The Ethics of Gender SelectionWhen model, TV host, and cookbook author Chrissy Teigen publicly shared that she and her musician husband, John Legend, chose the gender of their baby, Luna Simone, she caused a mini scandal. Some were surprised that the practice of gender selection exists at all, while others were upset by the ethical implications: Is it right to forgo humanity's coin toss?
What is Gender Selection or Family Balancing?
Gender Selection is a procedure that allows patients to choose the sex of their baby. The selection of the gender of a baby is also referred to as family balancing.
Gender selection: What ethical issues does it raise?March 3 2016
Deirdre Madden is a professor of Law at University College Cork and author of Medicine, Ethics and The Law. She believes electing to have a baby of a certain gender raises some challenging questions.
"There's the question of whether you want to have a particular gender for a first child and the question of wanting a different gender for your fourth, fifth or sixth child which is a different argument," she explains. "If you take a libertarian perspective, where you value choice and liberty, then you're not harming anybody by choosing to have a baby of a specific gender and why should the State interfere? You're not any more likely to treat the child badly because of its gender, and it's your choice to make." But from the unborn embryo's point of view, valuing one gender over the other is discrimination. It also raises concerns about imprinting the parents' preconceived notions of that gender on the child. "You're seeking to design a child to your own specifications and the argument could be made that that could harm the child if they know they were chosen because of their gender," says Professor Madden. "They may feel they have to live up to the stereotypes of that gender, and if they don't 'act like a girl' will they be rejected by their parents?" There's also the question of the embryos discarded because they are the wrong gender, the argument that widespread gender selection could affect global gender balance and reinforce gender stereotypes. "There's a level of consumerism to it," says Professor Madden. "That you are 'entitled' to have a child that matches your specific expectations." But despite that fact that some clinics like Dr Steinberg's are now experimenting with selecting eye color and other attributes, she doesn't feel PGD represents an opening of the floodgates. "The notion of 'designer babies' always tends to be sensationalized in the media and people always talk about the 'slippery slope' which is a pretty negative view of what legislation can do," she says. "After [the successful cloning of] Dolly the Sheep, there were a lot of fears about cloning that never came to pass. I think the big danger is not having sufficient legislation and allowing reproductive health to become big business." |
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What is a Designer Baby?
A designer baby is a human embryo which has been genetically modified, usually following guidelines set by the parent or scientist, to produce desirable traits. This is done using various methods, such as germline engineering or Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). This technology is the subject of ethical debate, bringing up the concept of genetically modified “superhumans” to replace modern humans.
From <https://www.quora.com/What-are-your-thoughts-on-designer-babies> |