There are two
relatively new technological methods of achieving the goal of embryonic gender
selection, which has for so long been the stuff of science fiction. These are
genetic diagnosis, in which embryos created in a test-tube are analysed before
being implanted in the womb, and the MicroSort technique, in which sperm is
'sorted' to make it much more likely that the egg is fertilised by a sperm
carrying the desired chromosome.
Generations of parents-to-be have hoped and prayed for a baby of a
particular gender. Often in practice this has meant praying for a boy, as
cultural factors such as restricting inheritance of property and the family
name to male heirs, restrictions on female economic activity, and the heavy
cost of dowries when daughters are married have all encouraged male preference
throughout history. In some circumstances gender selection has been practised after
birth by the abandonment of unwanted infants, a practice which has not entirely
died out today in some countries. The development of ultrasound scanners which
allow the sex of an unborn child to be determined in the womb has more recently
led to selective abortion, especially in China where cultural factors combined
with the single-child policy in the 1980s and 1990s to make many families
determined to ensure their only child was male. Although ultrasound scanning
for sexual selection is illegal, it is widespread in China and the 2000 Census
revealed that 117 boys are now born for every 100 Chinese girls. Similar
figures for India, although less reliable, also indicate widespread use of
illegal ultrasound scanning and selective abortion of female foetuses. This
topic does not focus upon or attempt to present arguments for selective
abortion, but this does provide the context for a more recent and balanced
debate - as to whether new methods for selecting the gender of a child at the
start of a pregnancy should be allowed.
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Pros
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Cons
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Gender selection will prevent incidents of infanticide. Some cultures place great importance on having at
least one child of a particular gender. We can help realise this aim. We can
prevent the trauma and stress of not having a child of a particular gender,
which can have negative cultural connotations. If a state's population became
seriously imbalanced, one might have to rethink: but given that most
countries, including all in the West, have balanced populations, and given that
many families in most countries will choose to have roughly as many of the
other sex, this should not stop this proposal being put into effect in many
countries. Even in China, the problem is largely due to the
"one-child" policy which has been relaxed in many areas since the
mid-1990s. Over time, a scarcity of one gender will in any case produce new
pressures to rebalance the population, for example the paying of dowries may
change, and women will achieve higher status.
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This argument veils the likely result of the policy:
reinforcement of already unhealthy cultural practices. Selective abortion has
meant that gender imbalance in China and India is already very, very high –
914 girls for every 1,000 boys in India – demonstrating the likely result of
such policies in some countries.
‘Parents choose to abort female foetuses not because
they do not want or love their daughters, but because they feel they must
have sons’ (usually for social reasons). Even in western countries some
minority groups' gender preferences may result in serious imbalances in some
communities. These imbalances are socially harmful because in time many young
men will be unable to find a partner; in China this is already linked to a
rise in sexual violence, kidnapping and forced marriage, and prostitution.
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The private sector can provide parents, who can afford
to and want to, with gender selection technologies. Gender selection technology should be available, at
whatever cost the market dictates, to those who can afford the process and wish
to choose the sex of their children. There should be no other restrictions on
the couples wishing to go through with the process, other than an assurance
that the mother is physically able and willing. As it is not an essential
procedure, the state should not be expected to subsidize either the process
or the development of the technology. Nevertheless, the private sector should
be encouraged to develop the technology and continue to provide the public
with a path to maximise their own happiness.
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A medical procedure is not a product that should be
excluded from those who cannot afford it. Either it is beneficial enough to
be subsidized by the state and therefore available to all, or it is the start
of a slippery slope towards designer babies and therefore should not be
available to anyone. Furthermore, the investment and expertise required to
develop such technology are resources that should be utilized for causes that
are far more important, under-funded and under-developed than gender
selection. To allow the private sector to provide such a gender selection
service would not only encourage further investment in a unnecessary
technology but tempt medical professionals away from their government-funded
research with the promise of more money.
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Parents should have freedom of choice. People should have freedom of choice. Why shouldn’t
would-be parents be able to do this, given that no harm is done to others by
their decision? Article 16 (1) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
states that: "Men and women of full age… have the right to marry and to
found a family" and this right should be understood to cover the right
to make decisions over how that family should be formed.When a family have a
large number of boys or girls, why should they be deprived of the opportunity
to have a child of a different gender if the technology exists? As the
Director of the Fertility Institute notes, ‘these are grown-up people
expressing their reproductive choices…(they) are really happy when they get
what they want’.
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Freedom of choice is an important principle generally,
but it should not be granted at the expense of unconditional love for one’s
children. The pre-selection of gender ‘is a threat to the core value of
parenthood that is usually expressed by the commitment to unconditional
love’, according to a Georgetown professor. Children should not be loved
because of who they are, not because they are exactly what we wanted of them.
As Harvard professor Michael Sandel notes, ‘consider the father who wants a
boy in hope of having as a son the athlete he had never been. Suppose the son
isn’t interested in sports…what sorts of expectations will burden a child who
has designed with certain purposes in mind?’. For that reason, parents should
not be permitted freedom of choice in this regard, but encouraged to love
their child equally, regardless of gender.
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Sex-specific, generic diseases can be avoided. Some parents are carriers of known sex-specific
diseases. It is obviously in the child's interests that they don't have such
a condition. Determining its gender can ensure that. Many families have
predispositions towards certain common conditions that are more likely in one
gender in another, and these can be avoided too. Nearly all
neurodevelopmental diseases are either more common in one gender or more
severe among one gender. Arthritis, heart disease and even lung cancer also
seem to be influenced by a person's gender. Males disproportionately suffer
from X chromosome problems because their body has no copy to fall back on These
range in nature from baldness and colour blindness to muscular dystrophy and
haemophilia. Women are disproportionately affected by diseases of the immune
system. Genetic modification is not the only technology available. The
MicroSort technique uses a 'sperm-sifting' machine to detect the minute
difference between y and double x chromosome-carrying sperm: no genetic harm
results from its use. Over 1200 babies have been born using the technology.
