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Your right to choose?
[Poll #204849]
I've been listening to bits of the discussion about this following the confirmation from the HFEA that parents will only be able to perform gender selection for medical reasons (e.g. avoiding heamophilia), not personal, social or "so-called family balancing reasons" but I'm afraid I'm finding that this is one of those questions where I'm not entirely sure what to think. On the one hand, I've heard very few good arguments against gender selection. Many people seem to have a gut reaction against it, but I don't understand why. This encourages me to align it in my mind with the many other scientific debates where the public have ill-informed objections. On the other hand, I'm not sure I can see good reasons for allowing it either. I don't think, for example, that it should be available on the NHS for non medical reasons.
The one reasonable person I heard speaking against it argued essentially that gender selection gives you an illusion of control which, if it doesn't work out could be damaging for you and the child. So for example you chose to have a girl because you have a certain perception of the way girls are. If your child turns out still not to be like that (perhaps she's a tomboy, for example) then your disappointment will affect you as a parent and the development of your child. This makes sense to me, but is it a strong enough arguement to restrict choice? After all, there are plently of avenues available for the parent/child relationship to mess up. If you're fixated on having a girl and you have a boy, won't your feelings of dissappointment in that case have a similar effect?
So what do you think? And more importantly, why do you think it?
I've been listening to bits of the discussion about this following the confirmation from the HFEA that parents will only be able to perform gender selection for medical reasons (e.g. avoiding heamophilia), not personal, social or "so-called family balancing reasons" but I'm afraid I'm finding that this is one of those questions where I'm not entirely sure what to think. On the one hand, I've heard very few good arguments against gender selection. Many people seem to have a gut reaction against it, but I don't understand why. This encourages me to align it in my mind with the many other scientific debates where the public have ill-informed objections. On the other hand, I'm not sure I can see good reasons for allowing it either. I don't think, for example, that it should be available on the NHS for non medical reasons.
The one reasonable person I heard speaking against it argued essentially that gender selection gives you an illusion of control which, if it doesn't work out could be damaging for you and the child. So for example you chose to have a girl because you have a certain perception of the way girls are. If your child turns out still not to be like that (perhaps she's a tomboy, for example) then your disappointment will affect you as a parent and the development of your child. This makes sense to me, but is it a strong enough arguement to restrict choice? After all, there are plently of avenues available for the parent/child relationship to mess up. If you're fixated on having a girl and you have a boy, won't your feelings of dissappointment in that case have a similar effect?
So what do you think? And more importantly, why do you think it?
Impact
My view: if men do not find they have a perceived 'fair share' access to reproductive opportunity, instinctive competition will take over - and that wrecks social order.
While perhaps less pertinent to female rights per se, it is interesting to consider the case of the Spartans. Their ideology and wholehearted application of social engineering towards those ideals wrecked them.
Poverty, family pressure, status, to avoid abuse, to avoid penalties associated with children of that sex (a fine, dowry payments), and (deleted) to avoid upsetting the father.
Hence ready and willing... (i.e. ready = able) Otherwise I take your point completely. Incidentally, note that I did rate higher social standing from a prefered sex as a 'positive' ... since irrespective of our view of it, a family in difficulty with a slightly higher social standing due to prefered offspring may make just that difference in success/survival - unfortunately.
Note: this is quite separate from actual economic output, necessarily. Most societies who practice sex selection are patriarchial, so favour male children. Males will have superior access to social resources to the betterment of their family and female relations. Irrespective of, say, higher female productivity since farming may be far steadier income than cattle ranching/goat herding. The damnable old myopia of social valuation - but there's no getting past it without the kind of major effort no one seems willing to seriously try any more. (alternative: UN viral-like efforts with female education, UNDP efforts, etc.)
Re: Impact
Short-term solutions have a nasty habit of becoming long-term ways of life. The Handmaid's Tale is fiction, and like all fiction says more about its social context than actual real-world severely female-oppressive regimes (of which there are many).
"ready and willing"
OK, "ready and willing" could cover everything I mentioned.
"alternative: UN viral-like efforts with female education, UNDP efforts, etc."
Of course, it's only an opinion; but I don't see this as an alternative. Education of women is the only way of raising their status as opposed to their value.
Education programmes for women form key work for every major NGO (Non-Governmental Organisation) in the world. Apart from raising the status of the women involved in such programmes, side effects include lowered child mortality, better educated and healthier children, increased general, reproductive and sexual health (men and women), home income generation, capacity building, better resistance to crises and problems, and, in the end, decreased poverty.
"no one seems willing to seriously try any more"
See above.
Re: Impact
2. I agree completely about the value and worth of female education around the world (including the First World, if one reads the likes of Anne Coulter, ;-) ), I just don't think it is getting anything like the resources it needs to fully succeed.
you've crossed yourself
a) oppression inevitably leads to revolt ("I maintain that with sufficient pressure, even the most patient societies revolt")
and,
b) that women conspire in their own oppression ("very often women making themselves prisoners by their ignorance or beliefs ")
b) is demonstrably true, and I would never dream of arguing against it --- a) is a political opinion.
Re: you've crossed yourself
Sadly, I think 'b' has been the classic solution of slowing the inevitable outcome of 'a.' In this respect, 'tradition' and 'religion' can be considered very suspiciously.
Mind you, 'b' is a very strong feminist view, and certainly not one everyone subscribes to, including women.