Essay on Sex Selection and Pre-selection are Unethical

Sexual selection was an idea proposed by Darwin and refers to the process in which males and females attempt to maximize their chances of reproductive success. Within a species there are certain characteristics that make individuals attractive to potential mates. An example of this is in peacocks, female peacocks are attracted to males with long brightly colored tails, even though this makes them easier to be spotted by predators. This characteristic then evolves within the species due to how males with this characteristic have a higher chance of reproductive success and their characteristics being passed on to surviving offspring.

The morality alone of picking the gender of the fetuses, all other details aside is immoral based on gender bias. If the process of picking gender is always allowed,

In my last response to discussion question 8, in chapter 7, I said I am one who acts more upon my commonsense. I place myself and judge moral theories more as what a utilitarian would do. I feel that some of your decisions and actions should be based on what produces the best over evil, everyone considered. As I read the case study, Aborting Daughters, I instantly answer the question, “Do you think sex-selection abortions are morally permissible?” No, I do not think they are morally permissible. Not so much because of the utilitarian’s belief, which I will get into later, but because I do think a fetus is a person. And like Kantians who believe fetuses are persons, the fetus has all the rights and due all the respect that any other person has. To abort that fetus because it’s a girl (or a boy) does not give any rights to the fetus.

Eugenics is the science movement that occurred in our country in the mid to late 1900s that revolves around the improvement of the human population through selective breeding in order to bring out desired traits in future generations. This means that if an individual was thought to possess an "undesirable" or "unfit" trait they would be subjected to consequences. I always believed that eugenics was only practiced upon minority women, hence shocking me that it was also performed on people with intellectual disabilities, therefore advancing my understanding on the topic.

In this chapter, Stephen Law starts out with talking about the selection of sex. Selection of sex is already possible through IVF (In vitro fertilization), and it can be very helpful

These procedures also require many embryos in which the majority do not survive. The killing of an embryo is unethical and violates the CST teaching of life and divinity of a human person. The ability to design babies is unethical and should not be something that parents can decide for their babies and their future generations. Designing the abilities and traits of a baby would ensure a better life with less hardships.

First, an abortion is more dangerous than childbirth. Women do not realize how dangerous is abortion. According to the Guttmacher institute (AGI) 47000 women die from complications of unsafe abortion each year. Also some researchers said that women who does abortion they will face 2.3 times higher risk of having cervical cancer, compared to women with on history of abortion. This increased cancer rates post-aborted women may be linked to the unnatural disruption of the hormonal changes which accompany pregnancy and untreated cervical damages or to increased stress and the negative impact of stress on the immune system. In addition, the women experience the loss of their fertility or increase in miscarriages after abortion. For example, my elder sister has tow daughter, and she was pregnant again but she could

Abortion has been a big controversial topic in America back since further then 1973 in a Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade. The Religious ethics also has an influence both on personal opinion and on the greater debate over abortion. In 2010 Pazel analysis, “that women in their 20s accounted for the majority of abortions and had the highest” (Pazol, Karen, “Abortion Surveillance”, 2010) Jason C. mentions that modern technology has discovered the gender of the baby easily in early pregnancy can make the mother decide to keep it or not due to the fact of knowing the gender. (Greaves, Jason C. "Sex-Selective Abortion In The U.S”, 2013) Many people would argue about this topic about whether if one is against or with abortion. A solution is to

“One need not be deeply religious or oppose abortion to be troubled by the prospect of a society in which, as bioethicist Alexander Capron puts it, ‘The wanted child becomes the made-to-order child’" (Shannon). With rising concerns of building a baby through eugenics and IVF or In Vitro Fertilization, the government, court systems, activists, and public media is starting to take notice. Being able to pick your babies’ generic make up would be an ethical disaster with a slippery slope into an era where one’s child is created by man with build-a-baby qualities instead of the natural creation of a new life. Creating a designer baby through IVF technology would have severe consequences not only affecting this generation by all the future

Over the course of the semester the topic I felt that I analyzed and reflected upon most was sex selection. Sex selection is a topic that I knew very little about at the beginning of this semester, but I have come to learn a lot about and appreciate over these past few weeks. Sex selection refers to numerous methods that allow one to select the desired sex of their embryo. Technologies that include ultrasounds or prenatal testing followed by selective abortion, preimplantation genetic selection (PGS) for sex, as well as numerous sperm-sorting methods, are readily available for families that yearn for a particular sex of their unborn child. I have considered both sides of the argument against and in favor of sex selection, but my view is sincerely against sex selection.

Prescreening and termination of a fetus lead to a decline in number of a certain gender. Different genders experience different problems, if abortion is continually done there would be an imbalance in the population which will make a particular sex being looked down upon.

Over the last three decades, reproductive technology has changed the ability of women who either had difficulty getting pregnant and women who were of advanced reproductive age and now found it difficult to have children without reproductive assistance. With all the advancements in reproductive technology, the ability to have multiple gestations has been more prevalent. The risks the mother and the fetuses faces practitioners and patients with an ethical dilemma. There are various dilemmas and controversial topics that surround reproductive technology. Specifically, the number of embryos implanted into a woman during in-vitro fertilizations increases the likelihood of multiple gestations. In the event that more than one pregnancy is present, there is an option of selective reduction.

Intersexual selection describes one sex (commonly females) choosing male partners for copulation. Females tend to choose the males based on secondary sexual characteristics. Intrasexual selection, on the other hand, is competition within the same sex, in the hope of gaining access to the other sex for reproduction (Eberhard, 1996). It is commonly male species competing against each other for female partners. These two forms of sexual selection results in more developed offspring, as the fitter male will out-compete other males and also is more likely to be chosen be

At the moment of conception, the child is little more than a collection of undifferentiated cells, not a human by any definition of the word. Even as the child continues to grow, it is entirely reliant upon the mother for sustained life, and the health and wellbeing of the mother must be taken into consideration. The human body can and often does terminate pregnancies. The mother’s body may reject a pregnancy for a multitude of reasons, which may relate to the health and wellbeing of the mother and her ability to carry the baby to birth, or the viability of the fetus. Ultimately, choosing to have an abortion is just one more way that the human body may choose to terminate an untenable

There is also the surprise of finding out the gender at time of birth. Not only are the parents delighted in the surprise at the moment of birth, but they’re just plain grateful that they’ve been blessed with a healthy child. By being able to determine gender, according to Freeman, we’re cheapening this, and making childbirth into a mere consumer choice. In the end, children are a gift, a gift of nature.