Young Writers Society

Parents have always been curious of the gender of their children during pregnancy and some have even wanted to be able to choose the gender of their child. In the past, choosing a child’s gender with certainty was impossible, and the methods of choosing the gender were restricted mostly to folk wisdom passed down from generation to generation (Folk). But now that biogenetical-engineering technology has been created and refined, prenatal sex selection is possible and occurs in our world today.

Prenatal sex selection is when the parents of the child choose what gender the child is before the child is born (Gender Selection). Before delving into how prenatal sex selection happens and the technology involved, it is necessary to explain why since, though the technology is new, the reasoning behind why prenatal sex selection occurs has existed much longer before and has helped create this new growth of technology. There are many reasons why sex selection happens, but the reasons have been divided into two categories, called medical and elective (Gender Selection).

Medical prenatal sex selection is fairly straightforward, meaning parents choose the gender of their child to avoid certain sex-linked genetic or chromosomal disorders that, without sex selection, would likely occur (ACOG). For instance, there are some certain chromosomal disorders that can affect one gender but not the other, such as hemophilia, where boys are more likely to carry hemophilia than girls. In cases such as that, a doctor may advise the parents to use prenatal sex selection.

Elective prenatal sex selection, on the other hand, means the parents choose the sex of the child because they wish for the child to be that gender. The category for elective can be further broken down into two subcategories, which are personal and cultural motives. Though these subcategories may appear to be very similar at first, on closer examination they are very different. A personal motive is when the parents want a particular gender regardless of what culture they are raised up in. For instance, there are many parents who want another child of the opposite gender from the rest of their family in a move called “family balancing” where the genders of the children are more equally distributed (Family Balancing). A cultural motive might be a Chinese family, who is only allowed one child per family, and would rather have a male since males continue the lineage and are supposed to take care of the parents in their old age (Baculinao).

Though there will always be motives for prenatal sex selection and choosing one gender over another, what has caused this growth of prenatal sex selection is the technology involved and the relative ease to access it. There are three different major treatments available that are used for prenatal sex selection, which are preimplantation gender diagnosis (PGD), MicroSort, and ultrasound screenings (Methods). PGD works through in-vitro fertilization, which is a technique that takes different sex cells and combines them together to form several embryos. After the embryos are examined, a healthy embryo of the “correct” gender is then planted into the female’s uterus. This is a very expensive process and though it is very likely to work, many people are barred from this technology, either by lack of sufficient monies or government regulations. Another technique is MicroSort, where the proportion of X-chromosomes and Y-chromosomes are changed so that it is more likely to have the desired sex (MicroSort). This is less expensive than PGD, but it is still experimental and not as accurate as IVF. These two treatments are usually used for those who have a substantial income and want children of a particular gender, but due to some reason, cannot create it on their own.

The third major technique, ultrasound, is, at first glance, not a technique or an aid to prenatal sex selection, but actually it is one of the most commonly used technologies for sex selection available since it is relatively cheap and widespread (Jones). Since ultrasound technology was invented, it has brought forth a better understanding of how fetuses progress and throughout the years, this technology has been used to determine, not only what gender the child will be, but also whether the child will have genetic defects or diseases. Many parents who want to have children of a certain gender will use this ultrasound technology once the female is pregnant, and then, if the fetus is not the correct gender, the fetus is aborted (Westley). This technique is especially used in third world countries.

Though the biogenetical-engineering technology has progressed this far and will continue to progress, many ethicists are questioning prenatal sex selection and the motives behind it. Many people can understand the use of prenatal sex selection to a certain extent for those who want to avoid having children with genetic diseases, but for those who use this technology for elective motives, there is definite controversy. Is this technology being used to further society in a productive manner, or this being used as a way to satisfy individuals temporarily and will end up hurting our future populations? As this technology is only continuing to improve, it is necessary to look at the motives and outcomes and determine how far and to what extent we should use this technology in order to progress.

In order to look at the issue, I have decided to take an altruistic outlook to this subject. This is because, of an issue this important to society, society and government should be looking for a healthy medium that ends up being good for the whole and not just for individual parts, though ideally the individual parts will benefit as well.

