely controversial topic that affects every human being. In the United States, at current rates, one in three women will have had an abortion by the time they reach the age of 45. The questions surrounding the laws are of moral, social, and medical dilemmas that rely upon the most fundamental principles of ethics and philosophy. At the center of the argument is the not so clear cut lines dictating what life is, or is not, and where a fetus finds itself amongst its meaning. In an effort to answer the question, lawmakers are establishing public policies dictating what a woman may or may not do with regard to her reproductive rights.
In today’s day and age there are new forms of technology being developed to accomplish just about any task and make any sort of wish possible. With this being said many human beings throw caution to the wind and decide to take action on their every want and need. When it comes to the process of procreating and bringing a child into this world parents can find themselves hoping and wishing for one gender over another. In order to ensure that the gender they want is what they get parents can go through variations of processes in order to select the desired gender for their baby. Many in today’s world have deemed these sorts of practices unethical and immoral and some forms of religion refuse the idea of it. “The prospect of preconception gender selection appears to pose the conflict—long present in other bioethical issues—between individual desires and the larger common good. Yet doing so leads to the risk that children will be treated as vehicles of parental satisfaction rather than as ends in themselves, and could accelerate the trend toward negative and even positive selection of offspring characteristics” (Robertson 3). In this argumentative essay I will be going through the different areas of controversy surrounding this particular topic and focusing on the immorality of such an act.
It has long been debated whether there is a difference between sex and gender, and if so, what that difference is. In recent years it has been suggested that sex is a purely biological term, and gender is socially constructed, or defined and enforced by society. Sex is assigned at birth based on the genitalia, and usually, gender is determined by the sex. If parents are told their baby is a girl, they will reinforce traditional female stereotypes for her whole life. Society and peers will also help to reinforce her gender as she begins to spend more time outside of her immediate family. In this way, gender is a process, whereas sex is simply a static characteristic based on one’s physical appearance. The more dynamic process of gendering, however, defines “man” and “woman,” teaches one to see and internalize what is expected from one’s gender, and to act according to those expectations (Lorber 2006).
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:
The child could have a serious disorder from something such as the Zika virus and that child or the mother of the child should not be emotionally put through that. I can see the points made by the Pro-live such as abortion is murder, but abortion will most likely stay legalised in most Australian states like it is currently, and it will most likely stay that way. There are variables that could affect her choice. She could be poor, the child could have a birth defect, and so on. Giving her a right to decide whether she should abort the baby it’s entirely her choice. What if the mother was raped or she got pregnant from incest. Would you traumatise this mother with the child of the rapist for 9 months, and would you allow an inbred child that will most likely have a disability and be put through literal
Stating the obvious, no one can choose the gender they are born with. It is possible to change genders through extensive surgery once you are older, but you cannot choose how you are born. Maybe one day there will be the technology and science that provides that possibility, but today it does not exist. It is no new topic, but government mandated health care is something to be addressed. Though people’s opinions go back and forth and there is no leading side, many people have heard of the topic of government mandated birth control. The main argument in support of this is the question of why women should have to pay for something out of their control, while men do not.
Abortion is a controversial issue in the today’s society. There are many opinions on the view of abortion, whether it’s positive or negative depending on the individuals’ perspective. First of all what is Abortion? Abortion is a medical process where the foetus is removed or terminated from the womb of the mother before it is born. The reason why I chose the topic abortion is because I was fascinated to hear that an estimated 80,000 - 90,000 surgical abortions are performed in Australia each year (Garratt, 2009). I find this issue important to address because Abortion is probably the world's most common surgical procedure (Arthur, 1999) and that it is increasing over the years, to the extent that people would find it commonly natural to abort the unborn child. By examining sources in relation to the issue, its creditability is its upmost importance so that we are able to understand the issue of abortion with clear understanding and judge for ourselves whether it’s right or wrong.
One in every 2,000 babies born every year are neither male nor female, they are what is known as hermaphrodites. These children and their families are forced into a life of hardship and encounter many conflicts, which need to be addressed. Should the parents choose the assignment of the sex to a newborn child and subject them to a life of surgery and doctor visits? There are 100 to 200 pediatric surgical reassignments every year. Many of these children are subjected to doctor visits for the rest of their childhood. Worst of all, many of these children find themselves resembling or identifying with the gender opposite of that which their parents chose for them.
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...
For centuries there had been one sex that dominated the development of society. Laws, religion and lifestyle all revolved around the idea that one sex, the male sex, was dominant. Oppressed and considered inferior, women would obey the men, forgo all rights and accept all responsibility. Only recently, with the emergence of the women’s liberation movement, have both sexes been considered equal. For the first time in human history, both sexes have been given the chance to fulfill their potentials without discrimination. Parents, despite preferences of having a girl, or a boy, have known that regardless, their child would have an equal opportunity at life. The cutting edge technology, however, means that all this could change. The ability of parents to actually select the gender of their child could have not only devastating effects on society, but on the lives of so many children and parents. Whether parents had a girl or a boy has always been left up to nature to decide. To date, no-one has dared interfere with the genetic workings of the body, mainly because the technology did not exist to do it. Now, with the dawn of the twenty-first century, that technology has arrived and mankind is faced with a very important decision: whether or not to “play God” and manipulate the gender of their child to suit their preferences. The romance of having the perfect nuclear family, with two boys and two girls’ fills the heads of young couples everywhere, and when given the opportunity, m...
Part Two of Kartina Karkazis’ novel Fixing Sex focuses on the reality parents face when their child receives an intersex diagnosis. Karkazis illustrates what a couple experiences when they discovered their baby girl was not in fact a girl, in accordance to the socially constructed understanding of a female. She also covers the importance of choosing a sex with an intersexual baby when society is involved. A great example from the text is, “Bodies with atypical or conflicting biological markers of gender are troublesome because they disturb the social body; they also disrupt the process if determining an infant’s place in the world” (96). It ties in perfectly to the purpose of paragraphs four, five and six: The Ramifications of Corrective Surgery (Good and Bad). The quote highlights one of the “bad” ramifications of intersexual corrective surgery. It has progressed to the point where society has such a large impact on what is classified as a “proper girl” or “proper boy” that if a baby does not classify into one of those categories, then the child is no longer accepted.