A RECENT announcement by the Center for Human Reproduction concerning pre-natal gender selection is distressing. It calls for the removal of restrictions on the selection of a child's sex for non-medical reasons. This is part of a disturbing trend in the rapidly advancing science of genetics and human controlled reproduction.
The center, one of the largest infertility clinics in the nation, has applied for an ethics ruling from the American Society for Reproductive Medicine in order to offer the choice of gender selection to a group of prospective parents undergoing in vitro fertilization. The application comes on the heels of a letter by the society's chairman in which he suggests that certain standards of gender selection may be ethical.
Unfortunately, this ostensibly insignificant addition to the in vitro fertilization process is the first step on a dangerous road that bioethicists and scientists must maneuver with great caution. They must avoid the inherent dangers of eugenics and the creation of a perfect or master race. While scientists can manipulate the sex of embryos during in vitro fertilization and have done so for years, they have been compelled to do so for specific medical reasons that include preventing gender-related medical conditions that only appear through recessive genetic traits. Certain genes that cause diseases are more likely to show in the phenotype for one sex or the other and gender selection has always been used to prevent the possibility. The potential lifting of the restrictions allows parents to choose their child's sex for personal reasons that can be as simple as preference for one sex over the other. Certainly it would be great to help parents who have three boys and would prefer to have a girl, but the problems far outweigh any possible benefits.
Gender discrimination could occur if parents were allowed to select their child's sex. To select a baby's sex takes away from the miracle of childbirth and puts it solely in the realm of science. In previous centuries, male babies were preferred because of their ability to help their parents work farms or earn money. While things have changed a great deal in the 21st century, certain circumstances will lead to sex discrimination for one reason or another. For example, if a country were to go to war, males may be selected to make better soldiers. Or parents may just decide that they don't feel like raising a boy. It would not be likely that one sex would become more prevalent than the other, but the disruption of the natural order in favor of personal preference could lead to serious problems. When it comes to childbirth, utilitarianism and sexism should not be factors.
|
The most frightening prospect this new process poses is that of eugenics and the possibility of man playing God. This brings up the question of where we draw the line in our interference in the reproductive process. The crossing starts here, with the mere selection of sex. Though no one could blame people for wanting to have a balanced family, the center has not laid out specific criterion for gender selection in non-medical circumstances. This failure to clarify what can be manipulated leaves the door open for a variety of future problems. Pretty soon, parents could be able to choose their child's hair or eye color. Later, intelligence and athletic ability also could be manipulated. After a short time, children may no longer be born; they will be created. The miracle of birth could become a series of scientific distortions of genetic material into a perfect race.
The cost of such a process must be considered. It is naive to believe that this sort of genetic manipulation will be available to all people, as in vitro fertilization is already a fairly expensive process. Paying for genetic adjustments will exacerbate the economic disparity in the world as rich people could create their children as perfect beings while the rest of the world might have to remain content with the normal process.
The world may become split into two groups: the best and the rest. Plato's "Republic," the contrived perfect society of Plato and Socrates, suggests that the best citizens be paired off for procreation. Their offspring would be randomly dispersed among the society so that everyone is part of one big family. The catch is, the offspring of the lower classes are to be disposed of in a cave and left to die. Plato had many great contributions to human understanding, but one has to question whether we are moving toward adopting the loathsome and abhorrent genetic dichotomy that the philosopher envisioned thousands of years ago.
Perhaps this is all alarmist paranoia stemming from a simple procedure that doctors use to allow parents to have more freedom in the birth process. But the one thing that history has shown us is that we don't know when to stop. From the nuclear arms buildup in the Cold War, to the currently escalating terrorist situation, humans don't know when to stop until they have created a situation from which extrication becomes impossible. When it comes to human reproduction, we must know where to stop.
(Brad Cohen is a Cavalier Daily viewpoint writer.)
Read More
BURSTEIN: Federal workforce cuts target Virginia — and Youngkin’s response falls short
By Carly Burstein | 3 days agoForcing employees to choose between uprooting their families or losing their livelihoods is not just callous — it is economically reckless.
HUYNH: Virginia’s proposed ‘whippets’ law is laughable
By Viet Huynh | 4 days agoAs people continue to be harmed by nitrous oxide abuse, Virginians will see this new law as the ineffective, ultimately harmful policy that it is.
EDITORIAL: We can demand more of our university presidents
By Editorial Board | 4 days agoWe hope for greater transparency because for the principles of solidarity in this statement to be enacted and effective, stakeholders must be treated as partners in resistance.