It is hard to pinpoint a place in the world to focus this subject, especially since individuals who are denied these technologies and have enough money often travel to other countries where prenatal sex selection is acceptable, but I would like to focus on three countries and research how prenatal sex selection affects these countries. These countries, which have been chosen because of their different perspectives of this topic and their general representation of all countries, are the United States, which has a relatively liberal viewpoint of this topic, China, which is undergoing a huge population shift due to sex selection, and the United Kingdom, which has remained relatively conservative on sex selection throughout all technological advances.

In this issue of prenatal sex selection, couples in society who want to choose their child’s sex and government are pitted against each other. My use of the word “couples” is intentional; many of these operations are either too expensive for one income to handle and require a very strong desire to have a child of this gender. Many single parents do not have the money to pay for these operations and, if they abort the child, the first motive would not likely be prenatal sex selection (Lino). Government would be defined as any body that governs over a country and, in this case, any organization a part of the government who helps determine the policies of genetic operations.

Except for the US, whose government does not control prenatal sex selection rigidly, both the UK and China have strict guidelines on prenatal selection. In the UK, The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) controls prenatal sex selection (HFEA). Since medical procedures are regulated by the government to ensure the safety of its people, many medical treatments that are uncertain or need further research, such as IVF and MicroSort, are only given to those who absolutely need the treatment or those who could hire a private doctor and get past the government regulations, usually by traveling out of the country to another country such as the US, which have less stringent laws concerning embryos (Duckworth). Others who cannot afford to travel actively try to petition the government, with mixed results. For China, the circumstances are different. As mentioned before, Chinese couples want male children and, with the one child limit China’s government has imposed, many families are using prenatal sex selection is largely via ultrasound and abortions, usually in rural areas. Because of this, the ratio between males and females is skewed for males (Westley). The Chinese government is trying to stop this by using incentives for families to keep female children (Xiaoyi). In the middle between governments and couples are the biogenetical engineers who are continuously researching and developing new ways to apply genetics and doctors who want to help the couples who come in and ask for a treatment.

I have always been intrigued by the notion of “designer babies” and the ethics behind them. As a writer, I have written a novel (as of yet, unpublished) about eugenics, and I have tried to keep updated with all the embryonic research that has been happening. This interest of mine has developed into my majoring in bioengineering so I can be a witness to the technology that comes out and position myself to be in a good position to debate ethics, knowing both the science involved and the social considerations that go along with it. This topic is perfect for me since I am able to narrow down my research to a single subject and still be able to discuss topics that I have always been interested in.

My initial reaction of prenatal sex selection was disgust, since I could not understand why parents would not accept their children as they were born to them. This is mainly because, as being a fraternal female twin of a brother, many people told my mother that she had all the children she needed since she had both female and male children. If my mother believed this rhetoric, I would not have my sister. Because of this, I find myself unfazed by arguments of family balancing, though I can understand the reasoning. As far as addressing China and its growing male population, as a Roman Catholic who believes abortion is unacceptable, I do not agree with the use of ultrasound to abort fetuses, just because the fetuses are female.

With that said, I am very excited about writing and researching this report and providing facts in an unbiased manner to answer this question:

Is prenatal sex selection ethical?





Works Cited

“Choosing your baby’s sex: The folk wisdom.” Baby Center. July 2006.
http://www.babycenter.com/refcap/7061.html

“Gender (Sex) Selection Information.” Doc Shop.
http://www.docshop.com/education/fertil ... selection/

American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. “ACOG Opposes Sex Selection
for Family Planning Purposes.”
http://www.acog.org/from_home/publicati ... 1-07-2.cfm

“Family Balancing.” Word Spy. 14 May 2003.
http://www.wordspy.com/words/familybalancing.asp

Baculinao, Eric. “China Grapples with Legacy of Its ‘Missing Girls’: Disturbing
Demographic Imbalance Spurs Drive to Change Age-Old Practices.” NBC News.
14 September 2004. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5953508

