For some expecting couples, the gender of their unborn child can be a big deal while for others the gender of the baby is not a big deal. While for some of those, like myself, do not understand the importance of the sex of a baby, for some families it can be a very stressful situation if the sex of their baby is not what they wanted. Now as we digress into an advance time in technology, medical technology like sex-selection is becoming an answer to those families who so desperately want to select the sex of their unborn child. While this may be a positive outlook for some parents, it can also be a very controversial issue with others who believe that sex-selection is wrong.

Sex-selection is known to be as the parents deciding the sex of their child by either selecting and diving sperm into a male or female group or even creating an embryo outside the body and allowing the parents to select the gender and then implanting it into the mother. As mentioned before, this type of method seems like the perfect solution to those parents who want a specific sex in mind for their unborn child. For example, Stephen Wilkinson from Keele University, talks about how some families who may have all boys may be able to balance out their family by sex-selection. Therefore, if a family does have all boys, the parents can go through this sex-selection process and have a girl in order to “balance out their family” (Wilkinson, 2010). Others like researchers in Iran, have collected questionnaires on the attitudes Iranians have towards sex-selection. In this case, researchers saw that Iranians who were educated (in particular women) believed that sex-selection was ok since it could bring a balance to their families (Ahmadi, etc all, 2015). They also noticed that in Iran and other countries like China and India, had a preference towards males. This meant that couples who were expecting a girl were more likely to go through an induced abortion (Ahmadi, etc all, 2015). The researchers believed that with the introduction to sex-selection to these regions, the rate of aborting a female baby may reduce (Ahmadi, etc all, 2015).

On the other hand, we have those who believe that selecting the sex of a child has more negative concepts than good. Johanna Kostenzer,comments that individuals believe that  gender selection can cause “gender discrimination and gender imbalance in communities” especially in regions like Southeastern Europe(Kostenzer, 2014).Kostenzer mentions that some people believe that sex-selection can be discriminating towards females since there is already a strong preference towards males in regions like Southern Europe and Asia. Not only does Kostenzer brings this issue up, so does Ellen Painter Dollar, who has a strong belief that gender selection is wrong (Dollar, 2012). She supports the idea that if sex-selection is ok to happen then it will be discriminating against females since society has thought to believe that men are the only ones to bring in fortune and well being to their families(Dollar, 2012). Dollar also mentions that if women go through with sex-selection to have a daughter, it may not turn out as the mother had expected. For example, if a mother wants to have a daughter to dress up in pink bows and dress or get to do motherly and daughter things, she is only encouraging the daughter to follow through with stereotypical roles and the daughter may not even want to participate in those activities (Dollar, 2012).

While I may be an educated college student and understand the science and benefits behind gender selection, like preventing sex-linked genetic disorders and even the decreasing abortions of female babies, I do believe that parents shouldn’t be allowed to select the gender of their baby. Even though we may be living in a patriarchal society, women have progressed throughout the years and have just as much potentially as a man if not maybe even more. So if more families are wanting to produce more men than women, why are we going to try and reduce the amount of females in the world? If we allow for parents to select the sex of their baby, there may be a high chance of them selecting a boy rather than a girl (Kostenzer, 2014). Which in that case it does seem like our society and other societies are discriminating against women. While that may be my opinion, I also do believe that just because a parent wants a certain gender, does not mean that their child will follow the stereotypical gender roles that they wanted (Dollar, 2012). Anyways a parent should be less worried about the sex of their baby will be and focus on the health of their baby and all the joy that a newborn child can bring to a family.

References

Ahmadi, S. F., Shirzad, M., Kamali, K., Ranjbar, F., Behjati-Ardakani, Z., & Akhondi, M. M.  n      (2015). Attitudes about Sex Selection and Sex Preference in Iranian Couples Referred for Sex Selection Technology. Journal Of Reproduction & Infertility, 16(1), 36-42.

Dollar, E. P. (2012, September 24). Why allowing parents to choose their baby’s

gender is wrong. Retrieved February 27, 2015, from http://www.patheos.com/

blogs/ellenpainterdollar/2012/09/

why-allowing-parents-to-choose-their-babys-gender-is-wrong/

Kostenzer, J. (2014). Prenatal Sex Selection in Southeastern Europe/the Southern Caucasus and the Role of International Organizations. Global Studies Journal, 7(2), 7-15.

Wilkinson, S. (2010, May 26). Couples should be able to choose their baby’s sex

[Newsgroup post]. Retrieved from BBC News website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/

hi/health/8665282.stm#

Over the past few years, the LGBTQ community has made progress with people being more understanding of their sexuality, gay marriage and even adoption within gay couples. Now for many people there is the undying question of whether sexual orientation is biologically based. For this question there are two sides to this question. One side believes that sexual orientation is biologically based, while the other side believes otherwise.

In one study done by Anthony F. Bogeart, in which he conducted a research on brothers and whether the more older brothers there were, the more likely the younger brother would be gay. What Bogeart found was that sexual orientation is determined prenatally and the more males the mother has, the higher chance there is that the younger male will be homosexual. In another study, Dean Homer conducted a research in which he noted that some gay men had more gay relatives on their mother side of the family than on their father’s side. This then led him to examine the X chromosomes and see if there was any linkage between the X chromosome and sexual orientation. What he found was that in those relatives that were gay had a similar allele in the X chromosome.

On the other side of the argument, we have some scientist like, Dr. Neil Whitehead believes that sexual orientation is not biologically based. He states that in identical twin studies, it has been shown that these twins share 100% of their DNA. This means that if one twin is gay then the other one should be gay as well but that is not always the case. Then in 2002, Peter Bearman and Hannah Bruckner conducted a research in that demonstrated that there was an inconsistency in same sex attraction in twins of the opposite sex.

I agree with those that believe that sexual orientation is biological. Even though there may not be a lot of research (especially recently) on the contribute of biology to sexual orientation, there is plenty of research that demonstrates that there may be a link to support this idea. Also I firmly believe that someone is not going to simply choose to be homosexual or heterosexual.

References

Bearman, P.S, Bruckner, H. 2001. Opposite-sex twins and adolescent same-sex attraction. Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy: 01-04.

Bogaert, A.F. 2006. Biological versus nonbiological older brothers and men’s sexual orientation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States 103(28): 10771-10774.

Hamer D.H, Hu S, Magnuson V.L, Hu N, Pattatucci A.M.July 1993. A linkage between DNA markers on the X chromosome and male sexual orientation. Science 261(5119): 321–7.