This is interesting

Introverted1293 said:

So, I am reading psychology for my class. And did you know that people can actually go and choose the gender of their child if they wanted to? I don't know where they go and do this, but they can. If someone wanted a boy, they can go somewhere and have maybe a scientist or a doctor, (I don't really know) by inactivating a Y or X chromosome before conception. That is weird.

So, my question is, do you think that is morally wrong to do something like that? We are reading about this in my Psych class. And I just want to know what you think. This is illegal in 36 nations, but it is not illegal here in the U.S.

Do you think it should be illegal?

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I think it should be God's decision not ours and, yes, it should be illegal. He makes better choices than humans. Besides they're killing a chromosone!

It's interesting that my mother had 3 girls and 3 boys, and my half-sister had six girls.

I'm not sure how the technique works. (It could have its own ethical considerations.)

Barring that, it is selective contraception. Contraception does not violate the Bible as long as it is not abortifacient. (You can't kill somebody who is not yet alive.)

(My wife & I are Quiverfull, so we eschewed medically unnecessary contraception as a rule. We don't expect others to do that apart from their own personal conviction.)

What if something goes wrong with it?

What if a birth defect results from this interference?

Introverted1293 said:

So, I am reading psychology for my class. And did you know that people can actually go and choose the gender of their child if they wanted to? I don't know where they go and do this, but they can. If someone wanted a boy, they can go somewhere and have maybe a scientist or a doctor, (I don't really know) by inactivating a Y or X chromosome before conception. That is weird.

So, my question is, do you think that is morally wrong to do something like that? We are reading about this in my Psych class. And I just want to know what you think. This is illegal in 36 nations, but it is not illegal here in the U.S.

Do you think it should be illegal?

Click to expand...

With the massive amount of sex selective abortions taking place in Asia and India if you’re opposed to abortion this should be great news.

As for the morality of it my only issue is related to birth defects/complications in the pregnancy. If they are low I find no fault with it.

My google-fu didn't work to find this information. I did learn about natural X-chromosome inactivation in female mice, which was interesting. Can you give us a reference or a quote from your textbook?

My assumption is that sperm cells are treated and in vitro fertilization is used. Any risk of damage to viable fetuses produced needs to be carefully assessed, or you have a huge ethical issue there. Assuming safety has been verified, there might be some cases where ethics should encourage its use.

Prospective parents who have a high risk of genetically defective children of one gender only should prefer to have only children who do not have that risk. Of course if the procedure is available, it will be used for other purposes. If someone wants to pay the price to use a fertility clinic, then probably it should be allowed but discouraged.

Some info on methods, courtesy of Wikipedia. Separating sperm seems to be not very certain (70% success rate in determining gender), but I can't imagine how it does any harm. IVF with preimplantation genetic diagnosis seems very certain, but is more invasive, since a cell has to be removed from the embryo for analysis, though the page says "Removal of one of these cells does not harm the developing embryo."

Provided it is safe, I don't see any ethical problem with it, except in the slippery slope sense "What if everyone in the entire world chose boys for 50 years straight?"

essentialsaltes said:

Some info on methods, courtesy of Wikipedia. Separating sperm seems to be not very certain (70% success rate in determining gender), but I can't imagine how it does any harm. IVF with preimplantation genetic diagnosis seems very certain, but is more invasive, since a cell has to be removed from the embryo for analysis, though the page says "Removal of one of these cells does not harm the developing embryo."

Provided it is safe, I don't see any ethical problem with it, except in the slippery slope sense "What if everyone in the entire world chose boys for 50 years straight?"

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Thank you, essentialsaltes. I think the same.

I don't have a problem with this in theory. The problem only arises when you have a culture that prizes 1 sex over the other to the extent that you skew the population.

If I ever have IVF, I would use it to balance the sex of any potential children. I don't want all girls or all boys.

I will worry about what God wants when he tells me.

Introverted1293 said:

Yes, I did not think of that. They did murder babies and/or abort them because they were the wrong sex.

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Not did, do, (to this day) to the point where the sex imbalance is quite obvious especially in China.

essentialsaltes said:

Provided it is safe, I don't see any ethical problem with it, except in the slippery slope sense "What if everyone in the entire world chose boys for 50 years straight?"

Click to expand...

Wouldn’t that ultimately result in a high demand for girls?

The ethics of sex selection is a case-by-case determination. Parents who will only accept children of one sex are morally suspect. Parents who may already have several children of the same sex, and want to balance their family with an opposite sex child are being reasonable. But in general, I don’t like the idea of government enforcing authoritarian laws on childbirth. And I have doubts that a technology can really be criminalized. If there’s a demand, it will be utilized.

Historically, before abortion was available, many babies were killed either because they were the wrong sex or just because the parents couldn't afford them. These babies were typically "exposed" -- thrown outside and left to die. It appears that no one wanted to just kill them outright, which would have been more merciful (in my opinion). One of King Saul's children was "lame in the feet" supposedly because he was left to die, but someone rescued him.

Today of course, that's "infanticide" and prosecuted as a form of murder in nearly all countries. Abortion is considered a "lesser" form of murder and is mostly legal today. The use of the new technologies to select gender is a *much* less evil method, and certainly ought to be considered ethical in some cases, though I find it troubling in general.

Introverted1293 said:

So, I am reading psychology for my class. And did you know that people can actually go and choose the gender of their child if they wanted to? I don't know where they go and do this, but they can. If someone wanted a boy, they can go somewhere and have maybe a scientist or a doctor, (I don't really know) by inactivating a Y or X chromosome before conception. That is weird.

So, my question is, do you think that is morally wrong to do something like that? We are reading about this in my Psych class. And I just want to know what you think. This is illegal in 36 nations, but it is not illegal here in the U.S.

Do you think it should be illegal?

Click to expand...

Yikes. This smacks really hard of modernists doing something because "they can". In fact this is a problem with modernism in general. The lack of moral consideration. We are not equipped by God or nature to make such decisions. This is the kind of technological thought that leads or works with things like China's birth policies, inspired IVF (which usually kills some babies), etc. It is an anti-life, and anti-God act, even if those involved in it don't understand it. We need to back off of this sort of nonsense. Science should be put to work on cancer, hearing, blindness, etc. Instead we went gonzo with micro electronics and made amazing computers that we carry in our pockets and double as phones, but have destroyed interpersonal communication, manners, privacy decency and serenity, but also puts pretty much all of mans knowledge at our fingertips, so that we no longer use our brains to think. We can read all the great philosophers, (but we still don't ;-)), yet we're hard pressed to know how to carry through on a philosophical thought as intellectual exercise or to understand and form world views. Look....I mean, I'm NOT anti-tech, as this may come off. This post itself is high tech, being done on a computer, and avoiding facial expression, tone, etc. which all normally help us in conveying intent and emotion in communication. It's just that we've reached a point where we CAN do most everything. We now need to spend a LOT more time deciding whether or not we SHOULD do each new thing that we come up with. Look at impacts on all aspects of human community, with some important exceptions for life saving and certain treatments for diseases and immunology, I am generally against elective medicine and genetic sciences. We're starting to take steps into areas of science not really intended for man. We've outstripped our universal roles. I shouldn't and don't worry about it too much, because the Lord and nature will eventually correct whatever is wrong, I just don't relish the correction that will be doled out. At least I'm in my sixties, but I do have grandchildren etc.. In some ways we're leaving a good place for them, but I think we may have messed up more that we have solved in many areas. I'm happy to hear that those in school are a least discussing these things.