- April 23, 2014
- Posted by: essay
- Category: Term paper writing
When a woman is expecting a baby, somebody is sure to ask her whether she dreams of having a boy or a girl. Some parents genuinely do not mind which sex the child is, while other couples have an obvious preference. The preference might be inspired by vague ideas of what girls and boys are like; it may be borne of a wish to balance up a family unit dominated by a single sex; or it may be caused by actual important economic and social pressures. It is apparent that some individuals actually do care what sex the baby is going to be. However, is it right to perform on the preference? This paper will discuss the gender selection techniques as well as the opinions of opponents and supporters of these methods.
Specific Gender and Issues Surrounding Gender Selection
Gender selection is an increasing industry in the USA. Due to technological advancements over the past thirty years (after the appearance of IVF) it is today possible for couples to select the gender of a baby, using an approach, which is recognized as “family balancing.” There are dissimilar methods to do so ”“ the most successful one is a screening process named PGD (Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis). It has practically 100% success rate compared to 60% for the other Assisted Reproductive Techniques (ARTs), for instance, sperm sorting (Peterson-Iyer 32-67).
The issue of sex selection relates to using many approaches and methods to create a baby of a certain sex. In the past, this word merely related to the informal “at-home” techniques, which were linked to creating some genders as an outcome of dissimilar tricks relating to conception. Nowadays, there are more advanced technical ways of assisting in creating a kid of a certain gender but together with this technology comes disagreement.
The matter of sex selection at all times appears to raise ethical concerns, and the pros and cons of a sex selection pregnancy are not always simple to distinguish. For many people, the child sex selection disagreement is separated by natural fertility versus medical notion selection techniques, but there are some common gender selection advantages and disadvantages, which may be applied to all methods.
The Drawbacks of Gender Selection
The negative parts of this novel power of option are mainly moral and should not be neglected. Where do people stop when it comes to the fertility manipulation? Karen Peterson-Iyer asserts that some researchers claim that the recognition of sex selection could be a springboard to “designer” kids, giving fresh meaning to the expression sex discrimination (Peterson-Iyer 32-67).
The opponents of gender selection assert that the sex selection takes God out of the equation as it is his prerogative to give parents the children and gender that they need. So, by selecting the sex people think they should have, they may be circumventing possible blessings. This ethical concern makes sense, however, it is also possible to understand the families where there are many kids of one gender and parents want to have at least one of the opposite gender (Peterson-Iyer 32-67).
Additional worries humans have concern the probable sex ratio imbalances in the recent future (like those in India and China), “psychological damage to sex-selected children (by putting on them extremely high expectations), growing marital disagreement over gender selective decisions, and strengthening of sex discrimination in society in general” (Peterson-Iyer 32-67). People also add that sex selection is quite costly and this procedure takes away an element of excitement and surprise when opting not to determine the child’s gender. That is a part of the joy of preparing for the child, the element of surprise.