Sex Selection

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Permalink Reply by Ivory on May 17, 2009 at 7:20pm

Good point. You may not know what you're missing if you choose the same sex for all of your children! I know that I, for one, want to have one of each...and if possible to have twins so I only have to be in labor once ;) LOL!

I'm with you on the personal choice deal though. It doesn't hurt me any if my neighbor chooses the sex of his/her children. Now when we start talking about China's one child rule being factored in, I can definately see problems lurking. We need beautiful little Chinese baby girls as much as we need beautiful little Chinese baby boys gracing the earth!

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Permalink Reply by Leanne1972 on May 18, 2009 at 1:21am

We actually touched on this topic a few months ago. It is very interesting though. I think it seems to be the "norm" in Hollywood.

http://surrogatemother.com/forum/topics/need-help-does-anyone-knows


It is illegal in Canada for a clinic to do Gender Selection.

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Permalink Reply by Ivory on May 18, 2009 at 8:49am

I figured it had come up before. I'm sure I've missed quite a bit of information an good discussion before I came on board. My apolgies for being repetitive :) Thank you for the link!

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Permalink Reply by Leanne1972 on May 18, 2009 at 5:55pm

Don't apologize!!! I just wanted to add that discussion into this one. :)

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Permalink Reply by Dreams-Matched & Preggy on May 18, 2009 at 5:33am

in a lot of 3rd world countries its done as well.
its all very hush hush unless you actually know the people involved,but there are some really high tech clinics in Algeria & Tunisia that do just that........
depending on the heirachy status of the female thats going to be pregnant...they need to make sure the 1st born is a boy.
another thing they do as well is ultrasound to check on sex of the baby..............and if its not the required sex,then the family are not allowed to go ahead with the pregnancy....
a lot of them do still gop ahead with carrying the baby.............but they loose thier family in doing so.
a close friend of mine just married a tunisian lad with all the traditional wedding etc................and after they were told that they have to make sure the 1st born is a boy....
and yes my pal is from the uk,but even if they spilt up after any child is born,she cant legally have any children shes carried,the father has to.

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Permalink Reply by Ivory on May 18, 2009 at 8:47am

she must really be in love!

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Permalink Reply by Dreams-Matched & Preggy on May 18, 2009 at 6:11am

Preference for sex of child
In some cultures, male offspring are desired in order to inherit property, carry on family name, to provide support for parents in old age.

Studies have demonstrated that having sisters, as compared to brothers, can enhance the quality of life of an adult

Scientific methods

Pre-implantation methods
Two major types of pre-implantation methods can be used for social sex selection.

Sperm sorting - The separation of X Chromosome sperm from Y Chromosome sperm. The resulting sorted sperm are used in either artificial insemination or in-vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures.

Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) - In sex selection cases, embryos resulting from IVF procedures are genetically tested for X or Y Chromosomes. The embryos of the desired sex are then implanted.


Post-implantation methods
Prenatal diagnosis - Amniocentesis and/or ultrasound is used to determine sex of an offspring, leading to subsequent abortion of any offspring of the unwanted sex. The more recent technique of fetal blood now makes it possible to test the sex of the fetus from the sixth week of pregnancy.


Post-birth methods
Sex-selective infanticide - Killing children of the unwanted sex. Though illegal in most parts of the world, it is still practiced.

Sex-selective child abandonment - Abandoning children of the unwanted sex. Though illegal in most parts of the world, it is still practiced.

Sex-selective adoption - Placing children of the unwanted sex up for adoption. Less commonly viewed as a method of social sex selection, adoption affords families that have a gender preference a legal means of choosing offspring of a particular sex.


Ethical concerns
The application of these techniques to humans creates moral and ethical concerns in the opinion of some, while the advantages of sensible use of selected technologies is favored by others.

Listed here are some ethical concerns:

Sexual discrimination - The idea that if one sex is preferred over another, those individuals in the non-preferred sex would be at a disadvantage. Opponents of social sex selection argue that the procedure would artificially unequalize the ratio of females to males, leading to discrimination, potential violence and abuse of the smaller group.