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Sex-specific, generic diseases are only avoided a majority
of the time, the process is not near 100% accurate and therefore the medical
benefits cannot be used without considering of the medical costs.
Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis involves the development of embryos
outside the womb, which are then tested for gender. One or two of the desired
gender are then implanted in the womb. Those that are not of the desired
gender, or are surplus to requirements are destroyed (typically, over a dozen
embryos are used to select a single one to be implanted). A human life has
been created with the express purpose of being destroyed. This is another
form of abortion – only the conception is deliberate. Ultimately, it will be
these technologies and not MicroSort that is used, since whilst the latter
has a 93% accuracy rate if a girl is desired (itself a lower result than
genetic diagnosis), its accuracy falls to 82% for boys, and the vast majority
of selections will inevitably be for males. Thus, given that they are so keen
to have a child of a particular gender and so unwilling to risk having one of
the other gender, parents will not risk using MicroSort. Even if they do
choose it, whilst there have not been overt problems thus far, scientific
experts like Lord Winston express the fear that the process damages sperm, making
genetic mutation much more likely. Both techniques are therefore to be
condemned.
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It is for the individuals to decide whether this
treatment is worth the expense. The anecdotal evidence from parents who have
gone through the process suggests that pre-selecting the sex of their
children was not a ‘frivolous purpose’. Asked whether her three boys had not
been enough, Sharla Allen replied ‘They are. They’re totally everything I
could ever want…but why not have two daughters that will be just as wonderful
as they are?’. No-one is harmed in this process, the parents know the risks
beforehand and it should be their prerogative to have the treatment.
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Pre-selection of gender uses expensive medical care for
frivolous purposes. The treatment
required for the pre-selection of gender was initially designed for the
prevention of disease. Many of the patients now using the revolutionary new
treatment are perfectly capable of conceiving healthy children naturally. Dr.
Mark Hughes, a director the Genesis Genetics institute, says that 70% of
patients wouldn't have needed IVF in the first place, meaning 'healthy,
fertile couples are choosing this higher risk, expensive, sometimes painful
process when they could conceive otherwise'.
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Parents have every right, if the technology is present,
to choose the gender make-up of their family. Guaranteeing (or improving the
chances of) a child being of the gender they want means that the child is
more likely to fit into the family's dreams. He or she is, bluntly, more
likely to be loved. Talk of designer babies is scaremongering nonsense. 'All
babies are, to some extent, designed. Individuals do not procreate randomly:
they choose their partners, and often choose the time of conception according
to their own age and prosperity'. Parents give so much to children. They
invest years of their lives and a large amount of their earnings in their
upbringing. Isn't it fair that in return, they get to decide something like
this if they want to? This is an extension of reproductive rights.
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Children should not be designed to specifications. Children are not toys. They are not meant to be
designed to specifications most convenient to the ‘owner’. ‘It runs the risk
of turning procreation and parenting into an extension of the consumer
society’ argues Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel. If we allow parents to
choose gender, soon some will want to choose eye colour, or hair colour. That
is only the beginning. We are, in allowing this, encouraging false ideas of
‘perfection’ – damning those that don’t look a certain way. Furthermore,
since of course there’s no justification for allowing such indulgence at
public expense, the divide will grow ever-larger between rich and poor, as
the rich tailor not only their clothes and belongings to reflect their wealth,
but also the bodies of their children. If a "gay gene" is
discovered, would parents be permitted to weed out embryos with it, using the
technology this proposal would condone? We really should be encouraging the
idea that when it comes to children, you get what you are given – otherwise,
people be more and more likely to reject their own child when they don’t get
exactly what they want…
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It is hardly shattering the mystery of childbirth,
given how common ultrasound scans are. Sharla Miller, who went through gender
selection, refutes the suggesting it is like playing God, arguing 'it's just
like every other procedure the medical field can do for you. When our eldest
child had spina bifida, they fixed that. Were they playing God?'. Moreover,
knowing what gender a child will be is tremendously helpful for parents in
planning for the future (picking clothes, colour schemes, toys, names etc.).
Why not extend that ability to plan? Moreover, in many countries and cultures
gender selection happens already, usually by selective abortion or
abandonment of unwanted babies. Everyone can agree that this is a terrible
waste of life and potentially very dangerous for the mother concerned, and of
course many people object strongly to abortion on moral grounds. The use of
new technologies to allow gender selection at the start of pregnancy will
reduce and hopefully eventually end the use of selective abortion.
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The lottery of childbirth should not be interfered with. Having a child is a process of wonder and awe. These
proposals make having children to something more like pre-ordering a car. To
many people the moment of conception is the start of life, touched by God and
not to be interfered with or abused out of selfish human motives. Dr. Mark
Hughes, who helped pioneer the procedure, intended it to be used to prevent
disease and 'your gender is not a disease, last time I checked. There's no
suffering. There's no illness. And I don't think doctors have any business
being there'. Furthermore, In the view of many, the new technologies are not
morally different from abortion - in all cases a potential life is taken.
These new technologies are likely to make selective abortion more common, as
if they are legalised they will appear to legitimise throwing away a human
life simply because the parents would prefer a specific gender.
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