Fetal gender selection is here. Dangerous or beneficial?

[Alpine Trooper]

The male population is on the decrease due to increased intake of estrogen in the Western World.

I support this technology for various reasons. Hopefully there are no side-effects to the children born this way.

I am sure some bible-thumpers will claim these kids have no soul or something that makes complete sense like that. But what can you do?

 

[Phlegmak]

Hasn't fetal sex selection existed for 20 years? I remember seeing articles about it in Newsweek when I was in 8th grade.

 

[CrazyScientist]

Personally I'd prefer to roll the dice, but I see no problem with people using this technology if it's available.

 

[MobBoss]

I don't have to die to know what happens to a body. Science can explain that and everything else (eventualy).

ROFL. And the athiests give us a hard time about "BLIND FAITH". God will explain everything else (eventually).

ROFL. Sorry, I couldnt resist.

As for me, I caution you....be careful of what you wish for. Where will all this lead? Eliminate retardation? Diseases like Sickle Cell?

What happens when we get to a point where you can choose if your baby is gay or not? Uh oh.

We, as humans are pretty smart...we can figure things out...what we are not good at is wisdom. We never quite get the difference of "just because we CAN do a thing, doesnt make it the RIGHT thing to do".

 

[Kozmos]

One small step for man, one huge leap for clone armies.

Nice I read it in a newspaper a few days ago. Plus 1 for genetic engineering.

We can only hope we will eliminate the retardation, if I had a diesase that would make my children ******** I sure as hell wouldnt reproduce.
I'm sure the gender imbalance can be tweaked by the government. In fact it could help even up the population.

 

[skadistic]

ROFL. And the athiests give us a hard time about "BLIND FAITH". God will explain everything else (eventually).

Athiests don't follow anything blindly. We follow with eyes wide open looking for the truth on our own without it being spoon fed to us.

I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that science in time will explain everything while you will wait for ever for your god to explain just one thing.

 

[Perfection]

I feel that this would be immoral and would lead to more abortions of babies if the parents are disapointed of the sex of their child.

Actually this would circumvent the selected abortions already performed by millions of people by introducing a procedure that could have one choose without it.

We might as well face facts, the tehnology for gender selection is already here and widely used, people now just have a more convenient way to do it. The solution is not to prevent this from occuring, because it's gonnna happen. The solution is to more equalize gender roles and status in these nations.

People are smart, they'll get around anything that removes the means to do something. The only way to truely stop something is to remove the incentive.

Also, who said that selecting for males would be the only thing. If it was cheap enough and my spouse was willing, I'd probobly be seriously tempted to make my second child's gender opposite that of my first's.

 

[MobBoss]

Athiests don't follow anything blindly.

I thought, being athiest, you didnt follow anything, blindly or otherwise.

We follow with eyes wide open looking for the truth on our own without it being spoon fed to us.

Ditto. As a conservative christian, so do I.

I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that science in time will explain everything while you will wait for ever for your god to explain just one thing.

Unless you seem to think science will answer everything before you die, I think you will lose that bet. But, you are free to believe what you want.

 

[Ayatollah So]

In places like China, this can be detrimental as everyone will choose to have a boy. Imagine 40 million young man with no wives.

Maybe then the man's family will have to pay a dowry to the woman's when a couple is married, instead of vice-versa. In which case, in the long run this problem will be self-limiting.

 

[Perfection]

Well, not to threadjack but I suppose I'd better put my two cents into this whole atheism/afterlife thing.

I am an atheist simply because no religion has concretely demonstrated the existance of a diety in an empirically sound manner to me.

In the same way I don't believe in the existance of an afterlife. There's no real reason to believe that the human mind is nothing more than emergent property of the brain. You damage the brain you damage the mind, you destroy the brain you destroy the mind. There is no reason to think this incorrect.

 

[Gladi]

Bright day
*yawn* Better than than trying four times and still getting boys like my friends.

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

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Given enough time, would enough people be able to afford this kind of treatment and create an unhealthy gender imbalance? Or is it going to remain unaffordable for most people? In India, they are already known for selective abortions based upon the fetus' sex. If a gender imbalance happens, is nature going to take care of it and solve the problem automatically?

Should it be regulated, so only families that have at least 3 boys and no girls can do it? (Or something of that kind)

Thoughts?

Gender selection has been going on for thousands of years, so I fail to see how this would change anything more than its efficiency. It's well known that Indian and Chinese parents prefer male children and will occasionally "make sure" that a female will not survive. In ancient times, if a baby was unwanted, it would simply be exposed, sometimes in the street. Many of these babies would be claimed and raised as slaves.

Nevertheless, thousands of years later, civilization has not imploded.

 

[Mise]

As long as it doesn't cause any gender imbalance or other unwanted side-effects I'm ok with it.

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

I can see where female infanticide numbers would drop due to this.

Yes, make thousands of women, per male. Here's a ratio: 10,000 Females:1 Male