Eugenics - Many fear that PGD, in general, is a 'slippery slope' leading to a society where 'non-selected' individuals would be discriminated against. PGD is used primarily in the U.S. for the purpose of reducing birth defects and abnormalities, but opponents fear that there is nothing stopping persons from using PGD for more eugenic-based purposes. It has been noticed that the largest gender imbalances in China come from the Han Chinese ethnic group.

Psychological Implications - There may be psychological implications for both the parents and child if the procedure does not produce a child of the desired sex. Furthermore, problems may also arise if the gender-related expectations of the parents are not subsequently fulfilled by the child. However, it may be the case that any child will fail to fulfill particular parental expectations, so perhaps more emphasis should be placed on promoting acceptance and tolerance within parents as opposed to completely banning sex selection.

Conflict with Kantian principles - Many argue that by selecting the sex of their child, parents are using the child as a means of fulfilling their own desires rather than respecting the child as a person and an end in their own right.

In contrast, there is widespread support for the concept that individual reproductive choice is an important private decision which should not be infringed by government. There is considerable evidence from sperm sorting in the United States that pre-conceptual use of this technology, which does not involve destruction of embryos or fetuses, is desired and utilized by many couples to achieve balancing of gender ratios within their families. Furthermore, the fear that there would be preferential selection of boys is clearly false - indeed, actual experience in the U.S. indicates that the technology is used more often to obtain girls than boys. Thus the real-world experiences with techniques such as MicroSort demonstrate that theoretical fears of gender discrimination from sperm sorting are not at all realized in a country such as the U.S. There is equally little real evidence in support of the other theoretical harms postulated by opponents of pre-conceptual gender selection.

Post-conceptual selection by preimplantation testing (PGD) is a distinct subject as it obviously involves preferential use of embryos, and of course termination of pregnancy for gender selection is a quite different matter.


Demographic concerns
In addition to the ethical concerns mentioned, issues of demographics arise in societies where social sex selection is common. A society may exhibit a widespread bias towards having children of a specific gender, either due to cultural biases or economic concerns (e.g. male children may be more employable in the future and thus provide more financial support). When combined with frequent social sex selection, this bias may produce a gender imbalance that has undesirable consequences. This phenomenon has been observed in many nations in the Far East, such as India and China, where social sex selection has produced unnaturally high male/female ratios in the population. China's gender imbalance is further increased by the One Child Policy. In these nations, a lack of opportunity for many men to marry is believed to be producing increases in crime, demand for prostitution, and the selling of brides.

Major demographic changes have occurred in China because of sex selection. Chinese government reports show that the sex ratio for newborns is 118:100 (boys:girls), higher in rural areas such as Guangdong and Hainan (130:100) compared to the average of 104:107 in developed countries. It is believed that the ratio would increase further to the point that, by 2020, men of marriageable age would be unable to find mates, resulting in large social problems.

In contrast, actual experience in Western cultures provides no evidence for any degree of gender imbalance from technologies which have long been available and legal - such as selective abortion or preimplantation embryo testing. When used for family balancing indications in such countries as the United States, pre-conceptual sex selection is widely sought without any preferential selection of males. Thus the right of individual families to determine whether or not to balance gender of offspring in their families is not and will not become, in many countries, a demographic issue. Furthermore, in countries where such demographic issues exist because of strong gender preferences in a segment of the population, regulatory and legal control of, without denial of access to, sperm sorting technology can be utilized to provide individuals with choices while ensuring that equal numbers of boys and girls are produced for population demographic equality.


History and folk beliefs
There are a wide variety of social sex selections methods which have not been demonstrated to be effective. Because even implausible and ineffective methods have a "success" rate of 50%, many continued to be recommended by word of mouth.

As early as 330 BC, Aristotle prescribed the ligation (tying off) of the left testicle in men wishing to have boys.

Some people believe that timing conception according to astrological charts can influence a baby's sex, though there is no evidence to support this or any other timing method. A 13th century Chinese conception chart purports to be able to identify the sex of the baby before birth.

During the 1980s, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories teamed with the United States Department of Agriculture to develop the first (and only) successful and repeatable means of separating X- (female) and Y- (male) chromosome bearing spermatozoa. It was not until the 1990s that the United States Department of Agriculture modified the discovery for commercialization. 'Sexed semen' is offered commercially in cattle by a variety of companies including Cogent (UK) and Sexing Technologies (USA). In humans the technique is marketed as 'MicroSort', but is unavailable outside of the USA due to legal restrictions.

