by From the Guardian:
A clinical trial into the effects of allowing couples to choose the sex of their babies has been given the go-ahead at a US fertility clinic. The controversial study was given the green light by an ethics committee after nine years of consultation. The purpose of the study is to find out how cultural notions, family values and gender issues feed into a couple’s desire to choose the gender of their child.
Fertility clinics already use a technique called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis to select healthy embryos if a child has a high risk of inheriting a genetic disease, but the technique can also be used to select the sex of embryos for couples having IVF treatment. In many countries, including Britain, using PGD for family balancing is banned.
Fertility specialists at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas have already received 50 inquiries from couples about joining the trial, according to the journal Nature today. Only couples who have already had one child and want another of the opposite sex are eligible. As well as assessing the factors that contribute to a couple’s decision to select the sex of their next baby, doctors will monitor the health of the children and any social issues that arise in their families as they grow up.
The article goes on to make the argument both ways. However, they make the argument against from a PC point of view– that selection for social purposes makes one gender “better” than the other. The opposing side says that they’ll just use it for balancing.
Why do I not believe the balancing argument? Could it be because the first country to use a selective process (albiet abortion) is currently having a female population crisis because boys are prefered? (I speak of China.) Again, we’re just one step farther into the camp that children are not gifts from God, but things we can buy, alter, and have control of. We can never know what the baby that was weeded out and killed would have been like. We can never know what the family that opted for the girl would have been like with the boy.
My future husband and I were talking about kids, and he thinks (or thought) it’s okay, and I brought up the point that what if my parents wanted a boy. Then we’d be in trouble. Just another example of the ramifications.
Not to mention, “balancing out”? Yeah right, like we’ve balanced out things with abortion. I don’t remember the statistics, but when the first two generations of those who have had abortions get older, they won’t have enough people to take care of them. There are too many people that age and not enough people who are younger. I think that nature (in the hands of God) is the best scale for balance.
Sorry about all these rants of late, MIn, your material is just so rant-worthy.
Thanks for your comments, Callahan. I’m glad I give you something to say!