Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Is using pre-implantation diagnosis for "family balancing" an acceptable practice? Is using PGD for selecting offspring of all one sex acceptable? Are there any differences between PGD for this purpose and those techniques that sort sperm with Y or X chromosomes?
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20 comments:

  1. TanyaSeptember 27, 2010 at 6:48 PM

    I feel that pre implatatino in order to select the sex of an offspring is not right. For years, sexism has been prevalent all over the world and in many palces, still is. If people were allowed to pick the sex of their baby, it could disrupt the balnace between men and women that is preserved by nature. Some things are just meant to be and parents should not have the ability to 'customize' their chidren for unnecessary reasons.

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  2. lindaSeptember 28, 2010 at 2:39 PM

    Tanya I agree with your point of view. I think that if the parents have the ability to choose the sex of their children they are playing into the role of God. I just read about China's Reproductive Policy where the government has created restrictions and rules about family size in urban areas only one child per family is allowed, and enforced abortions and other birth control options at a government level. The reporter also said that there are reports of little girls from china 'dissappearing'. Since the limitations are enforced on a large amount of the population, parents are wanting a son to carry on the family line. These rules have been in practice for roughly 20 years. So even if what may happen in the US and other parts of the world may not be as extreme, parents should not have the choice of picking the sex of their children.

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  3. TawnyOctober 5, 2010 at 11:43 AM

    I also think that parents picking the sex of their children is wrong. I think that other than medical reasons parents should not mess with how their child comes out. God will give you what he thinks you should get and picking what sex your child is, is in a way going against that.

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  4. faithbendelowOctober 5, 2010 at 8:50 PM

    I agree with y'all, except if you're on at least your ninth boy or girl, in which case I think it would be beneficial to the general family environment to introduce some trace amount of either testosterone or estrogen to the home. But then again, if you have that many little boys or girls to feed, you probably cannot afford such sophisticated pre-implantation procedures in the first place, unless you have a reality television show, in which case ethics have already been thrown out the window...So anyway, like Tawny said, it's better to let God (or Mother Earth or destiny) figure it out and let the fastest sperm win...

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  5. Nicole BOctober 10, 2010 at 9:46 PM

    I agree that it should all be in Gods hands except if you really want a girl and have been trying and a good 5 boys have come out. This happens to a lot of people i think in that case choosing the sex of the sixth baby is okay. I mean just imagine how frustrated that couple must be!

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  6. HollyOctober 16, 2010 at 9:48 PM

    I agree with mostly everyone. Except I believe this is an all-or-nothing issue. I don't think that there can be exceptions because then it doesn't have as much weight. I agree with what most of you said about "playing God" and how this could throw off the natural balance of life. Especially in places such as China where everyone would just chose to have boys. Choosing a child's gender is not ethical.

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  7. JackyOctober 17, 2010 at 2:02 PM

    I agree with Holly. If you make an exception then the rule itself has less weight. Also, you're going to run into the question of what makes five different than four? And other things such as that. I think that choosing characteristics about your child that don't help to positively help your child's health is unethical and shouldn't be practiced. People should just leave it up to chance and learn to be happy with what they're given.

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  8. Rahil HussainOctober 17, 2010 at 3:41 PM

    I belive the situation is really delicate, I belive the goverment should make this illegal because as tanya said it disturbed the balance of life, also we dont know how this can effect the childs health. Also this qeustion may bring up a bigger qeustion of pro-choice, wheather parents have the right to make there own descions?

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  9. JillyOctober 18, 2010 at 3:57 PM

    I agree with most everything that was said above. If we were to genetically alter children (not including critical health issues) the balance of life would be offset. I also agree that there can not be exceptions when it comes to this situation. Even if a family REALLY wanted a girl and had 5 boys, this should still not be allow. The parents should just accept each boy and love them for who they are.

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  10. Kerry ROctober 19, 2010 at 3:09 PM

    I agree with a lot of the posts above. I believe the consensus is to not allow parents to genetically alter their children and I completely agree. If the government makes this procedure legal then what would be next? We could potentially get to the stage where parents would be able to custom make their child. I understand that wanting a girl and getting all boys is a difficult situation however, these parents were given a particular child and they should love the child for who they are. For this reason and many more, I do not believe there should be exceptions when it comes to this issue.

