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[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?
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Re: sex selection
Date: November 18th, 2003 02:11 am (UTC)From:Don't we already do this to a certain extent? We provide pre-natal screening for conditions such as Downs syndrome for the explicit purpose of allowing the parents to abort if it's found.
Another thought that occurs to me - those who are desparate to pursue selection already have crude options available to them as, if they find out the sex early enough, they can abort. Would it not be preferable to have a regulated and safe way of performing sex selection for people who are so fixated?
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.