“Methods of Gender Selection.” IVF-Infertility. 26 Jan 2007.
http://www.ivf-infertility.com/infertil ... ection.php

MicroSort. Home page. http://www.microsort.net/

Jones, Adam. “Case Study: Female Infanticide.” Gendercide.
http://www.gendercide.org/case_infanticide.html

Westley, Sidney. “Evidence Mounts for Sex-Selective Abortion in Asia.” East-West
Center. May 1995.
http://www.eastwestcenter.org/stored/pdfs/p&p034.pdf

Lino, Mark. “Income and Spending Patterns of Single Mother Families.” May 1994.
http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1994/05/art5full.pdf

Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. Home page.
http://www.hfea.gov.uk/cps/rde/xchg/hfea

Duckworth, Lorna. “IVF Couple Give Away “Wrong Sex” Embryo.” The London
Independent. 5 March 2001.
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/ ... _n14376483

Westley, Sidney. “Evidence Mounts for Sex-Selective Abortion in Asia.” East-West
Center. May 1995. http://www.eastwestcenter.org/stored/pdfs/p&p034.pdf

Xiaoyi, Shao. “Zhejiang Tackles Gender Selection.” China Daily. 13 August 2004.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/do ... 364904.htm

Though sex selection techniques have been around for millennia, they have never been this precise before, and that is beginning to make people concerned. As technology continues to progress, many serious ethical issues are being raised from prenatal sex selection, often faster than governments can respond to such issues. There are three countries I would like to discuss, all that have relatively different viewpoints of prenatal sex selection, which are the United States, the United Kingdom, and China. All three countries have been put into different positions concerning prenatal sex selection and are different in the way they handle the issue.

The first country I would like to discuss is China. Nearly all of the studies I have read about prenatal sex selection, from the United States to Australia, mentioned China as an example involving a government decision which went out of control and created an extreme gender imbalance from the use of prenatal sex selection. China had a huge population surge in 1980 and the government decided to limit its growing population by imposing a one-child limit for every family and to give bonuses for those who chose not to have any children at all. For other countries that were less based on tradition, this technique might have worked perfectly to deter the population growth, but since ancient times, China has a tradition that says males take care of their parents once they grow older. For urban communities, this law does not affect the parents as much, but for rural communities, the result was devastating. Rural communities wanted sons to work on the fields and to take care of their parents when they grow older and almost as soon as the restriction was put into place, many Chinese parents decided to do everything they could to conceive a son as their one child. (Buckley) The gender imbalance can be seen from the very beginning when this restriction came into effect. A study done in 2001 by Chu Junhong, an Associate Professor of the Institute of Population Research, Peking University, Beijing reports:

“The reported sex ratio at birth in China was around 106 males per 100 females in most years in the 1960s and 1970s. The ratio increased after 1980: it was 108.5 in 1981; 110.9 in 1986; 111.3 in 1989; and 111.9 in the first six months of 1990.” (Population Council)

Since then, the ratio has increased and in some rural areas, there are 120 males per 100 females. There are a couple of other factors, besides prenatal sex selection, to explain this imbalance, including underreporting of females to the authorities and female infant mortality. Underreporting is fairly common – many people have two children, a son and a daughter, but they will not report the daughter since having two children is illegal and those who are caught pay a heavy fine and they would rather have the son be a Chinese citizen. (Population Council) Also, there have been some Chinese women who would go to Hong Kong and have their child there, as the child would be considered a Hong Kong citizen and therefore the child would not be Chinese. Female mortality is also definitely a factor, even though infanticide is looked upon negatively due to a belief in fate and that their actions influence what will happen to them. (Population Council) Still, those two factors cannot explain the huge male to female ratio. The main reason for this significant difference is prenatal sex selection from abortions using ultrasounds.

