Should Parents be Allowed to Select the Sex of Their Baby?

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The ability for parents to select the sex of their baby has been made possible by the advancement of technology with fertility procedures. Today’s parents want the option to select the sex of their baby and there are a plethora of reasons why a couple would want to take this route. John A. Robertson from Extending Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis mentions, one main reason is there are serious diseases that could be prevented by sex selection using preimplantation genetic diagnosis. Conversely, Marcy Darnovsky from Revisiting Sex Selection: The Growing Popularity of New Sex Selection Methods Revives and Old Debate; believe parents should not have the right to select the sex of their baby. He gives support that suggests selecting the sex of a baby is a slippery slope down the road of eugenics. Both sides of the issue offer strong points on whether parents should be allowed to select the sex of their baby.
Historically gender selection has been a part of our society for decades, perhaps not the most liked methods but couples have utilized all options. Couples who did not want either a boy or a girl would leave the baby at the door of a church, fire station, or orphanage. Some would take even more drastic steps such as killing the unwanted child. Some societies continue to use these practices however parents today have more advanced options to sex selection. There are technologies such as ultrasounds that can determine the sex of a baby; so parents can choose to abort or give up for adoption if they are not satisfied with the sex of the baby. In other countries such as china, where they have a policy that the government will only support one child has placed a lot of pressure on sex selection. Although there are methods that Ame...

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...ms and technological change (6th ed., pp. 485-491). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.
The Ethics Committee. (1999) Sex selection and preimplantation genetic diagnosis. Retrieved November11, 2013, from http://www.asrm.org/uploadedFiles/ASRM_Content/News_and_Publications/Ethics_Committee_Reports_and_Statements/Sex_Selection.pdf
Leigh, S. (1999) Choosing your baby's sex: What the scientists say. Retrieved November11,
2013, from http://www.babycenter.com/0_choosing-your-babys-sex-what-the-scientists-say_2915.bc?page=1
BMJ. (2001) Sex selection and preimplantation genetic diagnosis.
Retrieved November11, 2013, from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1121384/

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