Should we be able to choose our child’s gender? December 11, 2009
Posted by Jolie McCullough in technology.Tags: dna, embryo, ethics, gender, genes, in vitro, medicine, science, technology
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Just because we can do something, does that mean we should?
Obviously, there is no clear answer to this, and the argument has been around forever: Is science getting too close to “playing God?”
The technology for parents to choose the sex of their child is not necessarily new, but the process is becoming much more mainstream, causing a lot of red flags to go off over the ethical issues involved in the science.
PGD | Courtesy of Obgyn.net
Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) is a broad term that refers to procedures that are often performed on embryos before implantation, and has been around since the 1980s. Usually used to help couples who have a high risk for passing on genetic diseases, the embryos with disorders are identified before implantation. Then, other samples that are free of the disorder can be implanted via in vitro fertilization, assuring the new family a healthier baby.
Another use of PGD though, is for parents to be able to choose the sex of their future child, although most countries ban this (the U.S. does not).
This is not just like any other doctor’s appointment obviously, since the procedure has a price tag of around $18,000 in the U.S., but doctors claim many have come from around the world to choose if they will be proud parents of a boy or a girl.
A CNN article on the issue shows that even doctors are split on the ethics of these procedures. Even the doctor who pioneered PGD, Dr. Mark Hughes, questions if using the process for gender selection is even “medicine.”
The other doctor in the article, Los Angeles fertility expert Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg, argued against Hughes, saying the last thing anyone wants to do is put “handcuffs on science.”
Still, I have to admit there is something about this that makes me stop to think. It all seems very future-esque and similar to the movie, “Gattaca,” to me. It is great that we have discovered this technology to help future parents to have children without genetic mishaps, but the gender selection may be pushing it.
After all, if we can choose the sex of a child, what else can we choose? Though I am usually a very pro-technology person, I am still on the fence about this one.
What about you?
- For more: View this profile on a couple who used PGD to have a baby without a genetic disorder.
China has been having problems because they limit the number of children people can have (a good idea in my opinion) and people all want boys. So now they have tons of marriage age men and no brides. Ha!
Selection for the sex of your child is sadly inevitable. Couples have tried to do this for generations and now technology makes it straightforward. And, it is disgusting, not because choosing sex is ethically wrong, but because it is a step on the path signifying the trivialization of perhaps the most beautiful thing we do as human beings – passing our personal genetics to the next generation of life. But, it probably isn’t a slippery slope toward into the moral gutter. As Mark Hughes, the pioneer of this technology points out: “Couples choose PGD out of fear of having another child with an incurable, sometimes lethal disease”….”no one in their right mind would choose to undergo the emotional, physical and financial trauma of IVF for trivial reasons”. And, perhaps most persuasively: “Your child can only have the desired traits of which you dream for her, if you have those genes to give”….”technology can never change basic biology – Danny DiVito and Dr. Ruth will not produce a Jennifer Aniston” [even in Hollywood]. Hughes goes on in another interview: “Except for sex selection, most anything the shallow mind of a misguided couple could wish to have in their ‘perfect baby’, requires multiple genes acting in concert. I am not concerned that this misguided quest by some will ever become a reality of concern to society” We will see. One thing for sure: Sex selection has been around for centuries and is now here to stay. We must guard against the shopping mall mentality of those who think that a perfect baby is possible, rather than focusing on the beautiful miracle of creating and nurturing a life together.