HOME :: CHAPTER 0 :: 0. :: THE HISTORICAL, SCIENTIFIC, CULTURAL, AND ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF GENDER PRE-SELECTION

The Historical, Scientific, Cultural, and Economic Aspects of Gender Pre-selection

K. Cloonan, C. Crumley, and S. Kiymaz

Edited by S. F. Gilbert, E. Zackin

It is difficult to determine the motivation for sex selection, since it is influenced by local and global circumstances. By investigating the sex preference history of the Eastern part of the world, some predictions have tentatively been made about the effects of widespread sex selection technology in the West. For example, in Asia and India, it is commonly thought that there is a sex preference for males(1) (see also http://www.healthlibrary.com/reading/ethics/apr98/ - 7k - Apr 2, 2003). Particularly in China, where presently there is a one-child-per-family law, there is a stronger desire for that one child to be a boy. Another reason that couples may wish to choose the gender of their child is that they wish to create a certain gender order among their children, reflecting preferable kinds of rearing or relational experiences. This desire would largely be guided by personal experience. For example, if one parent had brothers and sisters distributed in a certain way with regard to age and that parent found such a distribution to be more conducive to rearing, the couple may wish to create that particular gender order in their own family. In general, this would reflect the perceptions parents have about their childhood, as it is a product of the gender order and distribution of their siblings.

Many considerations need to be made when deciding if preconception gender selection should be banned, regulated, or brought into widespread use. There seem to be situations of health in which we can more easily envision the value of this procedure. The motivation to sex select for medical purposes, namely to prevent the prospect of a child affected by sex-linked disease, starkly contrasts with sex selection for non-medical purposes.

By investigating the cultural, religious and historical background to gender selection, one can obtain a basic understanding for the environment from which gender-selection ethics stem. From this base, genetic and technological concepts set the tone for the incorporation of sexual pre-selection into U.S. society. By then analyzing economic and public policy implications of such procedure, Americans can contemplate the reality of sexual pre-selection.

Different Cultural Views Toward Gender Preference

While there are many studies that provide information, largely based on surveys, about the desire for gender selection, it is important to note that the studies often disagree. Some conclude that extreme gender preference exists in parts of the Western world, while others find that no significant preference exists, and studies show all degrees of desire for the technology. A 2001 article in the British Medical Journal claims that "there are studies in [England] which show universally that there is no preponderance of one gender" and that "in Western society there are as many couples who want the girl as there is who want the boy."(2) In other parts of the world, the preferences are more pronounced.

Eastern nations, such as India and China demonstrate marked gender preference toward males. In India, for example, daughters are seen as an expense due to the tradition of paying dowries when daughters marry.(3) A report about women in Punjab, Pakistan states that these women express a preference for sons, primarily for financial reasons. This preference reflects the subordinate position of women in this society and the low economic value placed on the work of women.(4) These women felt they have little control over their lives and a strong pressure to conceive with little access to contraceptives.(5) They report health problems as a result of repeated childbearing and say that women without children as well as the mothers of these women experience harassment from the family and society.(6) A similar trend occurs in South Asia. Women are pressured by their husbands to give birth to boys.(7) At the extreme, husbands abuse their wives for bearing a female child.(8) In China, this attitude has created an obvious gender gap. As of 1996, boys outnumbered girls by 36 million.(9) The report presenting this statistic forecasted that by 1999, this number would grow to 70 million.(10)

In sharp contrast to these regions, reports about Western societies offer a different, often-unclear impression of gender preference in those regions. A 1999 report based on a 1984 survey found that the primary preference of Canadians is for at least one child of each sex.(11) Among women with a sex preference, sons are preferred as first-born children.(12) Canadian women with two boys have a higher probability of using contraception than women with two girls.(13) This could be interpreted as contentment or the desire not to have a third boy. Interestingly, when Canadian couples act as a unit, there is no preference for boys as first-born children.(14) Clearly, the combination of input from the mother and father may be a significant factor and evidence of a flaw in studies that only investigate the opinion of women.

