BLAME MOBIL (via Buttercup):

Silence on sex selection This is the first in a series of editorials on the challenges raised by the October report of the President's Council on Bioethics. (Washinghton Times, 11/24/03)

Some technologies seem to sneak up on the public. Their application becomes the norm before any thought has been given to their implications. That seems to be the case with sex selection, according to the recently released report from the President's Council on Bioethics, Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Sex selection is simply choosing a child based upon its sex. It can be done through several different techniques: amniocentesis or sonogram screening followed by abortion; preimplantation genetic diagnosis followed by transfer of embroys of the selected sex; and pre-fertilization separation of sperm of the desired sex followed by fertilization and implantation. While some of those techniques were originally developed to screen for diseases, they are now being put to non-therapeutic purposes.

While the oldest of those techniques have only been available since the 1970s, their application is already having a significant societal impact. On average, Mother Nature provides for 105 boys to be born for every 100 girls. However, with those human interventions, that ratio has become skewed in some societies, particularly those in the developing world. The ratio is 108.7 to 100 in Egypt, it is 110.9 in Pakistan and it is 117 to 100 in China. Some nations in the Caucasus region have seen ratios as high as 120 to 100. Such effects have not yet been seen in the United States, but they have appeared in other Western nations.

Based on speculation about greenhouse gases, folks are prepared to dramatically scale back industrial growth. But where there's a measurable effect our own actions are having on the biosphere, no one wants to so much as acknowledge the problem. Perhaps we should start a rumor that the oil companies are paying for gender selection abortions.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 24, 2003 6:58 PM