Ultrasound technology first began with radar, then as ultrasound was realized to have benefits medically, and finally as a way to see a baby in the womb without harming the mother or baby. This could help the doctors monitor the baby, especially during difficult pregnancies. But as time went on and abortions became easier to perform, many people who were determined to have one sex over another would find out what the sex of the fetus was and then, if it were the undesired sex, abort it. (Jones) This procedure is much cheaper than either PGD or MicroSort, the two most common treatments for the United States and the United Kingdom, and is especially used in Third World countries and China is no exception. Many Chinese women go to clinics to use ultrasound and sometimes, if the fetus is of the undesired sex, they can abort it.

In China, it is illegal to abort a fetus due to its sex, but the laws are not enforced very well and bribery is used frequently to get the doctors to abort the child. The doctors, many who believe that the woman would abort the fetus anyway since she is determined enough, would rather do it for pay. But even for the doctors who do not say anything, it can be hard to keep from telling what the gender is since doctors “…need only smile or frown to indicate the sex of the fetus.” (Population Council) This is primarily a clash on the government, who is restricting the parents from having children, and the parents, who want more children, especially sons.

The United States and the United Kingdom have many similarities with each other in the way of prenatal sex selection, both in the prenatal selection technology that they have access to and the ethical considerations they must think about. Even with these similarities, both countries are handling prenatal sex selection in different manners, the United States in a more liberal manner and the United Kingdom in a more conservative manner. As they share many similarities with each other, I would like to discuss the similarities and ethical concerns both of them face and then discuss how each country is handling it differently.

Besides prenatal sex selection, it is important to realize that the United States and the United Kingdom are very similar in other respects. Both countries have a relatively diverse nation full of a major White population and then many other minorities. Also, both countries are relatively rich compared to the rest of the world, many of the inhabitants are educated, and there is a definite middle class section in the population.

As far as prenatal sex selection goes, many parents in the United States and the United Kingdom would rather not choose the gender of their baby, and though there may be a slight preference for one over the other, most parents are happy to get a healthy child of either gender. (Gender Preference) Many, in an attempt to sway the odds to produce a particular gender, may try different techniques, including picking diets, positions, and days for a certain gender, but most of these techniques are known to be unreliable and usually people do not put much stake in them, nor consider them to be harmful. (Natural, HFEA Study)

It is necessary to point out that ultrasound followed by an abortion does not happen regularly in either the United States or the United Kingdom and statistics reveal that usually, if there is an abortion, it is done before the parents can determine the sex of the fetus from an ultrasound. (Gender Preference) There are many theories as to why this occurs, but a popular reason for this is that an abortion for prenatal sex selection is seen as wrong since the words “sex selection” produce images of the Chinese “missing” females and favoritism for males. Thus, if an abortion follows an ultrasound because the fetus was not the “right” gender, especially when the fetus is female, there is an act of willful discrimination. Abortion is meant to be a liberating experience for women by giving them the freedom to choose, but when this choice discriminates against what is thought to be the unborn female population, it is seen as wrong. Beyond that, there is a feeling that occurs in both pro-life and pro-choice groups that, if the woman was planning on having a child, she should not change her mind just because the gender was undesired and she should instead accept her pregnancy and the subsequent child.

Instead of an abortion following an ultrasound, the two reliable main ways of prenatal sex selection are preimplantation gender diagnosis (PGD) and MicroSort, both of which do not require abortion, yet choose the sex of the child prematurely. These two methods are very expensive, the cheapest one being MicroSort, which starts at about three-thousand dollars, but can typically cost around six-thousand dollars or more. PGD costs are even more, starting at twenty-thousand dollars. Both of these technologies work by creating an embryo and then planting the embryo inside the uterus using in-vitro fertilization (IVF). The methods of creating the embryo vary from each process, and each process creates different ethical quandaries.