A survey from 1988 known as the Second Malaysian Family Life Survey provides a great deal of insight into the cultural relationship to sex pre-selection. The study found that within Malaysia, the Chinese, Indian, and Malaysian populations each have slightly different views toward gender pre-selection. The more boys the Chinese parents have, the more likely they are to cease childbearing.(15) Malays demonstrate no sex preference, and son preference among Indians is more pronounced than among either Chinese or Malays.(16) It is interesting to compare these results to the cultural differences of the three groups living together. In Chinese culture, there is a kinship system that attributes greater importance to paternal descent.(17) Patrilocal residence is the norm, and Chinese parents rely on sons for support.(18) In Malaysian culture, there is a matrilineal kinship system in some parts and a bilateral system in other parts.(19) There is no consequence of surnames for lineage and girls are thought to take better care of parents, so females are sometimes preferred in Malaysian culture.(20)

The gender gap appears to be increasing in many developing countries.(21) In India, between 1950 and 2000, the number of females per one thousand males has dropped from 1053 to 972 and, in some hospital newborn units, this number is as low as 918 or lower. This gap is attributed to the culture of India and Nepal being influenced by Sanskrit literature, which is interpreted as saying that the birth of a son as the major purpose of marriage. The gap is increasing as a result of female neglect and feticide as well as the illegal practice of antenatal sex determination. The 2001 Indian census showed that "the number of girls per 1000 boys under 6 years of age had declined substantially in several states."(22) The national average fell from 945 to 927 between the years of 1991 and 2000.(23) This is evidence that strong gender preference can affect sex ratios. Due to these statistics, the Indian health ministry has instituted legislation to regulate reproductive technologies.(24) This move will ban preimplantation genetic diagnosis and reproductive technologies.(25) It does, however, allow for screening for medical purposes.(26) This new legislation is an addition to the law against fetal sex determination for sex selection, instituted in 1994.(27)

Some of the most recent infanticide problems arose in China. Because the government allowed for only one child per family and made life difficult for Chinese families, which have more than one child, female infanticide was practiced widely. According to Li, when the economic situation became worse as in the 1935 Yellow River Flood, the infanticide rates increased due to economic hardship.(28) Trends throughout Chinese history indicate a general preference for males due to the prevalence of female infanticide.

Religion and Sex Selection

The major religions have come out against using sex selection technologies for non-medical reasons. The history of this tradition appears to be rooted in the opposition of scriptural religion to pagan practices of infanticide for sex selection. Especially during the pre-Christian Roman Empire the infanticide of female children was widely practiced. As Christianity became the religion of the Empire, laws were enacted that punished a mother who killed her child.(29) A similar event happened in the Arab world when Islam emerged as the most predominant religion in the Middle East. Arab people had practiced female infanticide because it was a shame to have female children. The prophet of Islam, Muhammad, tried to convince Arab people that killing of any soul that God created is a sin and that females are as valuable as males.(30)

However, when you look at the basic understanding of most religions (except Judiasm, but especially Christianity and Islam), they directly speak to only males. They tell males to control their wives, daughters and sisters because women are weak and not able to control themselves. This also brings a big shame on the male parents who have daughters. This results in a big dilemma. And it still leads to the perception of male children being superior to females.

History of Sex Selection

Some people would like to know the sex of their children so that they can prepare the right color of clothes for them; some people want to be informed so that they change the gender of the child. The latter group of people wants to be sure that they have the desired sex as early as possible. There have been many recipes since early centuries that sound a bit peculiar to us. Letty Pogrebin gives some examples of the ancient "unscientific" sex selection methods. The mythical methods to have a son include:

The couple should have intercourse in dry weather, on a night with a full moon, after a good harvest, and/or when there is a north wind. The man should wear boots to bed, get drunk, tie a string around his right testicle, cut off his left testicle, take an ax to bed, hang his pants on the right bedpost, and/or bite his wife's right ear. The woman should lie on her right side during intercourse, eat red meat or sour foods, let a small boy step on her hands or sit on her lap on her wedding day, sleep with a small boy on her wedding eve, wear male cloth on her wedding night, and/or pinch her husbands right testicle before intercourse.(31)

These and many more "interesting" recipes have been tried by many couples that wanted to have a child of the sex they desired.

Infanticide was and still is used as a way of sex selection. When the above-mentioned remedies did not work, infanticide was the only solution for a child of the unwanted sex. Death records and graves in various parts of the world show high infant and fetus sex ratios that seems hard to be explained by any other reason.(32) Infanticide had been practiced in different parts of the world. There is evidence that it was practiced in Ancient Greece, the early Roman Empire and in the Arab world.(33) Several laws and religions had tried to stop this process, but it was not efficient until our century, after laws had became stricter and scientific techniques such as ultrasound screening became available.

