The thought of the UK being a society which privileges individual selfishness to such an extent makes my blood run cold.
As someone who went through extensive prenatal testing and two sessions of genetic counselling about her then-unborn child: no, a fixation about a child's sex and gender should not be a valid reason for society at large to allow a universal "right" to pre-select a child based on no criterion other than that of sex. A child being male or female is a normal condition, and I cannot accept that being one sex or another should be defined as in any way abnormal. People who are fixated about a child's sex are the ones who need help and counselling to learn that both sexes are wholly acceptable. Society at large has no reason to allow a minority of "fixated" people to condition our future attitudes to our children.
I can understand people who decide to terminate a pregnancy based on, say, genuine genetic disorders such as trisomies (Down's is trisomy 21; trisomy 18 produces some really horrific handicaps and a shortened, and apparently pretty terrible, lifespan) but these are geniunely abnormal conditions; and in the instance of Down's syndrome, our 'first-world' culture has so changed the educational facilities, and attitudes, towards Down's that although there are still terminations for this reason, many people now opt to keep the pregnancy going and celebrate the presence of these kids in their lives.
IVF and abortions are both seriously invasive procedures, and both require extensive counselling. The time and money spent on 'choosing' a child can and should be spent on helping people to understand that either sex is good and normal. I have yet to see or read about any society using foeticide or infanticide as a form of sex selection which, in the long term, flourishes. Truly, I think allowing such a universal 'right' would be an actual evil, a corrosive and degrading form of power allocated to people inherently unfit for its use.
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chiming
Re: sex selection
Date: November 18th, 2003 04:02 am (UTC)From:As someone who went through extensive prenatal testing and two sessions of genetic counselling about her then-unborn child: no, a fixation about a child's sex and gender should not be a valid reason for society at large to allow a universal "right" to pre-select a child based on no criterion other than that of sex. A child being male or female is a normal condition, and I cannot accept that being one sex or another should be defined as in any way abnormal. People who are fixated about a child's sex are the ones who need help and counselling to learn that both sexes are wholly acceptable. Society at large has no reason to allow a minority of "fixated" people to condition our future attitudes to our children.
I can understand people who decide to terminate a pregnancy based on, say, genuine genetic disorders such as trisomies (Down's is trisomy 21; trisomy 18 produces some really horrific handicaps and a shortened, and apparently pretty terrible, lifespan) but these are geniunely abnormal conditions; and in the instance of Down's syndrome, our 'first-world' culture has so changed the educational facilities, and attitudes, towards Down's that although there are still terminations for this reason, many people now opt to keep the pregnancy going and celebrate the presence of these kids in their lives.
IVF and abortions are both seriously invasive procedures, and both require extensive counselling. The time and money spent on 'choosing' a child can and should be spent on helping people to understand that either sex is good and normal. I have yet to see or read about any society using foeticide or infanticide as a form of sex selection which, in the long term, flourishes. Truly, I think allowing such a universal 'right' would be an actual evil, a corrosive and degrading form of power allocated to people inherently unfit for its use.