PGD originally started with rabbits in 1891 as an experiment to see whether an embryo could be transferred from one rabbit’s uterus to a different rabbit’s uterus. It was a success. This technology was speculated to work in a similar way for humans, but it was not until 1978 where a human was born from IVF by a previously infertile couple by taking an egg from the woman, a sperm from the man, and then combining them and replanting it into the woman. As the IVF technology grew more sophisticated, many parents who wanted to have their own children, but did not want to give the child some genetic defects that ran in their family, PGD came about. PGD is when a woman is given fertility drugs to produce multiple eggs and all of these eggs are fertilized with sperm using IVF. After a couple of days, it is possible to find chromosomal defects, certain genes, and the sex of the embryo. After looking at the different embryos created, the parents select the healthiest embryo of the batch and implant that into the uterus, where it grows. (Morris) Prenatal sex selection occurs when the healthiest embryo is passed up for the embryo which is the desired sex. Initially, this technology was only used for those who had genetic defects that were likely to pass on to their offspring, but in 1990, the first reported pregnancy using PGD as a sex selection tool occurred, following many others. As this technology enables people to look directly at the chromosomal make-up of the embryo, this technology is incredibly accurate in regards to sex selection and has been proven to be almost 100% percent accurate in choosing the wanted sex. PGD began for humans in the nineties for humans and is considered relatively new and experimental treatment.

It is also important to say that, at the moment, PGD technology cannot be used to determine the personality, eye color, athletic ability, or other various traits of the child that would make the child a “designer child” or a child that is built to serve a pre-designed purpose. In IVF, the woman is limited by a limited amount of eggs she can create and to test every one of them for every potential disease is limited, both by time since embryos only last a couple of hours and by money, since the testing process is very expensive. (Misleading Slate)

PGD is typically seen as the technology that should be in use for those who have a genetic disorder and would rather not have it passed on to their child. For example, there was a Chicago woman who had a 50-percent chance of passing on a particularly violent strand of Alzheimer’s to her child, so instead of having the child live through that ailment, she had a PGD test to screen for the gene. (Roberts) There are hosts of other gene-induced ailments which can be screened against, and some of these ailments, such as hemophilia, are gender-related.

Though PGD is used to screen against unwanted genes that can cause serious diseases, several questions are raised with this issue. Since multiple embryos are created during PGD, if there are two healthy embryos of different sex, if the parents have a desire to have one sex over the other, then is it ethical to implant the embryo of the desired sex? And, if some people can choose the sex of their child with absolute certainty using this technology, why could not the rest of the population?

Another issue is whether an embryo is alive. PGD usually creates several embryos for use before the doctors pick which ones will be used and which one will be discarded. For many, even the nonreligious, this seems to go against nature or God in a way that is impermissible, for how can anyone but a divine figure choose who will live and who will die? (HFEA Study)

Many insurance companies will not provide for PGD to their clients, even for those who have certain genetic defects they want to scan for, because of the possibility of prenatal sex selection. The United Kingdom, which controls who is allowed a PGD and who is not, are also very careful as to who it chooses.

MicroSort sperm-sorting technology was originally developed by the United States government to select the sex of farm animals, but it was quickly turned into a corporate venture by the Genetics and IVF Institute to allow parents to choose the gender of their children. (President’s Council) It is a fairly new technology, only about ten years old, but it has been used extensively, both with livestock and humans. It works by taking semen and splitting it up into two groups; the group with mostly Y-chromosome and the group with mostly X-chromosome. (MicroSort) After this, the sperm is injected using the IVF method. This procedure is still very experimental and not as accurate as PGD since it does not look at the embryo but rather sorts the sperm so that it is more likely to have the desired sex. So far, they have a 90-percent at producing females and a 75-percent chance at producing males. Still, this method is cheaper and many parents who are desperate for a particular sex and could afford the treatment go through it.

MicroSort is seen as both better and worse than PGD. On the one hand, prenatal sex selection is not guaranteed. The odds, though made slightly more favorable for a particular sex, does not mean that the child cannot be of the undesired sex. For some parents, this is an acceptable way to have prenatal sex selection since it is less like playing God and more like using a natural method that has a possibility of having the undesired sex. Unlike PGD, which has the issue of the discarded embryos, the egg and sperm, after some testing, are combined together as one embryo and then put into the uterus via IVF. There are not as many discarded embryos as what happens in PGD (President’s Council).

