Pros And Cons Of Sex Selection

Whether one can or cannot choose the sex of a future child is no longer a hypothetical issue within society. Today society has new genetic engineering technologies that allow parents to select the sex of their baby in advance. However, a controversial debate surrounds the topic due to the ethical concern on the matter. Sex selection experiments have been seen throughout history for centuries (Laio 1). The methods in determining sex may not all share the same characteristics and procedures, but the ultimate desired outcome has always been the same. For example, Ancient Greeks would tie the left testicle off in hopes the sex of a child would be male because they believed the right testicle produced the male sex (Laio 1). Jewish tradition believed

For example, some people end up having more kids then they anticipated because they kept trying for a baby of the opposite sex (Fletcher 1). By participating in prenatal sex selection families can control the size of their family outcomes. In addition, families that already have one or multiple children of the same sex can have a child of that opposite gender (Fletcher 1). According to Kalfoglou prenatal sex selection is advantageous for both men and women by allowing their goal of a gender balanced family with producing as few children as possible (3). Increasing family size to produce certain desired offspring increases both economic and human burdens in caring for a family, prenatal sex selection can prevent

There is no evidence at the moment that sperm sorting or PGD causes any harm to a future child. If no harm is brought forth to the child there are no moral disadvantages to pre selecting a child’s sex. By doing non-harmful procedures such as sperm sorting and PGD, actual known harmful procedures such as selective abortion and infanticide can be avoided. The teleological theory of ethics, more exact utilitarianism, states that the end or purpose of an action determines its rightness or wrongness (Levine xxii). It also states that an act is considered morally correct if it brings more good consequences than bad ones. Based on this ethical theory prenatal sex selection can be considered ethical due to preventing other more questionable sex selective methods such as abortion and infanticide. With or without prenatal sex selection abortion and infanticide cannot be completely prevented, but by using a non-harmful methods such as sperm sorting or PGD situations such as these can be reduced and result in more good consequences then bad