SEX SELECTİON FOR NON-MEDİCAL PURPOSES
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
Mustafa Enes Şahin
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder