What is Sex Selecting ?
Sex selecting is a method that has been formed to attempt to control the sex of the child that is being conceived and is normally used for Family Balancing. It can be accomplished in several ways, both pre- and post-implantation of an embryo, as well as at birth.
How do you Sex Select ?
Two main types of sex selecting methods can be used for social sex selection. They are the Ericsson Method and the IVF technique
The Ericsson Method
The Ericsson method uses higher concentrations of sperm of the desired sex to try and increase the likelihood of conceiving the sex of their choice. This method has a 69-75% success rate for girls and a 70-75% success rate for boys.
In this method, the male and female sperm a separated by being passed through a column filled with blood protein into human serum albumin. As the sperm enter the human serum albumin, the difference between the X and the Y chromosomes can be seen, as one is heavier than the other. This separates the two different chromosomes and each type form a separate layer of concentrated male and female sperm. The layers of gender-selected sperm are of higher concentrations but not pure. This is why this method does not always work.
IVF Method
The IVF method is seen to be better than the Ericsson method because of the stricter control of the offspring gender in the laboratory. Since only embryos of the desired sex are transferred to the mother and it also has a much higher success rate than the Ericcsson Method. Gender selection success rates for IVF are very high, being almost at %100.
Different Views on Sex Selecting
There are many different views on sex selecting, some being positive others being very negatives.
Positives About Sex Selecting | Negatives About Sex Selecting |
Family Balancing Sex Selecting allows parents to have the option to balance out the sex of their children, so it is more equal. This is one of the main reason that sex selecting Helps determine the size of a family. There are many couples that only want to raised a certain number of children (normally two or three) and lots of them want to have at least one girl and one boy. Couples get the gender they desire. There are many people/couples that desire a certain gender of their child. There have been cases where mothers have not received the gender that they wanted and they have rejected the child. Economics. For couples that have children close together, it could be economically advantageous to have the same sex close together. The new baby could have the older child's hand me downs. More time to prepare. When you know the gender of your baby before it is born, you have more time to prepare for things such as clothes, toys, decoration of room and more. This can make things less stressful once the child has been born. | Expensive. Sex selecting can become very costly (from $10 - $15,000) and not all people have this amount of money to spend on this. Disapproval of family and friends. Some of your friends or family or anyone around you, may not have the same views on sex selecting as you do and from this, they may disapprove of your decisions. This can cause more harm than it is worth Takes God out of the equation. For people that have a spiritual belief in God, it can be look down upon because God is choosing you to have a certain gender and it is a special gift to be having a child. No surprises. There is an element of excitement and surprise when choosing not to determine your baby's gender. That's part of the joy of preparing for the baby, the element of surprise. Can create a negative family dynamic. Maybe if left up to chance, it would've been best for a certain couple to only have girls or only have boys. Reasons beyond our imagination or knowledge. Couple may regret decision later. This is not a choice than you can decide later on you want to change. Once you have gone through the process you can’t change your mind about this decision. |
Ethical Concerns
Sexual discrimination – The idea of favouring one sex over the other, could cause problems between the family members later on. Having one sex preferred over the other could lead to artificially unequalised the ratio of females to males, leading to discrimination, potential violence and abuse of the smaller group.
Psychological Implications - There may be psychological implications for both the parents and child if the procedure does not produce a child of the desired sex. This could create problems in the future, with them being upset about not having the gender they wanted and could take it out on the child. Also, if the child or the gender of their choice does not fulfil the parents expectation, it could also create many problems.
In this video, it shows both sides of the argument of sex selection. It shows the story of the Johnson family who decided to use "Sex Selection" to grantee themselves of having a baby girl and how well this method worked for them and Also has Prof. Tom Mayo, the director of the Maguire Center for Ethics and Public Responsibility at SMU talk about the negatives points and affects of Sex Selection
Above: An article of about 'Sex Selecting'- RIGHT OR WRONG? written by Laura Hook
