Some people believe that gender selection for non-medical reasons
raises serious moral, legal, and social issues. The principal
concerns are that the practice of gender selection will
- distort the natural male to female ratio leading
to a gender imbalance and
- reinforce discriminatory and sexist
stereotypes towards women by devaluing females.
Other people think that it could be unethical only to
offer a method of
sperm sorting to select the sex of the
baby.
On the other hand, some people are really concerned in what
they consider the illegal art of discarding "potential
babies" or the unnecessary creation of more embryos
for fertility treatments than is needed. In fact, the statements
of such ethicist dueling make an individual an "ethicist"
agreeing and disagreeing with any of them.
Since there is no career or training to become
a "professional" in ethics, this is
more likely a moral matter based on each individual's
information about the facts involved with gender
selection. Perhaps a decision may defer to that
coming from an ethicist, but how can someone
know whether a person can qualify as expert
or authority in ethics?
Accepting gender selection could just like accepting freedom of speech. If a couple choose to select the gender of their offspring then they should not be concerned about society and society should not discriminate any child, or label them as so-called designer babies. The fact is that other than creating some ethical guidelines in gender selection, no one has enough authority to say what is right or wrong in bay gender selection.
Countries prohitbit gender selection (2009) |
Country |
Region |
Policy |
Austria |
Europe |
prohibited |
Australia |
Oceania |
social uses prohibited |
Belgium |
Europe |
social uses prohibited |
Bosnia & Harzegovina |
Europe |
social uses prohibited |
Bulgaria |
Europe |
social uses prohibited |
Canada |
North America |
social uses prohibited |
China |
Asia |
social uses prohibited |
Croatia |
Europe |
social uses prohibited |
Cyprus |
Asia |
social uses prohibited |
Czech Republic |
Europe |
social uses prohibited |
Denmark |
Europe |
social uses prohibited |
Estonia |
Europe |
social uses prohibited |
Finland |
Europe |
social uses prohibited |
France |
Europe |
social uses prohibited |
Germany |
Europe |
social uses prohibited |
Greece |
Europe |
social uses prohibited |
Hungary |
Europe |
social uses prohibited |
Iceland |
Europe |
social uses prohibited |
India |
Asia |
social uses prohibited |
Israel |
Asia |
social uses prohibited |
Italy |
Europe |
social uses prohibited |
Latvia |
Europe |
social uses prohibited |
Lithuania |
Europe |
social uses prohibited |
Netherlands |
Europe |
social uses prohibited |
New Zealand |
Oceania |
prohibited |
Norway |
Europe |
social uses prohibited |
Portugal |
Europe |
social uses prohibited |
Russia |
Europe |
social uses prohibited |
Singapore |
Asia |
social uses prohibited |
South Korea |
Asia |
prohibited |
Spain |
Europe |
social uses prohibited |
Switzerland |
Europe |
prohibited |
Turkey |
Asia |
social uses prohibited |
United Kingdom |
Europe |
social uses prohibited |
Vietnam |
Asia |
prohibited |
Data from BioPolicy Wiki