Still, MicroSort is highly controversial. MicroSort advertises heavily in many newspapers and magazines and many people are concerned with the commercialization of prenatal sex selection and the possibility that one sex could be preferred over another. This favoritism is seen with discomfort and many people fear gender discrimination. (President’s Council) Still others, especially those in the United Kingdom, see that MicroSort is a corporate American venture and they get suspicious, since they fear capitalism is taking something precious about life and putting it for sale (HFEA Study).

Now that some of the concerns of each technology are laid out, here is how each country is dealing with the issue of prenatal sex selection, starting with the United States.

In general, most Americans do not want to choose the sex, and in some studies, only eight-percent would choose, if they could. Because there are not a lot of majority of people who would choose the sex of their child, prenatal sex selection is not a very discussed topic. Still, there is a general feeling of unease about the issue that stems from the fact that parents can have this much control of their children’s lives as to choose the gender and many Americans are afraid of the slippery slope, that is, once we allow one new technology that allows control of others’ lives, who knows what it will lead to?

Yet, in the United States there is also a reluctance to condemn such an act. In most studies I read, though many were cautious and even negative, they suggested that prenatal sex selection should still be allowed. In a paper on the bioethics of sex selection or, as they call it, sex control, the authors said this:

“The two aspects of sex control – it is control of sex, and it is a form of control of offspring – locate the deeper significance of this practice in two important human contexts: the meaning of sexuality, and the nature of procreation and family relations.” (President’s Council)

If this is true, then by denying prenatal sex selection to those who are interested in selecting the sex of their children, you are interfering, not only with their ability to choose but also with their privacy of sex and desires, which interferes directly with their freedom. Because of this, the United States government has done little to limit the use of prenatal sex selection besides a couple of negative statements, though they are currently discussing the ethics on it now. Instead, the power is left to doctors and biogenetical engineers that work in companies such as MicroSoft who continue to improve the technology and make a nice profit along the side.

The United Kingdom, on the other hand, has a different approach. Its government system is more socialist than ours and since the government is in charge of the health care system, it needs to make sure the most good is happening with its money. The health care system is obliged to take care of as many people as it can with its money and prenatal sex selection, for non-medical purposes or even for medical purposes which are seen as either needless or too risky. The branch that decides the ethics of prenatal sex selection, among other things, is called Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA).

To examine the ethics of prenatal sex selection, the United Kingdom brought together a group of citizens that contained all minorities, age groups, and genders and, in separate groups, conducted an ethics discussion where specific questions were raised, asking the people about both abstract situations and specific situations. Through their discussions, they decided that prenatal sex selection was permissible under medical circumstances, but that it should be limited to those who would use it for elective means. This study was done to help build a draft on its policy, and the policy is being worked on now.





Works Cited

Buckley, Chris. “China Must Prevent Population Surge.” Reuters. September 1, 2006.
Date accessed: April 10, 2007.
http://www.planetark.com/avantgo/dailyn ... wsid=34388

“Prenatal Sex Determination and Sex-selective Abortion.” Population Council. 2001.
Date accessed: April 10, 2007.
http://www.popcouncil.org/mediacenter/n ... _2chu.html

Jones, Adam. “Case Study: Female Infanticide.” Gendercide. Date accessed: February
18, 2007.
http://www.gendercide.org/case_infanticide.html

“Gender Preference in the United States.” In-gender. Date accessed: April 10, 2007.
http://www.in-gender.com/XYU/Gender%2DPreference/

“Natural Gender Selection.” In-gender. Date accessed: April 10, 2007.
http://www.in-gender.com/Gender%2DSelec ... tural.aspx

“Sex Selection – Policy and Regulatory Review: A Report on the Key Findings from a
Qualitative Research Study.” HFEA. October 2002. Date accessed: April 10,
2007.
http://www.hfea.gov.uk/docs/Appendix_E_ ... rpoint_(UK)_Ltd.pdf

(Don't follow link... take the whole link and paste it in your internet browser.)

