In today’s day and age there are new forms of technology being developed to accomplish just about any task and make any sort of wish possible. With this being said many human beings throw caution to the wind and decide to take action on their every want and need. When it comes to the process of procreating and bringing a child into this world parents can find themselves hoping and wishing for one gender over another. In order to ensure that the gender they want is what they get parents can go through variations of processes in order to select the desired gender for their baby. Many in today’s world have deemed these sorts of practices unethical and immoral and some forms of religion refuse the idea of it. “The prospect of preconception gender selection appears to pose the conflict—long present in other bioethical issues—between individual desires and the larger common good. Yet doing so leads to the risk that children will be treated as vehicles of parental satisfaction rather than as ends in themselves, and could accelerate the trend toward negative and even positive selection of offspring characteristics” (Robertson 3). In this argumentative essay I will be going through the different areas of controversy surrounding this particular topic and focusing on the immorality of such an act. Gender selection through prenatal diagnosis and abortion has existed since the 1970s. More recently, pre-implantation sexing of embryos for transfer has been developed. Both prenatal and pre-implantation methods of gender selection are seen as horrible unethical and impractical because they require abortion or a costly, intrusive cycle of in vitro fertilization and embryo discard (Hill et al. 438). Through this process if an embryo turns out to be... ... middle of paper ... ... selection an appropriate use of medical resources? J ASSIST REPROD GENET , 19 (058-0468 (Print), 9) 438 - 439. J Assist Reprod Genet. 2002 September; 19(9): 400–410. doi: 10.1023/A:1016807605886 J.G. Schenker. Gender selection: cultural and religious perspectives. J. Assist Reprod. Genet, 19 (9) (2002 Sep.), pp. 400–410. Ethics Committee of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine. Preimplantation genetic diagnosis and sex selection. Fertil. Steril, 72 (1999), pp. 595–598 Malpani, A. Preconception gender selection. American journal of bioethics 1.4 01 Sep 2001: null. MIT Press. 03 Mar 2014. N. Gleicher, D. Barad, Does gender selection devalue women?, Fertility and Sterility, Volume 88, Supplement 1, September 2007, Page S260, ISSN 0015-0282, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.fertnstert.2007.07.887. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0015028207025435)
Savulescu also bring up the potential physiological risks associated with sex selection. Some evidence shows that sex selection can be damaging to the embryo however there is not sufficient research to support this claim1. Savulescu involves this claim in premise 1 stating that the risks associated with procedure should be scientifically investigated, as they do not interfere with the morality of sex selection as an end. If the procedure itself needs to be investigated it should according to Savulescu but the morality of having the procedure should not change because of
Our culture has a stringent belief that creating new life if a beautiful process which should be cherished. Most often, the birth process is without complications and the results are a healthy active child. In retrospect, many individuals feel that there are circumstances that make it morally wrong to bring a child into the world. This is most often the case when reproduction results in the existence of another human being with a considerably reduced chance at a quality life. To delve even further into the topic, there are individuals that feel they have been morally wronged by the conception in itself. Wrongful conception is a topic of debate among many who question the ethical principles involved with the sanctity of human life. This paper will analyze the ethical dilemmas of human dignity, compassion, non-malfeasance, and social justice, as well the legal issues associated with wrongful conception.
A gynaecologist can easily perform an ultrasound and tell parents what gender to expect their child to be. Reasonably, parents have the choice to learn the gender or to keep it a surprise. However, For parents to know they are expecting a daughter by chance or for them to choose that they want a daughter are two different cases. There are a variety of methods that allow parents to choose the gender of their child. In some cases, there may be fear of passing down a sex-linked genetic disease and so a certain gender may be preferred to protect the child’s health. However, a contentious issue is whether or not gender selection for non-medical reasons is ethically defensible. There are three positions that one could take: gender selection can never, sometimes, or always be ethically defended. In this paper, I intend to argue that gender selection is always permissible.
Although science is at a peak for overwhelming and astonishing outbreaks, the ethical issues concerning these “out breaks” have been inadequately addressed. As the options that couples that are desperate to have a child expand, so do too the expectations of whom the child becomes. Couples are able to choose a donor, of either gender, based on characteristics that they see fit to their liking. Although imperfect, couples now have the ability to choose their child’s gender. “Medicine tends to be patient-driven at the moment.” Said Charles Strom, MD, PhD, director of medical genetics at Illinois Masonic Medical Center in Chicago. “A patient needs something and physicians do all they can to provide that service, and that sometimes makes one shortcut the ethical considerations.” With our vast
Amniocentesis and ultrasound techniques are the most common ways for couples to determine the sex of the child before it is born. In the US, such tests are routine and not usually alarming, but in nations such as India and China those tests, and others, have become an issue of debate since the results could mean life or death. Until the 1980’s, people in poor countries could do little about their preference for sons before birth, ...
Abortion is arguably the most controversial topic in all the issues revolving around reproduction. Women of all different races, classes, and religions have been practicing abortion since before the colonial era in America. The laws pertaining to abortion have changed many times, adding and removing discrepancies and stipulations throughout many years, and still to this day. The views of abortion in society during different time periods have also changed and adapted. At the time of Sarah Grosvenor’s decision to abort, the laws pertaining to abortion did not make the act fully illegal. However in years after Grosvenor’s case abortion was outlawed. The law played a minor part in women’s decisions to have an abortion, however society, and gender played the most prominent role in the decision of abortion.