Recently, a study published in 2006 indicated that mothers with toxoplasmosis have a significantly higher sex ratio of boys to girls. This has been discussed in connection with the manipulation hypothesis of parasites. Another study found a link between sex and the diet of the mother, but this may be due to statistical chance, and has yet to be confirmed.

Legality
Sex selection is officially prohibited in China, but the Chinese government admits that the practice is widespread, especially in rural areas of China and among lawless groups such as ghettoized migrant workers in cities (despite denials by the government-sponsored studies)

Social sex selection is illegal in India. To ensure this, prenatal determination of sex through ultrasound is also illegal in India. These laws are instituted to combat the prevalent practice of sex-selective abortion. However, these laws have generally failed to be effective in rural areas and, despite education efforts, sex-selective abortion continues to be widely practised there.

Sex selection is legal in most of the world, and its practice particularly in Western countries is far more limited than in India or China however the practice is banned in most of Europe (bar the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus).

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Permalink Reply by Melissa on May 18, 2009 at 9:13am

Unless it is for medical reasons (eg, there will be known genetic defects if a male is born), I suspect gender selection scares most of us. I know it scares me.

Gender selection in itself seems harmless enough ~no harm done, but what scares me are the lack of boundaries. Why stop at gender selection? Why not add blonde and blue eyed to the mix? Height and predispositions for weights?

Perhaps, my thinking is rather old school, but I really worry about too much medical intervention.

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Permalink Reply by Dreams-Matched & Preggy on May 18, 2009 at 9:44am

you mean like this?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7918296.stm

i think its awful that people go to such lengths to get a mini me or mini him or what ever traits they are trying to get.
they should be thankful that a life has been created in the 1st place

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Permalink Reply by Kendy on May 18, 2009 at 8:45pm

Like most of you here, I don’t ’really’ have a problem with gender selection. My partner already has a son and he would like to have a daughter. That I can understand, although I am not sure I would want anyone to actually interfere.

It starts to scare me when people choose a sex because it is allegedly better than the other: a boy is better because a girl is useless or a girl is better because she will do the cooking when mama is too old… What would be really amusing is to see these people become the parents of the cutest little transgender kids. “Happy you had that boy? Well, he’s gonna grow to be a successful woman. And your beautiful little girl? Well, she’ll be a gorgeous young man.” Actually, it’s really not funny for the kids. Those kind of parents are no good for them. Anyway…

Actually, the question of gender becomes important to me when I think about the future relationship to the child. We all know here that you love your kids no matter what they are but at the same time, I don’t think you can deny that your relationship with them often depends on their gender.

They might all be the same when they are very young but later on in life, things change. If I think about my own parents for instance, there are things I would really feel uncomfortable talking about with my dad (you know, all the girls stuff).

And, if I have the chance of becoming a mother and have a son, will I try to make a him a perfect little man? (So different from all the bad guys who do not give us the respect we deserve.) And if it’s a girl, will I try to live again through her?

Take care, all.

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Permalink Reply by Melissa on May 18, 2009 at 9:28pm

Do you remember "The Gods Must be Crazy?" "

"The members of Xi's tribe are living well off the land in the Kalahari Desert. They are happy because the gods have provided plenty of everything, no one in the tribe has unfilled wants. One day, a glass Coke bottle is thrown out of plane and falls to earth unbroken. Initially, this strange artifact seems to be another boon from the gods—Xi's people find many uses for it. But unlike anything that they have had before, there is only one bottle to go around. This exposes the tribe to a hitherto unknown phenomenon, property, and they soon find themselves experiencing things they never had before: jealousy, envy, anger, hatred, even violence."

Sometimes I suspect that fertility itself (and its dramatic rise in numbers) is caused by all the foreign, man made crap we introduce into our environments. What are the ramifications of gender selection based on want alone?

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Permalink Reply by 4 chayrez on July 1, 2009 at 8:40pm

I actually dont oppose it and I just transferred two boy embryos on Sunday. Its my IP's preference and I knew from the beginning they wanted to try for a boy or a few boys. Everyone will have varying reasons and thats why surrogacy and matching shouldnt be taken lightly. All of this should be discussed up front!!! Now I can tell you that I would NEVER terminate because of GENDER!!!!

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