Morris, Randy. “IVF – In Vitro Fertilization.” March 16, 2007. Date accessed: April
10, 2007.
http://www.ivf1.com/ivf/

“Misleading Slate Article Slurs PGD.” In-gender. September 16, 2006. Date accessed:
April 10, 2007.
http://www.in-gender.com/cs/blogs/Gende ... 19097.aspx

Roberts, Jason. “Customizing Conception: A Survey of Preimplantation Genetic
Diagnosis and the Resulting Social, Ethical, and Legal Dilemmas.” 2002. Date
accessed: April 10, 2007.
http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/a ... TR0012.pdf

“Ethical Aspects of Sex Control.” The President’s Council on Bioethics. 2003. Date
accessed: April 10, 2007.
http://www.bioethics.gov/background/sex_control.html

MicroSort. Home page. http://www.microsort.net/ Date accessed: February 18, 2007.

As this is a discussion of the ethical implications of prenatal sex selection in China, the United Kingdom, and the United States, each with their own societal and government structures, it is necessary to come up with an ethical solution to prenatal sex selection for each country. As stated before, I am looking at these cases in an altruistic manner.

For China, though prenatal sex selection is a definite problem, heightened by the relative widespread use of ultrasound technology, it is necessary to see that prenatal sex selection is not the main problem for China. Instead, the gender imbalance began in the eighties when the one child limit was imposed because of the threat of overpopulation. (Population Council) Because China is a communistic government, it is necessary to provide for all of the people. If the population increased further, the government would not be able to provide for everyone and some would have to be slighted. Because of this, it is necessary to have some form of population control in the short term to ensure that in the long term the government will not collapse from all the demand. On the other hand, the form of population control that they have now, limiting one child to every family, is hurting the population by creating a higher percentage of men to women, which is creating an imbalance that could hurt China years from now. (One-Child) Therefore, it is important to come up with a solution that addresses both the overpopulation issue and the prenatal sex selection problem.

Already, China has tried several solutions to reduce the gender imbalance to something more appropriate. In some rural areas in China, the government has allowed a two-child limit, if the first child is female, since rural areas have the most severe imbalance. (One-Child) The problem with this solution is that they do not make it more desirable for Chinese parents to choose a female over a male and, even if a couple does produce a female child as their first, they are still likely to use ultrasound for their second pregnancy and abort the fetus if the fetus is female. Though there are penalties for those who abort female fetuses on the basis of gender selection alone, these laws are not enforced strongly since both patients, who want to have the fetus removed, and physicians, who receive money for doing this process, are not willing to reveal themselves to the law. (Population Council) Though there are some Chinese officials who wish to continue the one-child policy, many are starting to realize that these solutions are not working and that another solution must come.

Many people, especially from western countries, believe the only real solution is to stop the one-child limit and to let families decide how many children they want, which would help reduce the imbalance since there would be no need to abort a female fetus since the parents could always try again to have a male child without any penalties. The problem with this is that though it might reduce the gender imbalance, that policy would hurt the people more by causing the government to stretch itself over the expanding population. Other scholars insist that the one-child limit should be abolished and in its place, there should be a two-child limit instead.

A more creative approach in curbing the population growth without imposing a child limit can be seen in Yicheng County. There, men are not allowed to marry before they turn twenty-five years old and women are not allowed to marry before they turn twenty-three. (Ford) By changing the ages of those who were allowed to marry, it created a radical change in the culture that allowed other changes to come. Along with the mandatory ages for marrying, parents are allowed two children, regardless of whether the first one is a female or male, but there must be six years of separation between each child, otherwise the parents face a fine of $160USD, which is around twenty-percent of an average Chinese income. Besides that, those who have a third pregnancy are not forced to abort and are rather only charged a hefty fine.