As time went by and as we learned more about the mechanisms and the lead actors of reproduction, scientists tried to come up with other, more scientific (although none of them exactly proven) recipes for having sons or daughters. One of these recipes uses the fact that androgenic (male producing) sperm is smaller and swims faster than the gynogenic (female producing) sperm.(34) David Rorvik and Landrum Shettles hypothesized that couples having intercourse close to the time of ovulation have greater chance of having a son than couples having intercourse several days prior to the ovulation.(35) They thought that having intercourse several days prior to ovulation would result in a girl. Their other hypothesis is that acid douches on the genital organs of the female prior to intercourse will increase the chance of having a girl and alkaline douches increase the chance of having a boy.(36)

Stolkowski and Choukroun hypothesize that the internal ionic milieu of the female genital tract may influence the type of sperm that can reach the egg. A woman who wants a son should eat foods high in sodium and potassium, while to have a girl a woman should eat foods reach in calcium and magnesium. However, all of these are hypotheses at this point and their efficiency is at question.

A more efficient way of selecting the sex of a child, but after conception, became available with the sex determination with ultrasound screening. It is known that there have been many abortions, especially in countries favoring sons, such as India, of fetus of a disfavored sex.(37) As the technologies of ultrasound screening became more efficient, it became possible to learn the sex of a fetus in the first trimester, which is the period in which the abortions are considered legal in most countries including the U.S. Therefore, it is hard to prevent sex selective abortion because there is no way to tell the difference between whether a parent does not want the child at all or whether he or she does not want it because of the fetus' sex.

Technological Foundation

Technologies such as ultrasound screening and amniocentesis provide useful information to hopeful parents. Amniocentesis, or the analysis of uterine fluid surrounding a fetus, as well as the aforementioned ultrasound screening, where sound waves produce fetal images, are powerful tools in the hands of doctorsohonest and dishonest alike.(38) Parents and medical experts can provide appropriate prenatal care for an unborn child through knowledge gained from technology, especially if that fetus exhibits an abnormality. These techniques can also reveal the sex of a child, which should ideally not affect the treatment of an unborn child. Interestingly, a 1985 Bombay, India survey found that 96% of all aborted female fetuses were done so after amniocentesis analysis revealed the sex of that child.(39) This use of technology for sex selection may be accelerated by the introduction of sexual pre-selection techniques, especially as the price associated with the technologies decreases.(40)

As an initial approach to the concept of sex pre-selection, one must comprehend the scientific procedure behind "pre-selection." The two general types of selective technology consist of sperm sorting and external fertilization followed by implantation. It should be noted that misleading data regarding the efficacy of these procedures has allowed their widespread use to continue within the United States.(41)

The first successful sperm separation was developed at Gametrics, a Montana-based lab, under the aegis of Dr. Roland Ericsson in the 1970's.(42) This method relies on differences in sperm swimming-speeds due to X chromosomes weighing more than Y chromosomes, thus allowing Y chromosome-carrying sperm to swim faster.(43) The technology was initially developed and licensed for use in livestock breeding, and has obviously been enhanced to include human sperm separation as a possibility. Ericsson's sperm sorting method includes the use of albumin gradients, Percoll gradients, Sephadex columns, and a modified swim-up technique.(44) The gradients created by the protein solutions (such as albumin) create a "chemical obstacle race," exaggerating the differences in sperm swim speeds.(45) This method of sperm separation, the only one available until a few years ago, was only capable of "enriching" sperm at a rate 10% less reliable than that of the currently popular technique using flow cytometry.(46)

In the method known as flow-cytometry separation, laser beams are passed across a dyed sperm so that they can be separated according to weight.(47) For this sperm sorting procedure, the most popular technique is known as MicroSort.(48) On a more technical level, sperm that have been flourescently dyed are separated through a cytometer after which separation occurs based on the proportion of light emitted by the sperm.(49) The Genetics and IVF (In Vitro Fertility) Institute in Fairfax, VA champions the technology. Its director, Sherman Silber stated, "Finally someone has developed a method of sex selection that is honest and not a fraud, because everything prior to MicroSort has been clearly in error or frankly fraudulent."(50) The current cost of this procedure is $5000, so obviously favors couples that can afford to pay the price.(51) Furthermore, the process is only 93% accurate in producing girls and only 73% accurate in producing boys, providing a degree of uncertainty that fails to eliminate more traditional sex selection techniques.(52) Lawrence Johnson, an animal physiologist who heads up the Germplasm and Gamete Physiology Laboratory (where the technology was first devised in 1989) notes, "accuracy depends on the DNA difference between the X and Y sperm."(53) For instance, bears carry about 3.6% more DNA in X sperm than in Y sperm while humans only carry 2.8% more.(54) The larger the difference, the brighter the X sperm fluoresce in comparison to the Y sperm. Because of this difference, selection for females alone is likely through this procedure.(55) The sperm is then placed inside a female's uterus, which requires roughly one hour of sorting to provide the necessary 5 million sperm.(56)

