Get a Widget for this title
RSS FeedShould people be allowed to choose their baby's sex?
Results so far:
| No | 79% | 708 votes | Total: 894 votes | |
| Yes | 21% | 186 votes |
No
Write now
Print
Invite a writer™
Add to FavoritesLike most technological advances or inventions, they are created for 'good' reasons but humans always find a way to use them to satisfy their vanity or destructive nature.
Genetic modification is a scientific advance which was made with the intention of avoiding babies being born with inherited health conditions or severe disabilities. Extending it to allowing parents to choose their baby's gender or any other options to create a 'designer baby' was not the intention, and is an unnecessary whim which in my opinion, should not be satisfied.
To this day, new health risks are linked to various seemingly harmless things. For example, when the first mobile phone was made, nobody knew that there would be links to cancer. When deodorants were introduced, nobody expected there to be links to cancer. Similarly, what could genetic modification be linked to that we do not know at the moment? Since DNA is a complex and delicate subject matter that is always being researched and learned about, it doesn't seem very safe to mess around with it too much.
It is one thing for parents to be willing to try genetic modification for the betterment (health-wise) of their unborn child, but choosing their baby's sex is taking the interference with nature one step too far. Soon, we will be seeing a real life story of Frankenstein.
In many cultures, it is common to want a son rather than a daughter, and whilst it seems logical to let these people opt for a boy, in the hope that it saves the mistreatment that a daughter may receive, surely this only encourages the mentality? Giving people a way to choose their baby's gender only breeds the mentality and since it is common practice for doctor's to not reveal the gender of unborn babies to those from such cultures in order to avoid abortion, it doesn't seem logical to give them the option of changing what nature intended. To choose between the lesser of two evils, an abortion would be a better option as procedures are safe and have been thoroughly tried and tested. I would prefer an unwanted child to not be born at all rather than it being born and mistreated.
Looking into the future at a time where hypothetically anyone and everyone can choose their baby's gender, what would be the most popular one? Would there be bad effects on the gender that is least popular? We already have the fights that women have been through to gain equal rights engraved in history, current situations of eating disorders amongst young girls due to media pressure if the male sex was to be the preferred one, would we be erasing the hard work and sacrifices that so many made, by making females in society feel inadequate?
Breaking it down even further, having the freedom to control gender would inevitably cause a major shift of what our population consists of would this throw things off balance? If there are more men than women, would we create a society with increasingly sexually frustrated men? Could this lead to higher sexual assaults? How about if our society consisted mostly of females, how would this affect procreation?
All in all, choosing the gender of an unborn baby is a dangerous luxury to expose society to, with too many potential risks, some of which can be predicted and argued for and against, and some which we do not yet know about. Have humans really reached a level of intelligence that makes it a good idea to let us play God?
Learn more about this author, Sumantha Dutta.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
Yes
SO YOU THINK YOU KNOW WHAT GOD WANTS
If you peel away the skin of this debate, you will find the meat of the issue has nothing to do with the gender of children at all.
This is about religious ethics.
Any time science takes a leap forward, so does the aggressiveness of the would-be religious oppressors of technology.
"It is not our place to play God," they argue.
Whether it's using stem cells, determining gender, aborting a fetus, genetically altering DNA to prevent diseases, creating a clone, or conducting any kind of experiments at all that the zealots determine to be aimed towards giving or taking lives, they take offense because that's "playing God."
But really, determining the gender of a child should be the least controversial item in this list of things.
What would any God care if my wife and I choose to have a boy rather than a girl or vice versa?
If it is true that there is a God who created us and gave us all of these incredible abilities as a species... and if he really is the know-all, see-all... wouldn't he have seen this coming? And if he was opposed to such a thing, wouldn't he have created some kind of scientific roadblock for this technology? Wouldn't he be happy and perhaps even proud that something he created has taken on a life of its own and is not only adapting to life but transcending all expectations? Like a parent who stands back and sees their child thriving in this world, wouldn't God be proud? If not, why not? And if not, why hasn't he stopped it?
The simple explanation is in the zealots themselves.
Their hearts may be in the right place, but their minds are not. And I say that not to be cruel, but imagine the level of presumptuousness attached to their actions. They seem to presume that only they know what God would think or feel about certain human scientific developments.
But the fact is, if there is a God... there's not a person on this Earth who knows what he/she/it truly believes or feels about anything, as God's understanding of things lies far beyond our limits of comprehension. And to think otherwise is not only foolish, but insulting to the creator his or her or itself.
Let the people choose the gender of their children... it hurts no one and it doesn't infringe on anybody else's rights. And obviously, God doesn't care, or it wouldn't be possible.
On the flip side, the zealots attempting to push their own interpretations of God's will onto the lives of others, does infringe on rights.
If only people were able to live and let live and stop trying to push their own ideas onto other's lifestyles, trivial matters such as the gender determination of an unborn child would never be an issue.
Learn more about this author, James Mongold.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
Difference of opinion? Debate now.
