Why is PGD (pre-implantation genetic diagnosis) a bad thing to use for gender selection of your child?

Well do you think in China any girls would be born, they already think of having a girl as something bad. So how many couples in China would opt to have a girl vs a boy, do you think it would yeild them any females or do you think they would turn into a country of all boys. I mean if we start doing this type of selection here in the US then all other countries are going to follow suit.

Perhaps you might should have added “eugenics” as a category tag. It’s a slippery slope to move from gender to other traits. The idea of designer babies borders on the creation of a ‘superior” children.

This is actually timely because a few minutes ago I saw that there is a new test to reveal the sex of the fetus at 7 weeks

Because when left alone the gender divide is about 50/50. That means that I may have 3 boys but someone else out there has 3 girls.

Just look at what’s happened in China where, in some areas, there are 120 boys to 100 girls.

Gender is not a disease.

Because a single family isn’t the point of this kind of ban but a population of familes is – it’s about overall pattern rather than any individual’s choice. Due to entrenched sexism, you can see the problem.

Just to be devil’s advocate here: why shouldn’t parents be able to influence the genetic characteristics of their children? Why should they care what happens to society, overall, except insofar as it affects them? Is this an issue of individual rights, or of social engineering?

@wundayatta I suppose because they will influence society in ways that won’t actually benefit many already oppressed groups. The ability to do this will lie with the wealthy and white and it will only exacerbate, in my opinion, disparities.

@wundayatta They should care because when we get to genetically engineering people, it starts us down a path that is not well defined. People should care about society because they and their children and all of us have to live in it. Only worrying about how things affect you and not looking at the big picture is they type of attitude that has us in the situation in the U.S. that we are in now.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir Should the responsibility for the health of society rest on an individual couple’s shoulders? Should reproductive freedom be limited in the interests of society?

@Russell_D_SpacePoet People should care, but all but a few only think about their own lives.

I don’t buy the genetic engineering argument since we have been genetic engineering since the dawn of mankind. We just haven’t been using very sophisticated tools, and we have mainly been doing it guided by the programming in our genes.

@wundayatta I wasn’t talking about the health of society, I was talking about disparities which is a political phenomenon. I belive the responsibility for health of society rests on everyone, actually, even if in the U.S. we blame ills on the individual themselves. It’s tough whether reproductive freedom should be limited since, in general, I am against limiting women’s reproductive freedoms but again these women will not exist in a vacuum.

@zenvelo Perhaps you might should have added “eugenics” as a category tag. No need. From what I know, if you know different I would love to read it, science has not perfected a way for a couple or single woman to go into a fertility clinic and order up a child with this type of hair, that height, this color eyes, etc. Maybe in another 15 years we might have this talk but that day is not today.

@tranquilsea Because when left alone the gender divide is about 50/50. That means that I may have 3 boys but someone else out there has 3 girls. That person having three girls might have opted to have one boy in place of that last girl if they had the ability to do so, and visa versa with a couple having three boys.

Gender is not a disease. Whether it is a disease or no, is neither here nor there. It is about what the parent(s) want, right?

@wundayatta They should care because when we get to genetically engineering people, it starts us down a path that is not well defined. What way should it be defined? Because a family had three girls and want one more baby and they want it to be a boy, how is that going to hurt me, or society? If they can go further and have that baby have wavy hair, not curly or straight, blue eyes, and a few freckles, is that going to degrade me? People do not just let nature be nature, if the child has a cleft pallet the parents would seek to have it fixed so what is wrong with improving before the birth happens?

Yo, look at this.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir interesting poll. I had wondered about that.

I guess surveys count if you give them certain credence. Having several independent surveys come to the same conclusion has a bit more iron behind it. Even then, it really makes no difference. The only way it would is if every child born from here on out would be born by some product of that procedure. The mere desire alone doesn’t make it so. I would say a great many would not be able to afford the cost of it, or would not want to pony up the money to do so. It also doesn’t take in the fact that if they had two boys or a boy first they would not use it to chose a girl next. Even with all of that, it still boils down to choice, the choice of the parents to use an available science to direct the make up of their family.

@Hypocrisy_Central @Russell_D_SpacePoet said that, not me.

@wundayatta Oops, sorry.

Make note to self: no late night zombie Fluthering.