More traditional techniques of zygote selection include the external fertilization previously mentioned. A laboratory simply extracts eggs from the woman's ovary, fertilizes the eggs with sperm, and allows cell division to take place.(57) Once a few mitoses have taken place, a single cell can be removed from the mass and either crushed or chemically probed in order to detect a Y chromosome.(58) If the selected cell contains a Y chromosome, then the mass it originated from can be implanted into a mother's womb and carried to term. The prices for such laboratory work vary, yet any sort of egg removal procedure is invasive and relatively costly, and time-consuming.

Views of Geneticists

An interesting aspect of gender pre-selection is the view of geneticists. A factor in the public acceptance of sex selection technology and in how widespread it's use becomes is the opinion of those performing the procedures. A 1985 study showed that 62% of U.S. geneticists would either perform prenatal diagnosis for a couple (34%) or refer them to someone who would (28%).(59) The geneticists in favor of this procedure believe that sex choice is "a logical extension of parents' rights to control the number, timing, spacing, and quality of their offspring."(60) They also considered themselves to be nonjudgmental technicians. Other Western nations had similar statistics. Interestingly, Hungarian geneticists, who would permit prenatal sex selection at a fraction of 60%, take abortion very seriously as a threat and feel that the procedure gives the fetus a 50% chance of survival that it may not otherwise have.(61)

The issue of abortion is pertinent to the attitude of many geneticists. For example, in 1973, at the time of Roe vs. Wade, only 1% of medical geneticists surveyed approved of prenatal diagnosis for sex selection for the purpose of planning an abortion if the fetus were to be the "wrong" sex.(62) A New York Times poll in 1989 reported that 20% of geneticists approved of the practice.(63) While the issues about abortion and sex pre-selection have their differences, it would be quite difficult to "make a moral argument about terminations for sex when you can have abortions for any reason."(64)

Economic Implications

When intertwined with cultural perspectives of gender selection, the opinions of geneticists become essential to sexual pre-selection practice. The medical community, wielding powerful technology with the ability to determine the sex of a fetus, can perform this procedure with far-reaching implications. This technique has in fact drawn a lot of attention to the fertility (and infertility!) market. According to the surveys used by Fortune magazine, 25% to 35% of perspective U.S. parents would like to partake in sex selection.(65) If only 2% of those 25% of the parents utilize the technology, then a $200 million-a-year industry is created in the U.S. alone.(66) This incredible amount will attract investors and scientists alike to further explore sex determination avenues.

The livestock industry predicts over $700 million could be saved using sperm-sorting techniques.(67) Since dairy farmers prefer cows and beef farmers prefer bulls, sex pre-selection makes sense for these markets. Dairy farmers have no use for bulls, thus making it more economically efficient for these farmers to raise only cows, saving money for what would previously have been spent on sustaining unwanted bulls.

Interestingly, though, Mildred Dickemann of California State University at Sonoma, found that in poor families, daughters are more socially mobile than sons.(68) In cultures that maintain strict class boundaries, females can ascend the social ladder based on looks or manners whereas boys are judged more on earning power and inheritance.(69) In this instance, the inheritance of wealth and land purely through male family lines can hurt sons and leave daughters unaffected. In China, a senior statistician for The China Daily blamed a male's failure in marrying to personal failings, especially economic ones.(70) Although already implied, lifetime success is often measured through finances.

In American society, however, parents seem to be fairly neutral on sex preference. According to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a study aimed at women pregnant with their first child concluded that just as many women preferred girls as did boysoand many didn't have a preference one way or the other.(71) Apparently, American parents are satisfied with a roughly 50/50 genetically based chance of having a female or maleoimplying an equilibrium 50/50 male/female ratio. As a society, it seems the U.S. would still be comprised of roughly 50% of each sex.

If, however, this ratio were skewed, it could wreak havoc on the economy. According to the Duke Journal of Gender Law and Policy, the average full-time working woman in the U.S. earned 71% as much as her male counterpart.(72) Such statistics are not always available in other countries, but the fact that the lifetime earnings of a female offspring are only 71% that of a son provides strong evidence for a family preferring a son (and consequentially more financial support from that son). This supports the premise that males are, in the long run, economically more advantageous than females. Males are simply a better investment, are more valued by society, and could potentially be more frequently sex selected.

