September 26, 2003
KISS THE GIRLS GOOD-BYE:
Sex Selection Goes Mainstream (Marcy Darnovsky, September 25, 2003, AlterNet)
Several times over the past few months, a small but striking ad from a Virginia-based fertility clinic has appeared in the Sunday Styles section of the New York Times. Alongside a smiling baby, its boldface headline asks, "Do You Want To Choose the Gender Of Your Next Baby?"If so, the ad continues, you can join "prospective parents...from all over the world" who come to the Genetics & IVF Institute (GIVF) for an "exclusive scientifically-based sperm sorting gender selection procedure." The technique, known by the trademarked name MicroSort, is offered as a way to choose a girl or boy either for the "prevention of genetic diseases" (selecting against the sex affected by an X-linked or Y-linked condition) or for "family balancing" (selecting for a girl in a family that already has one or more boys, or vice versa).
GIVF has been promoting MicroSort on its Web site for several years, and a few other fertility clinics offer other "family balancing" methods online. But the MicroSort ads in the New York Times represent a bolder and higher-profile approach. They mark the first time that high-tech methods for sex selection, and their use for clearly social purposes, have been openly marketed in a mainstream US publication.
Two years ago, when newspapers aimed at Indian expatriates in the United States and Canada carried fertility clinic ads for sex selection, the Times covered the event as a news story. The article included hard-hitting criticism from Indian feminists in the United States, and discussed the hugely skewed sex ratios in South and East Asia (some demographers estimate as many as 100 million "missing girls") that are the result of female infanticide, neglect of girl babies, and prenatal diagnosis followed by sex-selective abortion. It noted that the sex-selection ads would be illegal in India, and reported that one of the publications dropped them after controversy erupted.
The Times has also covered other aspects of the debate about sex selection. To date, however, it has taken no note of the MicroSort ad campaign. Nor have other newspapers. [...]
High-tech sex selection poses a range of difficult policy dilemmas -- especially the problem of addressing it without in any way weakening women's rights and access to abortion. But address it we must, because of the grave concerns it raises about exacerbating sexism and gender stereotyping, undermining disability rights, putting children at risk (if the child turns out to be the "wrong" sex or the "wrong kind" of girl or boy), skewing sex ratios or the number of firstborn boys, and setting the stage for a consumer eugenics in which parents are sold techniques to select not just their child's sex, but a range of other traits as well. As the UK-based NGO Human Genetics Alert asks, if we allow sex selection, how will we be able effectively "to oppose `choice' of...appearance, height, intelligence?. The door to 'designer babies' will not have been opened a crack -- it will have been thrown wide open."
Any time someone says of any ghoulish social pathology, "It could never happen here", it's safe to assume it's already happening. Posted by Orrin Judd at September 26, 2003 4:05 PM
I think I would gladly march with the womyn on this one. Let's hope the issue doesn't descend into legal arguments about competing rights.
Posted by: Peter B at September 26, 2003 5:15 PMPeter: C'mon. You know it's already there.
Posted by: Chris at September 26, 2003 5:40 PMThe interesting thing is that if this process is stopped--and female political power thereby preserved--it will be done predominantly by the party of males.
Posted by: oj at September 26, 2003 7:14 PMInteresting use of the word "diagnose."
Posted by: David Cohen at September 26, 2003 7:50 PMYou all are making an unwarranted assumption: that, on average, couples will choose to have boys more often than girls.
Given that the US doesn't, so far as I know, have dowries as a part of marriage, then that incenitve for sex selection is gone.
To the extent this happens, I'll bet it is almost entirely due to Dad wanting a boy this time after two or more girls, or vice versa for mom.
Sex ratio impact: zero
Demographic impact: small, but measurable, because more couples will get the gender they have been waiting for in fewer pregancies.
And, for the same reason, there might be a slight decrease in abortions.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at September 26, 2003 7:54 PMSorry, but I've been thinking about this atrocious story for the last hour, and I retract my post above. I would not follow the womyn, but I might be honoured to lead them.
This is a challenge to men and an appalling wrong that men, not women, must right. We know at heart that, when all is said and done, abortion is a woman's issue in the sense that their collective voice will be determinative. We can philosophize, rail, rant and argue, but our relative remoteness from pregnacy and birth means that our voice wil always be an add-on. That is why, as Orrin correctly points out, the best hope for restricting aborion is the shifting views of womwn.
But this is different. The female is the victim because men want it to be so (even if their cultures have convinced their traditional women to go along with it). It is the converse of abortion. Men are the killers. Women can rail and wail and march all they want, but until men rise in angry, threatening revolt, little may happen. Somebody has to look these b-s-t-a-ds in the eye and threaten.
Women do not like to be controlled by men, or told what to think by them. But they don't like confused, deferential wimps either. There are times when men should assert their principled, protective role quite independantly of what women might think. I always wondered how the Clinton impeachment saga would have played out if Monica's father had picketed the White House with a sign that said: "Mr. President, let's talk man to man.", irrespective of what Monica wanted. The only time I saw him, he talked about Monica's freedom of choice!
Guys, time to get angry and take charge.
Posted by: Peter B at September 26, 2003 8:02 PMYeah. Me. Wanna make something of it?
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at September 26, 2003 8:53 PMAnd you seriously think the main use will be for "balancing" families?
Posted by: oj at September 26, 2003 8:57 PMMr. Judd;
I will admit that I live in a strange demographic, but overall the balance of gender wouldn't be much different than random. While I know one couple that desperately wanted a boy, there are others that wanted a girl. Had my parents had access to this technology, there would have been more girls in the family. And if it had been available to my current family I can tell you it wouldn't have been me making the selection. Isn't the Wife always right?
Posted by: Annoying Old Guy at September 26, 2003 9:45 PMOkay, that takes care of middle/upper-middle class white folks, how about the rest of America?
Posted by: oj at September 26, 2003 9:59 PMOJ:
My experience is the same as AOG's.
Your argument is self defeating. Only the upper middle class can afford to purchase the choice.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at September 27, 2003 10:42 AMWow! We're really widening the demographic now.
Posted by: oj at September 27, 2003 10:45 AMJeff--for now.
Posted by: Timothy at September 27, 2003 10:27 PMShort Boys. Long Girls.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at September 29, 2003 5:23 PM