Sex selection is when one uses medical techniques to conceive the preferred gender. This practice brings up questions about sex discrimination, stereotypes, reproductive autonomy, and ethics of choosing children with certain traits. In the U.S, many organizations are against sex selection but have yet taken a position. Sex selection is connected with the idea of a certain gender being superior. People think of gender as categories, either boy or girl, not as a fluid. Some say allowing sex selection is another way to allow abortions; while others say it is better to choose the gender then kill the child all together. Clinics allow sex selection for the first or only child. More common is using sex selection for family balancing. In America, family balancing is used so parents can have a balanced amount of gender. In China, family balancing is used to fix the dominance of males from using sex selection for males in an overloaded
Guido, Pennings: Family balancing as a morally acceptable application of sex selection. Brussels: European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology, 1996
Fausto-Sterling, A. (1993, April) The Five Sexes: Why Male and Female Are Not Enough Retrieved from http://moodle.csun.edu
Prenatal genetic screening in particular is a polarizing topic of discussion, more specifically, preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). PGD is one of the two techniques commonly used to genetically screen embryos in vitro; it is usually done at the eight-cell stage of division. PGD is most often performed when there is the risk that one or both parents carry disease-causing mutations. It is extensively used by high-risk individuals trying to conceive babes who will be free of particular mutations. PGD can test for over 50 genetic conditions and even allows for sex selection if there are underlying gender-associated medical conditions. When the results are satisfactory, the selected embryo is implanted into the mother’s uterus. While a controversial technique, preimplantation genetic diagnosis is one example of some of the good genetic testing can do, more benefits will be furthe...
Determining whether to divulge the gender of a child should be a personal choice. Society should not dictate whether one chooses to disclose the sex of their child. At conception, the gender is determined by chromosome characteristics and it will be the male (male semen) that dictates whether the baby will be a boy or girl. Nowhere in any literature that has been read or published that it states that “society” is the determining factor whether a girl or boy will be conceived. Society suggests that knowing the gender is routine, but what may be considered routine for some is not necessarily customary for all. If one chooses to stray away from what is considered to be “normal” it poses or present an issue. Individuals are instantaneously met with opposition or back lash due to nondisclosure of the sex of their child whether it is unborn or born. A typical argument would be as to what color clothing to bring for the unborn or born child, should one bring pink or blu...
Daniel Callahan, however, chooses to convey his argument about the bioethics of artificial insemination through a male perspective in his 1992 article “Bioethics and Fatherhood.” He argues that since the beginning of artificial insemination, there has been a trend to overlook the male and his anonymous donation of sperm. His writing style is fairly easy to read and very straightforward in an attempt to convey his point to the general population. His opinion is obvious through his very one-sided argument as well as occasional sarcastic remarks. For this, he does not base many of his points on factual evidence but more abstract, logically deduced theory. His argument is that this man, the sperm donor, is biologically responsible for the newly born child and its life thereafter. He bases his argument around the responsibility of the individual, the technology that allows men to be overlooked, and the rights movement that has lessened the responsibility of the man in fatherhood.
In the gender selection article, a fertility clinic is offering the chance to pick the gender of your baby. People from countries where gender selection is illegal, come to the United States in order to hve the chance to have a boy. Using PGD, a test that is used to detect gentic abnormalities, Steinburg can select a babys gender with 99.9 percent accuracy. Some people think gender selection is unethical because gender is not a disease. Some even say that gender selection is sexism and that it is just making designer babies. They are taking a natural process and are turning it into a design your own baby buisness. I think that it should be left natural because that is how it has always been. Also as a result, one gender
For centuries there had been one sex that dominated the development of society. Laws, religion and lifestyle all revolved around the idea that one sex, the male sex, was dominant. Oppressed and considered inferior, women would obey the men, forgo all rights and accept all responsibility. Only recently, with the emergence of the women’s liberation movement, have both sexes been considered equal. For the first time in human history, both sexes have been given the chance to fulfill their potentials without discrimination. Parents, despite preferences of having a girl, or a boy, have known that regardless, their child would have an equal opportunity at life. The cutting edge technology, however, means that all this could change. The ability of parents to actually select the gender of their child could have not only devastating effects on society, but on the lives of so many children and parents. Whether parents had a girl or a boy has always been left up to nature to decide. To date, no-one has dared interfere with the genetic workings of the body, mainly because the technology did not exist to do it. Now, with the dawn of the twenty-first century, that technology has arrived and mankind is faced with a very important decision: whether or not to “play God” and manipulate the gender of their child to suit their preferences. The romance of having the perfect nuclear family, with two boys and two girls’ fills the heads of young couples everywhere, and when given the opportunity, m...
Practicing sex selection prior to conception is viewed as a more natural and more of a safe way to conceive a child of a desired gender. “The trouble is that society as a whole is not capable of handling Sex Selection without terrible results” (Dixon). The most practiced pre-selection is the laboratory. Here urine specimens are used to monitor ovarian steroid changes during ovulation. “Although methods of selecting sex before conception are not entirely reliable […]” (British Medical Journal), it is obviously the practical route to go. A response to either practice of sex selection merely depends on the factor of cost and ease of access.