The polls and surveys that point to relative indifference to the sex of a child could easily change if the technology for sex selection was more readily available. China previously experienced a population crunch and began taxing parents for every child after the first, which resulted in a skewed sex ratio (favoring males).(73) The pressure on parents to only have one child caused many to select (through abortion or infanticide) for males.

In addition to not currently taxing parents for children, there is no evidence suggesting that the U.S. would impose such child taxes in the near future. The current wage-earning market and sex ratios would probably remain if sexual pre-selection were to be allowed. The economic implications of sexual pre-selection would probably be much more problematic in other countries, which is why countries such as India have already banned the technology.

Policy Implications

In terms of the policy related to sexual pre-selection in the U.S., the frontier is unexplored and unregulated. Due to the newness of scientific techniques and financial inaccessibility, (MicroSort charges $5000 a sort!) there have not been too many demands on lawmakers to regulate. Obviously, as time progresses, the increase in sex pre-selection due to increasing availability of the technology will require the it receive further consideration. According to the U.S. Constitution, citizens have the "right to be free from undue interference." Rachel Remaley proposes that sex choice is not traditionally recognized as an option by U.S. society.(74) She cites the 1972 Supreme Court decision in which the "right to privacy and freedom from intrusion affecting the decision to bear or beget a child" applicable to the sex selection argument.(75) Essentially, if a woman currently has the right to choose NOT to have a child, then shouldn't she also be allowed not to choose to have a certain type (or sex) of child?

Due to current gender-based wage gaps, many groups claim that sexual pre-selection could encourage a gender-based childbearing gap. Said groups feel that the effects of allowing for sex selection on a widespread level would further bolster female discrimination. Those of the upper class that can afford sex selection technology would prefer sons (according to Steinbacher and Gilroy study cited by Remaley) thus making the male products of these families socially superior.(76) They would be better educated and consequently earn more.

Although no regulation on pre-implantation genetic diagnoses exists, Jean Macchiaroli Eggen proposes a three-prong flowchart to policy-making.(77) The first step is one in which lawmakers must "evaluate the frequency and urgency of resulting problems."(78) This step is fairly easy to address due to the infrequency and novelty of pre-implantation sexual selection. The second step involves evaluating the future of the "problem."(79) Do we anticipate increased demand? Do we expect lowered prices and increased availability? This step proves the most difficult to wrestle with in that waiting to see if the problem unfolds could be disastrous. The third step involves evaluating existing laws and enacting further ones if need be.

Another expert in the field of reproduction regulation, Judith Daar, similarly sets forth three areas in which policies could be enacted.(80) Daar posits that licenses and certifications could be required of providers, thus limiting the amount of providers of the sex selection technologies. The second option consists of informed consent on the consumer's part while the third stamps criminal penalties on those consumers who don't comply.(81) Additional moral discussions and campaigns could encourage certain mindsets and opinions to be adopted by individuals, but the subject still remains complex. Therapeutic preconception sex selection, such as that which could guarantee against hemophilia and other sex-linked diseases require consideration just as nontherapeutic selection requires. Blanket bans and policies would prevent therapeutic selection and prove harder to regulate than more careful policies such as incentives and limitations.

Teresa Marteau, director of Wellcome Psychology and Genetics Research Group at Guy's Hospital in London, suggests independent assessment and necessary "tight evaluation" during the first few years that sex pre-selection is used.(82)

The category of policy-making in the area of sex selection demands as much research as the scientific area itself. Without further analysis and understanding of techniques, motives, and possibilities, we cannot guarantee any sort of progress. The obvious fear of technologyoespecially unregulated technologyodrives many individuals to demand policy relating to procedures such as sexual pre-selection. With the far-reaching effects that such technology could have on U.S. society and economy, policy becomes necessary to eliminate any chances of disaster.

The United States and Gender Preference

Surveys of women in the United States designed to determine the popularity sex selection technology would have based on the strength of gender preference show varying results. Some studies indicate that there is an insignificant gender preference among women in the U.S. and other studies are starkly contrasting. In order to determine the potential effects of the widespread use of preconception gender selection in the U.S. based on its demand, a comprehensive study done in 1970 will be investigated. It should be noted that this study is not very recent, however, it provides information on the possible offspring gender bias. A study showing no significant preference does not provide a risk estimate, which is necessary to assess the technology fully.

