Gender selection through IVF

[Corduroy]

A Surrey city Councillor, Barinder Rasode, is calling for a boycott of papers running an ad for Center for Reproductive Medicine in Washington state which advertises gender selection services for in vitro fertilization. According to the Rasode, the ad, which ran in the Indo-Canadian paper Indo Canadian Voice, targets the Indian community which has been traditionally known for favouring boys over girls. Rasode says women are awesome and the Sikhs are supposed to support gender equality. She says the service advertised by the clinic is barbaric whereas the newspaper claims the controversy has been contrived by "white media".

Source: 24 Hours: Surrey councillor urges newspaper boycott over gender-selection ad


So, here's my question to you: why is this wrong?

Keep in mind that this isn't aborting a fetus based on its sex. This is using in vitro fertilization to determine the sex of the embryo before implanting it in the uterus. (Though one could argue that the discarded embryos are essentially aborted). Is 'designing' a baby wrong? Is choosing a boy or girl specifically through IVF wrong? Should the gender of a child only ever be determined by blind chance?

 

[Liberalman]

It's the woman's family that has to pay for the marriage so having a boy is cheaper

 

[karrie]

So, here's my question to you: why is this wrong?

Keep in mind that this isn't aborting a fetus based on its sex. This is using in vitro fertilization to determine the sex of the embryo before implanting it in the uterus. (Though one could argue that the discarded embryos are essentially aborted). Is 'designing' a baby wrong? Is choosing a boy or girl specifically through IVF wrong? Should the gender of a child only ever be determined by blind chance?

As with most things in life, whether it's wrong or not depends on the reasons you're doing it. Certain hereditary conditions can be gender specific, so I can see choosing the gender prior to implantation in a very select few cases. But, that is so rare that I doubt it would require advertising or special clinics.

To try to select and customize your child otherwise, speaks to me of a chilling level of expectation from the parents, and a lifetime of trouble for the future child.

 

[SLM]

Interesting questions.

As with most things in life, whether it's wrong or not depends on the reasons you're doing it. Certain hereditary conditions can be gender specific, so I can see choosing the gender prior to implantation in a very select few cases. But, that is so rare that I doubt it would require advertising or special clinics.

I can see too perhaps that as long as it is a free choice and there are no excessive cultural imperatives towards one gender over another, then there's really nothing wrong with it. For instance if a family had two or three children of the same gender but wanted to have at least one more child of the opposite gender. Barring the excessive cost of IVF of course.

I think we have an aversion to the idea mostly because in Western culture it is considered wrong to value one gender over another. I don't disagree with that, I don't place a greater value on one gender over the other either. But I think that's why we are adverse to it.