It is now possible to choose the sex of your child. Why don’t we offer this technology to the countries where the population density is far too high and the majority of the population live below the poverty line? The outcome would, in general, be that they would choose boys. Although you would create a large number of sexually deprived males, it would work wonders for reducing the problem of over population in the long term.
Unless you are a religious fanatic, why would you object to giving the freedom of choice to parents across the world and reap the added benefit over reducing human suffering caused by over population?
As far as I understand, the sex of the baby is not actually determined by genetically modifying the sperm in any way, thereby preserving the ‘sanctity of human life’. Even the religious fanatics must have problems arguing against this. To understand the process of sex selection, you can view this or many other websites:
bmerton wrote:
However, in countries with strong economies (e.g. the U.S.A.), most expectant parents apparently prefer hacing a baby girl.
So after they’re grown up, and the populations of the impoverished countries have become male-heavy while the populations of the prosperous countries have become female-heavy, some of the young men from Ethiopia can come to America, and some of the young women from America can go to Ethiopia. Problem solved!
“hacing” in my previous post should read “having.”
they don’t need to GM your jizz they get the father to jerk off into a test tube and then stick it in a certrifuge at a slight angle now the X chromasomes sink to the bottom as they are slightly heavier (flung maybe) and they scrape off the sperm from the appropriate area and use that to inseminate the mother ah male obselences how sweet , guess i can spend more time sleeping
I’d like to point out that “you can now choose the sex of your child” is a gross oversimplification of what’s actually in the link.
In real life applications, a success rate of “up to 80%” hardly qualifies as “you can now choose the sex of your child”.
Anyway, what do you mean, “why don’t we offer this technology to Third World countries?” What do you mean, “offer”? As in “make the technology available”? The technology already is available. It’s not like it’s some deep dark secret.
Or do you mean as in “pay for it”? Why should we? It’s fairly expensive, requiring lab techniques and a uterine implantation. It’s a lot more expensive than the 50% success rate already widely available. Let the Third World nations make their own reproductive economics decisions.
I don’t agree with any of your OP’s underlying assumptions.
First, that most folks would choose males. People who are adopting are frequently able to choose the sex of their child, and there aren’t any statistics that I’ve seen that say that more people want to adopt boys than girls. Some people are actually looking for girls.
Second, assuming that your first assumption proved to be correct and that underwriting sex selection of babies in the Third World would create a flood of males, I don’t agree that this would create an enormous underclass of sexually deprived males. It’s my observation that males are pretty good at managing to find sex when they really need it, and failing that, there’s always Mary Palm and her five daughters.
Third, that having a high proportion of males in Third World nations relative to First World nations would do anything to lower overpopulation in the Third World. A baby is still another mouth to feed, whether it’s male or female, and people are still going to keep making babies as long as the stars keep shining and girls keep believing guys who tell them, “You can’t get pregnant as long as you do it standing up.” Just because folks could choose the sex of the baby, and make it a boy, doesn’t mean they’d stop making babies, period.
Fourth, I don’t agree with your assumption that only “religious fanatics” would object to people in the Third World (or indeed, people anywhere) being able to choose the sex of their child. I don’t see the connection between “religion” and “being against sex selection” at all. There are plenty of atheists, agnostics, and folks who only go to church on Christmas and Easter who would object to it, too.
I’m assuming that by your reference to “the sanctity of human life” you’re talking about the Catholic Church. I was not aware that the Catholic Church even had a stance on choosing the sex of your child. Got a cite for that?
Duck Duck Goose wrote:
Well, according to http://www.catholic.org/frz/examen_mortal.htm, the Catholic Church considers artificial insemination a mortal sin. Artificial insemination is one of the steps required in the sex-of-your-child selection process.
I can’t help but wonder- what if we developed a technology for modifying sperm and sticking it back into a man’s vas deferens right before sex?
What would the Pope think of that?
-Ben
it’d still require masturbation or somesuch way of removing the sperm prior to processing, which i don’t believe the catholic church holds in any particular form of approval.
No, no. After the couple has regular, missionary position, approved-by-the-Pope sex, you just load the woman onto a centrifuge and spin away. Point her head-out if you want a girl, and head-in if you want a boy.
Green Bean’s post would make a great sig line
Just FTR, the link that tracer provided does not appear to be an official organ of the Catholic Church, and much of the information on that “mortal sins” page appears to be the author’s opinion rather than official Church doctrine. In fact, the Catholic Catechism has only this to say (emphases mine):
Nothing about mortal or venial sins. That’s between the particular individuals and God, and their confessor.
Furthermore, tracer’s link mentions “cross-dressing” as a mortal sin, a violation of the commandment against adultery. The Catechism has nothing to say on the subject of transvestism, AFAIK. Looks like some agenda-pushing going on at that link.