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  11. faithbendelowOctober 19, 2010 at 7:28 PM

    Now that Rahil, Jilly and Kerry mention it, maybe there shouldn't be ANY exceptions whatsoever to the natural rule. I suppose if one yearned for the experience of raising either a boy or a girl they could always adopt. And isn't the whole random gender thing something that evolved over millions of years? I feel like it would sort of be a slap in the face of nature to disregard this process because a family wants a girl to dress up or a boy to play football with. In reality, gender roles are becoming less distinguished, so it becomes less important what gender the child is, though it remains just as important as ever how you raise it.

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  12. TawnyOctober 19, 2010 at 8:14 PM

    ya i agree i dont think there should be any exceptions. cause as jacky said whats the difference between oh i have five boys and want a girl to oh i have four so lets have a girl. theres not really anywhere in particular to where a line can be drawn so i think it would be better to just appreciate what your given and let nature take its course.

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  13. Gloria MOctober 20, 2010 at 7:58 PM

    I agree that having exceptions will make it have less weight because people would begin to obscure and argue their case of wanting the procedure to be done. I also agree that this would disrupt the balance of nature and be “playing god” because as mentioned by Kerry, this procedure could lead to parents creating a custom child. If children are custom made for parents, I think eventually most children would appear the same as characteristics become popular and more desirable. Parents should not be concerned about determining the sex so their child can fulfill the gender roles of societies expectations such as the “star athlete.” People should be grateful for the child and raise it to be the best of their ability because the character of the individual defines a person not their sex or physical characteristics.

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  14. Nicole BOctober 20, 2010 at 9:27 PM

    But what if the couple doesn't believe in God or any religion for that matter. Then they wouldn't have the issue of "playing god" because they don't believe in the lord. I guess it's a matter of opinion. The fact of if its ethical or not is mostly based on religion.

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  15. TanyaOctober 21, 2010 at 9:26 AM

    Well, I think that even if the couple doesn't believe in God, they still shouldn't have the right to determine the sex of the child. Nature preserves the delicatate ratio between men to females because of the 50-50% chance at conception. If we start messing with that then we're going to being our own prejudices into this, whereas as nature does not discriminate. Whatever is meant to happen will happen.

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  16. FredelineOctober 21, 2010 at 5:32 PM

    Picking a child's sex is a slippery slope. Some would argue that the ability to do this, and having this option could lead to finding out how to select for other genes- eye color, hair color, etc. and such could lead to complete genetic engineering of future generations. I would like to respectfully disagree with this argument- I have faith in humanity, that though curiosity will probably lead to these discoveries-- of where on the genome certain physical or even mental traits are located and how to manipulate them-- but they will not be used for the genetic engineering of humans. I believe that ethics commitees today are gaining power, and that science is more forced to abide by ethics regulations and definitions, and because of this, I do not believe that there is a significant chance of extreme genetic reformation happening in the future. I believe that due to "separation of church and state" the argument that this practice is against "God's will" is invalid. The couple, legally, has the right to determine the sex of their child and it is up to their own conscience to decide if it is right to them or not.

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  17. Emily BectonOctober 21, 2010 at 6:21 PM

    I agree that it's not an ethical thing to be able to decide a child's sex. In my opinion it's playing into the role of God. I also feel like if people were choosing the sex of their baby it could leak into other ethical areas such as picking hair type, eye color, even skin.

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  18. Sarah KOctober 22, 2010 at 8:36 PM

    I agree with what Emily said. I think God knows better than we do what kind of children we can raise. For example, my mom thought she wanted four boys and she ended up with four girls. Now she looks back and wonders why she ever wanted to have sons in the first place. Nothing agaisn't boys, just my parents wouldn't have been good at having sons. So I think that partents should just go along with whatever sex the baby is and be thankful for what they have.

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  19. Rahil HussainOctober 23, 2010 at 3:11 PM

    I agree with Sarah becuase the system is working fine, by choosing the sex of the baby you are affecting the population system becuase what if a new fashion hits and everyone wants a particular sex baby, we would be playing with the childs health but mankind.

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  20. HollyOctober 24, 2010 at 4:11 PM

    I completely agree. God or whatever you believe in has kept the balance of men and women to around 50%. If we start messing around with this it could lead to serious consequences. One exception could lead to many so I believe that the governmet should make this practice completely illegal. There are some things that just shouldn't be messed with; this is one of them.

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