The days of taking vitamins, eating certain foods, and conceiving a pregnancy on a specific date in attempt to have a baby boy or girl are over. During the IVF process doctors are able to test embryos for viability before they are implanted into the uterus. The pre-implantation genetic screening (PGS) examines chromosome development and checks for genetic abnormalities. Sex is a chromosome which means specialists can determine the gender of an embryo before it is implanted. More and more couples are taking advantage of PGS and some have even picked the gender of their babies. After celebrities John Legend and Chrissy Teigen announced that they had chosen the sex of their daughter, a controversial issue was brought to light. Parents should be allowed to partake in sex selection of their children due to the fact that IVF is used in situations of infertility, it's a personal choice, and the process is completely safe. The first baby born from IVF treatment was in 1978. People were outraged and reacted with the, “If it's meant to be, it will be” attitude. IVF has developed greatly over its almost 40 year life, but many opinions still haven't changed. It's important to realize that for …show more content…
The moment you conceive a child, you're a parent. If you as a parent want to chose the gender of your baby before its conceived than so be it. You just made your first parental choice. Those who are bringing the child into the world should be allowed to make all of the choices, even gender.The parents will have paid for the IVF, the mom will carry the child for nine months, the parents will prepare for the babies arrival, and after its birth they will provide care for the rest of the child's life. The public is in no way shape or form involved in this process, therefore they should have no say. Not to mention, those who don't agree with choosing the gender of an embryo do not have to do
... anyone has the right in such a case to decide how the embryo is to be used but the owners of the genetic material involved in its creation.
When in-vitro fertilization was introduced it was seen as completely unnatural and going against all religions. I am sure there are still people who view in-virto fertilization as wrong, but the vast majority of the world can see it for its benefits at this point. It must be said that it did take a while for people on a whole to accept this method of conceiving a child. Today, we as a society worldwide have a new issue to deal with. Science has discovered the means by which to clone animals, opening a whole new discussion.
“IVF Patient Numbers and Success Rates Continue to Rise." Human Fertlisation & Embryology Authority. Dec. 2007. .
In recent years, great advancement has been made in medicine and technology. Advanced technologies in reproduction have allowed doctors and parents the ability to screen for genetic disorders (Suter, 2007). Through preimplantation genetic diagnosis, prospective parents undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) can now have their embryo tested for genetic defects and reduce the chance of the child being born with a genetic disorder (Suter, 2007). This type of technology can open the door and possibility to enhance desirable traits and characteristics in their child. Parents can possibly choose the sex, hair color and eyes or stature. This possibility of selecting desirable traits opens a new world of possible designer babies (Mahoney,
Two of the most popular technologies used today for sex selection are, in vitro fertilization (IVF) and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) (Ethics Committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, 2015). IVF involves combining the egg cells and the sperm cells outside the uterus. Once fertilized, the egg is then implanted back into the women’s uterus or stored for future use.
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.
IVF accounts for 99% of reproductive procedures, in 2009 out of those pregnancy was achieved and average of 29.4% of all cycles with 22.4% of cycles that resulted in love births. A woman's age is a major factor in the success of IVF, a woman who is under age 35 has a 39.6% chance of having a baby, while a woman over age 40 has an 11.5% chance.” (Todd) For a woman to have her best chances of conception with IVF, she needs to act quickly to ensure that her eggs are young. The younger or fresher the woman’s eggs are the more viable they are for successful
In 2000 the United Nations Populations Fund (UNFPA) defined reproductive rights as "the basic rights of couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children; to have the information and means to do so; and to have the right to make decisions concerning reproduction, free of discrimination, coercion or violence."[1] Traditionally society defines reproductive rights in the context of one's being able to make decisions about his or her own reproduction; other individuals, unrelated to that person, were not considered as being involved in the decision. With the onset of in vitro fertilization (IVF) in 1978, reproductive processes have become more complicated. For example, in gestational surrogacy a surrogate mother, not genetically related to the embryo, is brought into the process of reproduction. This technique allows infertile couples to carry a child or children in the womb of a carrier, rather than in the womb of the biological mother.[2] As a result of this ethically controversial technology, society must modify its reproductive rights. In vitro fertilization (IVF) alone will not solve people's reproductive problems and protect everybody's rights. Society, therefore, must distinguish whose rights-the rights of biological parents or those of the surrogate mothers-should be protected.
