Aspies For Freedom

Pick your baby's sex... there's a dumb idea.  I don't think we know enough about the genetics of autism to say whether it'd make a difference, I'd be more worried about the sex ratio.

Yes sex ratio could cause a potential concern as females already outnumber males on Earth and if we limit the gene pool by lessening the number of males, we increase the potential for more genetic mutations and all in the long run. More females less males, more reuse of similar genetics isn't exactly the wisest concept.

Gender Vendors - the Pluses: More Choice, Fewer Unwanted Children
Joshua Coleman, Ph.D.
SF Chronicle, Sunday Section

Technology that will allow us to select the sex of our babies is just within reach. But should it be?

Pink or blue? Which color to paint the nursery used to be the big decision parents-to-be had to make regarding their baby's gender. Now, technology not only allows parents-in-waiting to know their baby's gender, procedures that will let them select the sex they prefer are on the horizon.

A Virginia company is currently testing such a method; it plans to wait until it has produced several hundred gender-selected births before it markets the procedure. Meanwhile, it has sparked debate among observers of the reproduction technology field. Advocates hail it as a tool that will broaden couples' reproductive choices; opponents argue that it's a form of tampering with nature that should be used sparingly, if at all. We asked psychologist Josh Coleman to weigh in.


Susan and Peter attempted to start a family for several years. They would have been grateful for any child, but they prayed for a girl. Susan's mother died of breast cancer when Susan was 2 and she was raised by her dad and brothers. She was denied the experience of being raised by a mother and longed to give a daughter what she never had.

They learned about Genetics & IVF Institute, a clinic in Virginia that has developed a technique to greatly increase the probability of having a girl by separating the Y chromosome (male) bearing sperm from the X chromosome (female) bearing sperm before fertilization. They contacted the clinic, which has a success rate of 90 percent for girls and 73 percent for boys, and are currently awaiting approval to go through the procedure.

Sex selection is a reproductive right. It would serve to reduce overpopulation and unwanted children worldwide. In addition, it would reduce infanticide, feticide and abandonment of the less-desired gender in those countries that practice population control.

As a psychologist who works with infertile couples, I have watched innovations in the field of reproductive technology bring relief and happiness to many parents.

Opponents of sex selection are concerned that allowing couples to determine the sex of their children will perpetuate gender stereotyping and discrimination, upset the world ratio of men to women and increase the climate of genetic intervention for "nonessential" characteristics of children, such as hair or eye color. Others worry that the balance of nature will be disrupted or that children will be treated as commodities.

While these are worthwhile considerations, I don't believe they are supported by evidence. In addition, the immediate and quantifiable benefits to society of allowing couples to choose far outweigh the potential dangers.

We are currently experiencing a world crisis in overpopulation. Studies show that if couples strongly want a boy or a girl, they are likely to keep having children until they succeed.

In Western societies, this is producing larger families than people desire or would bear if given more control. Internationally, preference for a son leads to larger families in Bangladesh, China, Nepal, Egypt, Calcutta, Sierra Leone and Pakistan. In a survey of geneticists in India and China, a majority believed that using sex selection in such cases is a reasonable use of reproductive technology. Thus, an important benefit of letting couples choose the gender of their children would be a decrease in unwanted children and a reduction in overpopulation.

The concern that the new technology would be used to perpetuate discrimination is often discussed in regards to countries such as India and China, which have large populations, legal restrictions on family size and consistent preference for sons. Parents who are desperate to have sons and are only allowed one child have committed infanticide, had abortions and abandoned female offspring.

In both Confucian and Hindu traditions, only sons can pray for and release the soul of deceased parents. Sons are preferred in India because of the expense that daughters carry to a poor family for a dowry or wedding feast. They are valued there, and in many countries, as the parents' only source of security for old age, especially where women cannot inherit property or have financial independence. In a recent publication from UNESCO, Dr. T.C. Kumar, of Hope Infertility Clinic in Bangalore, India, writes: ``The ethical choice lies between the prevention and the perpetuation of feticide, infanticide and homicide of females. Social change is a long, drawn-out process. Can we afford to wait till these changes occur?''

There is little risk that the balance of the sexes will be disrupted in Western countries, because parents typically want what is less represented in the family. Sex selection through abortion has produced a slight imbalance of the sexes in some countries. However, worldwide alterations of the sex ratio are not uncommon, due to differences in mortality rates between men and women, catastrophes such as war and epidemics and other demographic factors.

Dr. Malcolm Potts, a professor of public health at the University of California at Berkeley, notes: "If there is a prolonged decrease of one sex over the other, that sex will likely become more valued by society. We now see this in the case of younger generations of women in Korea and Japan."

Sex-selection opponents worry about the effects of tampering with nature. Humans, however, do almost nothing but tamper with nature -- from cesarean sections to heart transplants, from laser surgery to discovering the individual molecule that inhibits a protease required for HIV. Our lifesaving innovations are constantly affecting the gene pool by allowing people to live long enough to pass on their problematic genes to future generations. We are the most nature-tampering phenomenon to hit the Earth since an asteroid the size of Mount Everest slammed into our planet 65 million years ago.

The issue here is whether or not sex selection will create a greater good or harm.

Most people have responded to each breakthrough in the evolution of human reproduction technology in a balanced manner, contrary to suggestions that the public or medical community will abuse and misuse sex-selection technology.

As professors J. Leigh Simpson and Ann Carson at Baylor College of Medicine state, "There exists barely a scintilla of evidence for untoward application in prenatal genetic diagnosis, gene therapy, preconception planning and other reproductive technologies. There is no reason to believe the slope will suddenly become slippery."

Finally, there is the issue of whom we empower to make decisions over our reproductive lives as technology becomes available. Governments? Clerics? Psychologists? Bioethicists? Some medical organizations have suggested that doctors or geneticists use "moral persuasion" to discourage couples from selecting sex.

However, it is paternalistic to suggest that medical professionals are more qualified to make moral judgments over couples' reproductive lives than the people who would raise that child.

"Society is rightly loath to enquire into people's fitness to parent," writes Professor Julian Savulescu, director of the ethics unit at the University of Melbourne. "Parents know best their own circumstances, and ultimately it is parents who must live with and make sacrifices for their children. It is totalitarian of the state to dictate which children parents should have and rear."

Although the ability to select the sex of our offspring is a recent scientific development, the desire has existed for centuries. Aristotle advised couples that having sex in the south wind would produce a girl. Henry the VIII tried six wives in an attempt to produce a son. In ancient Greece, men thought a boy would result from having sex while lying on their right sides.

As New York Times author and reporter Lisa Belkin writes, "What, then, is the difference between a dream of children and a dream of a son or a daughter? I do not dismiss the ethical gray tones, the risks of misuse. Instead, I weigh them and conclude that for every problem this technology might create, there is an existing problem that it might solve."

The immediate dangers to the individual and society from overpopulation, unwanted children, infanticide, feticide, abandonment of female offspring and the restrictions of reproductive freedoms are sound reasons to allow couples to choose.

When they use gender selection an embryo dies, instead of a foetus. It is still resulting in death for the unwanted sex embryo.

I dont know if anyone has mentioned this, but higher female to male ratio also means higher breeding rate, NOT what we need right now!