Though there was initial backlash to this plan, the residents of Yicheng County were more willing to accept this policy than the one-child policy, which was resisted from the onset. As the Christian Science Monitor reports:

“’We were delighted by the new policy’ when it was introduced in 1985, says Duan Chunmao, the Communist Part secretary in Ren Wang. ‘People felt it was more appropriate to their situation and it helped cement links between the people and the part’ that had been strained.” (Ford)

More importantly, there was no gender imbalance with this policy; Yicheng County’s birth ratio is 106 males to every 100 females, which is a normal ratio. Because residents were more willing to follow through with this, there was less rule-breaking of this law. Though this is only one county, some believe this plan can be implemented for the rest of China. Still, there are some doubters. This plan, crafted in 1985, was originally set to be only an experiment and was never intended to be implemented for the rest of China. (Ford)

This plan worked well for Yicheng, which is a mining county, but for some of the poorer parts of China, especially some of the rural parts who depend on many laborers, this approach might not work. Still, with the economics of China shifting to a more industrial nation, this policy has a good chance of working more successfully than the current one-child policy. Even now, the one-child policy is seen within China as too restrictive. With this policy, it would help the Chinese by allowing them two children with certain restrictions and it would help their government by taking away a policy that is viewed on as bad, both by many Chinese citizens and most of the world, and replacing it with another policy which is looser, yet still keeps down population. With this, it is necessary to enforce current laws pertaining to prenatal sex selection.

With this said, there are many things China can do to keep down its population and prevent prenatal sex selection and thus gender imbalance from happening. Because of this, prenatal sex selection for China is unethical.

The concerns that the United Kingdom is facing is much more different. Unlike in China, where one gender is preferred over another and gender imbalance is a definite concern, in the United Kingdom, there is no preferred gender, nor does it suffer from any gender imbalance. Instead, there are many couples who prefer one gender over another because of personal preference. As a more socialistic government compared to the United States, the Human Fertilisation and Embryo Authority (HFEA) is the ruling agency that controls who is allowed to use preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). (HFEA Homepage) Everybody who wants to have a PGD operation must go before the HFEA to plead their case since many times, the government is involved in healthcare. (Duckworth) Because government’s role is to help as much people as it can, it cannot spend time with non-medical cases. Therefore prenatal sex selection for personal reasons for the United Kingdom is unethical because it diverts money from the healthcare system to those who really need help and the United Kingdom should not sponsor those who wish to have prenatal sex selection done for personal reasons.

A more questionable scenario arises in the case of prenatal sex selection in medical issues. Though many times the HFEA will allow prenatal sex selection to occur in the form of a PGD when there is a valid medical reason that would cripple the child from birth if PGD were not allowed, there are several instances when they refused. For example, there is something new called a “savior child” where one child would be ailing from some crippling disease and, through the use of PGD, another child, without the disease, would be born with similar DNA and their stem cells would be used to help the ailing child. (Savior Siblings) While allowing PGD for children who have a genetic defect in them that would affect them is acceptable, since it would help produce healthy members of society, allowing “savior children” is unethical because, though healthy members of society are being created, a “savior child” is looked on as an “it” instead of a “thou.” Therefore creating “savior children” is unethical.

I realize that many people in the United Kingdom who would like to choose the gender of their children for many different reasons, from medical to personal and that many couples would be upset not to have a particular gender. However, because of the United Kingdom’s governmental structure, it is more beneficial for the government to aid those who really need the help, and I believe by letting it do this, it will be more helpful to society.

The United States has different issues of its own. While prenatal sex selection is looked down upon and there is no real preference for one gender over another by most Americans, the possibility of prenatal sex selection exists in the form of PGD and MicroSort and anyone who has the money can have these procedures. Because the United States is a capitalistic society whose founding was to give its people “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” prenatal sex selection is acceptable. (Declaration) With that said, prenatal sex selection is a very touchy subject for most people and there are many concerns whether the technology will advance so much that it will eventually cause a master race to develop, just because it exists. (President’s Council) There is also a worry that the children would become “its” instead of “thous.” Still, at the moment, technology only allows the gender to be picked. If parents adopt other children, they can choose the gender of their adopted children. Why should they not also choose the gender of their own? .

To make sure that nobody abuses this technology, it is necessary for the government to put certain reasonable restrictions on it, as it would on other capitalistic ventures, such as making sure that those who wish to have go through prenatal sex selection have some sort of screening, such as adoption. But, as long as it is for those who would like to have it and can afford the procedures, it should be allowed. In the United States, it is ethical to have prenatal sex selection.






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