Females have the ability to bear children. Should they not have the right to choose whether or not to bear them? It has been argued for a while that there should be bans or strict laws against those choosing to have abortions. State legislatures have done a tremendous amount to make it harder to have abortions. There is nothing wrong with restrictions on abortions. But, it is senseless to say that abortions should be banned, because there are some special cases where the mother cannot help her situation. Abortions are acceptable under certain circumstances.
As of 1995, 20,000 babies had been born as a result of ART treatments.2 Since then, many women and couples have sought the services of IVF clinics all over the world with hopes of the miracle of conception. These people are usually ones who suffer from some sort of condition that renders them inferti...
Over the course of human history, the gender of a newborn child has mostly been a welcomed surprise and an uncontrollable aspect of the lifecycle. Technology advancements have allowed parents to not only know the gender of their child before birth but to choose the child’s gender before being implanted in the womb. Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) been available since the early 1990’s after Alan Handyside and his colleagues successfully identified and implanted female embryos for several couples at risk of X linked recessive diseases (Handyside, 1990). Every cell in the human body contains 46 packages of DNA known as chromosomes, which are divided into 23 pairs. One of these pairs contains sex chromosomes. Women have two X chromosomes while men have one X chromosome and one Y chromosome. The factor that determines a child's sex is which of the man's sperm reaches the female egg. About half of a man's sperm contain girl-producing X chromosomes, while the other half contain boy-producing Y chromosomes ;whichever kind of sperm reaches the egg first wins the gender battle. But the new methods, some of which remain in question within the medical community, try and control that coin toss (Onion, April 26). The three factors that we will explore are the: legal, moral and ethical perspective on gender selection. Do the consequences of actions always direct what is morally required? What should happen when two principles come into conflict? For example, should patient autonomy be considered more important than beneficence? Are moral and ethically rules always binding, or are they only guidelines to be assessed in each case? The final topic to explore is society’s acceptanc...
With new technologies available everyday, it seems almost as if we can customize our children. Reproduction is no longer an outcome of random and inherited genes, but now it’s a process of creating the child that we want to have. Fertility clinics are in debate as to whether or not it is ethical to be able to determine the sex of our children. Some view this as a valid option, while others see it as another step down the road to designer babies. But how far is too far? That is a question that we can only answer for ourselves. While this article remains unbiased, we are able to form our own opinion after seeing the pros and cons of both sides.
An important scientific argument for IVF is that, by studying fertilization and early embryonic development outside the womb, scientists might learn more about how to prevent certain birth defects (1). This proves that IVF could actually make improvements in medical advances, especially in regards to prenatal care. This is just one example of how IVF can actually be beneficial to the community. The only times that babies are malformed or sick are when the mother puts more than one baby in her uterus. Multiple fetuses increase the chance of birth defects because they have a greater chance of preterm birth, which is associated with long-term health. The long-term illnesses are cerebral palsy, mental illness, and blindness (Reddy 1). With this in mind, having single births is very safe and those babies are still healthy today, just like Sarah and Maggie Marshall’s baby. Single births are also very highly recommended by medical personnel. Going back to the first test tube baby the Browns were expecting, and Steptoe (the doctor) thought that this baby would be a failure. When they did a cesarean on July 25, 1978, a beautiful baby girl was born at 5 pounds and 12 ounces. After the baby was born, the doctor recalled that
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...
Genetic testing has become very popular as technology has improved, and has opened many doors in the scientific community. Genetic testing first started in 1866 by a scientist known as, Gregor Mendel, when he published his work on pea plants. The rest was history after his eyes opening experiments on pea plants. However, like any other scientific discovery, it bought conflicts which caused major controversies and a large population disagreed with the concept of playing with the genetic codes of human beings. Playing God was the main argument that people argument that people had against genetics. genetic testing became one of the major conflicts conflicts to talk about, due to the fact that parents could now have the option of deciding if they