Parents frequently prefer their offspring to be of a particular sex for a variety of reasons. Social sex selection or human sex selection is the attempt to control the sex of the offspring to achieve a desired sex. It can be accomplished in several ways, both pre- and post-implantation of an embryo, as well as at birth. It has been marketed under the title family balancing.
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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.[1]
Evidence suggests couples in the United Kingdom tend to pick sons and daughters in roughly even numbers.[2]
Most clinics in the United States treat only those parents who already have a child of the other sex. [2]
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.
No "seamless" method is known to exist where couples take certain measure before sexual intercourse normally. Even if there were one, many countries would refuse to grant patents to implements as contravention of common decency.
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 ove 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.[1]
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, though this may in part stem from the fact that sperm sorting methods are often more reliable for X-(female) sperm than Y-(male) sperm (88% vs. 74% respectively for MicroSort's method). 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, although applicable only in most urban populations. 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.[3][4]
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.[2][3]
Some nations, such as India, have attempted to curtail these gender imbalances with criminal statutes.[5] In contrast, bioethicist Jacob Appel of New York University has argued that governments should pay couples to choose to have female children.[6] Acccording to Professor Appel, "if female babies [were] worth their weight in rupees and yuan, economic and educational opportunities for girls would soon follow."[7]
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.[8]
Some people believe that timing conception according to astrological charts can influence a baby's sex,[9] 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 dead X- (female) and Y- (male) chromosome bearing spermatozoa.[10]. 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.[11] 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.[12]
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) [4][5]
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 it's practiced particularly in Western countries, but is more limited in Eastern countries, such as India or China. However, an exception of this is Europe, where the practice of sex-selection is prohibited (bar the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus). There is fertility tourism from the United Kingdom to the United States for sex selection, because preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD, a potential expansion of IVF), which can be used for sex selection, is prohibited in the UK, except when it is used to screen for genetic diseases, while the laws in the US are more relaxed in this subject.[2]
See also
Notes
- ^ Sisters 'make people happy'
- ^ a b c US clinic offers British couples the chance to choose the sex of their child From The Times. August 22, 2009
- ^ India's lost girls, BBC Online, 4 Feb 2003.
- ^ China facing major gender imbalance, MSNBC, 12 Jan 2007.Archive
- ^ Appel, JM. Want a Daughter? Try Paying for Her Opposing Views, August 26, 2009.
- ^ Appel, JM. Want a Daughter? Try Paying for Her Opposing Views, August 26, 2009.
- ^ Appel, JM. Want a Daughter? Try Paying for Her Opposing Views, August 26, 2009.
- ^ Hoag, Hannah. I'll take a girl, please... Cherry-picking from the dish of life. Drexel University Publication.
- ^ Ancient chinese birth gender chart
- ^ Garner DL, Seidel GE. History of commercializing sexed semen for cattle. Theriogenology 2008;69: 886-895.
- ^ Flegr, Jaroslav (2007). "Women infected with parasite Toxoplasma have more sons" (PDF). Naturwissenschaften 94: 122. doi:. http://www.natur.cuni.cz/~flegr/pdf/toxosons.pdf.
- ^ Can A Pregnant Woman's Diet Affect Baby's Sex?
External links
- Sex selection in the UK
- Gender Selection
- MicroSort
- Center for Genetics and Society
- Baby Gender Selection - The straight truth about methods for choosing the sex of your baby
- Baby Gender Selection - Tips on how to conceive a baby boy
- Baby Gender Selection - Tips on how to conceive a baby girl
- 60 Minutes: 100% Gender Selection with PGD
- MicroSort Website
- A collection of essays on sex selection in various Asian countries by Attané and Guilmoto
- Five case studies and a video on sex selection in Asia by UNFPA
- Choose your Baby's Gender Naturally - 95% Success Rate!
Ethical debates
- The Feminist Case for Gender Selection
- Bioethics: Gender Selection
- Gender selection for babies poses ethical dilemmas
- On fetal blood testing
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