Improvement in reproductive technologies over the past few ten years have given couples the freedom and capacity not only to know the gender of their child before birth, but also to choose the sex of their children before being injected into the uterus. For instance, one of these technologies is Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD). PGD tests the chromosomes of an embryo to determine genetic anomalies and gender. Basically, by this technology parents can determine whether their child is a boy or girl and also homosexual or heterosexual. However, this technology causes new controversy among people and people began questioning whether sex selection for non-medical purposes should be condemned because of its impact on society. At this point, I share the same concern with people who think that sex selection for non-medical reasons should be condemned because this technology causes imbalances in the society, sex selected children may have gender identity problems in the future and this technology is generally referred to as the first step in the creation of designer babies. Therefore, all of these reasons parents should not use sex selection for non-medical reasons and it should be condemned.
First of all, sex selection for non-medical purposes causes gender imbalance in the society. For example, if parents are able to choose their child’s sex, the world population may become skewed because parents might prefer one sex more than other. Akchuring and Kartzke find that boys have been preferred to girls in some Asian culture (Robertson qtd. in Akchurin and Kartzke 3). We can see that, in some culture people have already preferred boys over girls and therefore if they are capable of choosing their child’s sex they may choose mostly boys. Result of this situation society faces gender imbalance. Moreover, in many developing countries, startling gender imbalances exist. For instance, Edgar Dahl finds that in India, China and also Korea have occurred imbalance sex ratios (Mudur qtd. in Dahl 3). Thus, if sex selection will used in these countries they may face more surprising imbalance sex rate. In addition, abnormal sex ratio in human populations may cause some significant problems. For instance, Dahl refers to these problems in his article. According to his article gender imbalance cause a great rise in compulsory bachelorhood, homosexuality, polyandry, molestation, ravishment and other sex-related violations (Etzioni qtd. in Dahl 3). As we can see, gender imbalance causes such problems and also gender imbalance may lead to increase the ratio of same-sex marriage. If same-sex marriage is increase people cannot have a child in a normal way. Therefore, when we look at the cost of vitro fertilization (according to some expert the average IVF cost is $12.000 (Gurevich 1.1) in the USA.) most of people cannot afford it and then at the same time human race might be in danger because of the declining birth rate. Therefore, sex selection should be condemned for non-medical purposes due to its impact on society.
On the other hand, proponents of sex selection assert that people use sex selection for family balancing and they say that couples have already one or two same-sex children. Therefore, they want to choose the sex of their next child in order to balance the gender ratio of their children. However, this claim can be viewed as a couple’s desire for a child of a certain sex because according to Akchuring and Kartzke there is no enough data supporting that family balancing provides an important benefit for single children or society as a whole (Akchuring and Kartzke 4). Thus, if there is no strong evidence for necessity of family balancing parents should not use it because this situation shows that they want to use it just satisfy their parental desires. As a result, this situation cannot be a good reason for supporting sex selection.
Secondly, sex selection for non-medical purposes cause gender identity disorder which “is defined by strong, persistent feeling of identification with the opposite gender and discomfort with one’s own assigned sex” (Akchurina and Kartzke 8). Results of this situation, people do not feel whole or complete (qtd. in Akchurina and Kartzke 8). We can say that if normal people who are born without sex selection can face such problems, most probably, others who are born with sex selection might face such problems easily because their sex was chosen before birth for them by others. Moreover, in certain cases this situation might affect the relationship of the parent and child. For instance, according to Greenberg and Bailey homosexual couples may desire to have homosexual children (Greenberg and Bailey 430) and presumably, the only way to have homosexual children is to use PGD. Therefore, homosexual parents’ children might face this problem and if he interests in the opposite sex it may affect the relationship with their parents negatively because these parents want to have children more like themselves. We can see that sex selection does not happy people at all and it causes such problems. Thus, it should be condemned due to its impact on society.
Thirdly, sex selection can be the first step of the creation of designer babies because if parents able to choose sex of their children then, they want to choose other characteristics of their baby such as eye color, intelligence, height. The problem is that by this technology sex selected children may be turning into commodities. For example, parents choose their baby like choosing a car or a house. According to Dahl it is dehumanizing their character and their dignity (Dahl 5) because parents may view their children the same way they view their commodities. Thus, this technology gives harm on human comprehension because they cannot look them as human beings. Moreover, if this technology becomes a reachable medical trend, then it would create a division between people who can afford the technology and who cannot. For instance, wealthy people would be able to afford the selection of desirable characteristics in their offspring, while poor people would not be able to access the same choice. Therefore, sex selection should be condemned due to its impact on society.
Some people assert that embryo is not a person that is why people can design their babies. For example according to Liao’ article “The concern that PGD destroys person is valid of course only if one regards an embryo is being a person. Many people do not. Indeed, a number of writers have defended PGD as a viable, ethical option for sex selection, supposing that the embryo is not a person” (Liao 116). Firstly, it is a controversy issue that the embryo is a person or not and there is no clear evidence about that issue. Therefore, we cannot justify this by looking at the assumptions. Secondly, it is incontestable fact that people interfere with a natural process when they choose the sex of their children determine their characteristics and by this interference they are played with fate of their children. As a result, we cannot support sex selection by looking at this argument.
To sum up, sex selection causes gender imbalance in the society and some significant problems like bachelorhood, homosexuality, polyandry, molestation and ravishment. In addition, children face gender identity problems and this problem might affect sex selected child easily. Moreover, sex selection will enviably lead to the creation of designer babies and by designer babies parents would begin to see their children as commodities. Doctors cannot guarantee the gender of the baby and cannot determine all mental and physical disorder. For this reason, gender selection is not totally safe or proved process. Therefore we should condemn it.
WORKS CITED
Akchurin, Whitney and Ryan Kartzke. The Ethics of Gender Selection
Dahl, Edgar. Boy or Girl: Should Parents Be Allowed to Choose the Sex of Their Children?. Cardiff Centre for Ethics, Law & Society
Gurevich, Rachel. How Much Does IVF Cost?. December 30, 2013
Greenberg, Aaron S. and Michael Bailey. Parental Selection of Children’s Sexual Orientation. Archieves of Sexual Behavior, Vol. 30, No. 4. 2001.
Liao, S. Matthew. The Ethics of Using Genetic Engineering for Sex Selection. Journal of Medical Ethics, Vol. 31, No.2. Feb, 2005
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