Should Parents Be Allowed to Select the Sex of Their Baby?
In this issue, the question of argument is “should parents be allowed to select the sex of their baby?” The whole basis of this question is mostly whether it is ethical or not to actually choose between a boy and a girl. John A. Robertson, law professor at the University of Texas, believes that there is no ethical problem with wanting to choose the sex of your baby while Marcy Darnovsky, associate director of the Center for Genetics and Society argues the opposite.
Robertson begins his argument with giving a brief history of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) and its medical use. PGD is often used medically to seek out possible embryonic cues of chromosomal abnormalities that can be screened out. New uses of PGD are used to screen for rare Mendelian diseases, susceptibility conditions, late onset diseases, and HLA matching for existing children. As he continues on his argument about the “good” PGD is used for, he finally goes into the argument about using it to select the sex of the infant. Robertson states “more ethically troubling has been the prospect of using PGD to screen embryos for genes that do not relate to the heatlh of the resulting children or others in the family (310).” He then goes on to justifying that it is indeed bad to use PGD for sex selection in countries like those of China and India because in the end it is detrimental to their population. After he makes that argument, he then goes on to say that sex selection through PGD is only making families more “balanced.” In no way does Robertson believe that it is sexist to choose the sex of the baby unless its due to the fact that the family wants the first born to be a male. Although his argument seems valid in points, “a couple would be selecting the gender of a second or subsequent children for variety in rearing experiences, and not out of a belief that one gender is privileged over another,” he doesn’t come to a strong “yes” or “no” when it comes to answering whether it is sexist or ethical. The same goes for his argument about PGD for perfect pitch in children. In the end of his argument, Robertson ends with saying that PGD for medical use is great but for gender selection, he believes that it is up to the parents and in the end they shouldn’t necessarily be turned away.
Darnovsky begins her argument with stating that “these pre-pregnancy sex selection methods are being rapidly commercialized…” and for the wrong reasons. She says that they are not being commercialized to assist in the medical claims but to satisfy the desires of the parents. Darvonsky explains that the sex selection debate has been going on for years in the Unites States and how in a way seems to have pushed abortion (at least that is how I read it). She states that this issue began in the 1980s and early 1990s when during this period, choosing a boy or a girl was done by undergoing prenatal diagnostic tests that would then determine the sex and if the baby was an undesired sex, the pregnancy would be terminated. After she mentions this, she goes on to say that the ultrasounds were used to detect down’s syndrome which then gave the woman the choice to abort the fetus (which was usually the case). Now the option was being spread to aborting the fetus if it wasn’t the sex they wanted (that’s where I got the whole “pushing abortion” thought). Her main issue is that these sex selections could be a cause to more abortions and that sex selection should be apart from abortion politics. Darnovsky then concludes that people cannot really stop the wanting of a certain gender for a child but the well-being of future children should be taken into consideration and also these new technologies should not be marketed as the way they are.
Personally, I believe Darnovsky won this debate, at least for me she did. I understand that sometimes you cannot just change the mind of a parent who wants their first born the be a boy but think of the consequences. I am one of the people that has a pretty firm view on the whole against abortion thing, not because of religious reasons or anything of that sort and I’m not against it because I don’t think women should have rights, because I do, and because I am a woman. I just don’t agree with it because a child is a child, and going along with the topic of sex selection, I personally would never want a specific gender. I would never go out of my way to have “this gendered child” first and then the other gender later or whichever. I have a love for children so, whether it be boy or girl, I would have it either way. Now as for the medical uses, I would consider the whole PGD but even then, I still don’t have my mind set on it.