http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=99542&page=1
The link above is to an article which talks about the moral issues humans face in regards to designing or choosing what gender a human is born with. This is currently an extremely controversial topic since technology is excelling at a fast rate. The article explains that in the United Kingdom, pre-selecting the gender of embryos is only allowed for medical reasons. This seems reasonable to me since it can help families who have histories of sex-linked diseases to avoid having children with the disease. However, people want to use the same method to choose gender. Many believe that the value of natural parental love will decline as a result. Others say that there is no harm in choosing if a couple really wants a baby boy or girl.
I agree with the fact that the natural method of conceiving a child, not knowing whether it will be male or female, is the safest and healthiest practice since it is, well, natural. People will offset the natural balance of the ratio of males to females by deciding what they want. Also, the thrill of not knowing the gender of the baby, in my opinion, brings couples together whereas making a decision about the gender beforehand may cause problems between couples. I think that even the smallest things which shape the processes that parents have to go through during childbirth matter and should not be controlled by technology. What are your opinions of gender selection?
This article is very compelling. I agree with you, Collette. It is much better to let the gender be decided naturally. Unless someone has a had multiple boys or multiple girls, I do not understand even being able to choose one over the other. Not only should people not be substantially happier to have a child of one gender over the other, but also I think that most people would not care, and would only choose because they are able to. Also, I believe that people of society today have a need to control as many aspects of their life as possible, and this want to be able to choose the gender of their child is going too far. We do not need to be able to control so much of our lives.
ReplyDelete@Margaret Yes, some would call this a "consumer mentality" which expects every aspect of life to be tailored to the consumer's immediate pleasures, without considering things like ethics and socio-politics.
ReplyDelete