According to the 1970 survey in the United States, one opinion about how women would view preconception gender selection states, "current attitudes of married women suggest that a substantial proportion would be unfavorably disposed toward being able to choose the sex of their child, [therefore] the possibility that such techniques would be infrequently used cannot be dismissed."(83) However, "although there is a disagreement regarding the imminence and features of such technology, there is a consensus that sex pre-selection is a realistic expectation within the foreseeable future."(84) If this was true 25 years ago, it is possible that the reception of women to this technology has increased given the widespread technological advancement that has consumed much of the world. According to a 1970 fertility study, in the absence of sex selection technology, couples are more likely to want an additional child if their previous children are the same sex.(85) "There is also a tendency for women with only daughters to intend to and to subsequently have more children than those with only sons."(86) Evidence from studies during or prior to 1970 seem to lack pertinent data, such as how the father's opinion would influence the opinion of the women with whom they have children.

According to this survey, 5981 married women were questioned about sex preference of their offspring. The data were taken from immediate responses, rather than from well thought out decisions. For all women who intended to have children in the future, the calculated sex preference ratio (in favor of males) was 124 (meaning 124 males: 100 females).(87) This ratio was 189 for childless women and 102 for women with children. In essence, this means that for every 100 female children desired, there are 189 or 102 male children desired, with regard to the circumstances previously described. The effect of the sex selection technology, therefore, could result in a 20% excess of male births. A 1990 study, in comparison, estimates the effects of pre-selection to be a 9.5% surplus of males.(88) These estimates are given for the transition period that is expected to occur between when the technology is first widespread in use and when it is completely universal. Initially, of course, couples using the technology may have any number of children and any type of distribution of children, perhaps with many boys or many girls. But, eventually, it is expected that the gap would shrink as people are able to gender select from the time they start having children, avoiding the skew. In addition, many sources claim that the "majority of Americans view a perfect family as having one boy and one girl."(89) This transition gap may be more gradual than expected due to the fact that the sample was taken at a time in which fertility was unusually low, so other time periods may indicate different results. It is also expected that "the scarcer sex would gradually become the more valued one and the sex ratio would trend back to unity."(90) This is more likely to be true in the U.S. than in countries where there is a more culturally rooted sex preference.

It is clear that we cannot study gender preference without considering number preference or current child distribution. The sex preference ratios for women who considered two or four children ideal were 106 and 104, respectively.(91) Women who considered three children ideal had a sex preference ratio of 125.(92) So, it seems clear that those couples wishing to have three children would prefer at least one of their children to be a boy, or perhaps even more likely that two of the three would be boys. It becomes a bit unclear, however, how much influence nature plays here. For example, certain parents may understand that if they have four children, there is a much greater probability that they will have at least one of each gender, so they may not have as great a propensity to gender select. Such effects are difficult to quantify, but seem quite pertinent. The strongest sex preference (for the opposite sex) was seen among women who had two children of the same sex.(93) In all cases where there were an equal number of male and female children, the women had a slightly higher preference for a male child over a female child.(94)

Overall, 51.1% of women surveyed preferred the next child to be male, and 48.9% preferred the next child to be female, giving a total preference ratio of 104, nearly the sex ratio at the time of the study (1970).(95) So, if current preferences are stable, we would expect that the sex ratio should not be altered due to the widespread use of sex selection technology. Keeping in mind the possible effects of such selection with respect to this study, Westoff and Rindfuss claim:

Although the sex ratio would appear to be unchanged, there would be a significant increase in the probability of the firstborn being male and the second child being a female, and a large drop in the probability of both being the same sex.(96)

This is largely due to the fact that there is a slightly higher tendency of women with children of one sex to be in favor of reproductive technology compared to women with children of both sexes. There is also a slightly higher percentage of women with only female children that favor a male child than women with only male children favoring a female child.

This study suggests that the effects of sex pre-selection may be diluted by the high number of unplanned births in the U.S. (44% between 1966 and 1970).(97) This percentage is unquestionably higher today, further diluting the potential sex ratio effects of gender selection. The study also suggests that the marriage market could be facilitated because of the increased probability that "a given individual would have a friend of the same sex with a sibling of the appropriate age and sex for marriage."(98) It is important to keep in mind that this study reflects the preferences of women in the U.S. and that the sex ratio may be affected differently than predicted by this study in regions where there is a greater frequency of one-child families and a greater cultural emphasis on having sons.

Final Thoughts On Sex Selection

Many arguments regarding sex selection still remain. Considering each aspect of the subject, should it be allowed? If so, in which cases should it be allowed? On a cultural level, the addition of sex selection to varying societies could have equally varying results. These effects include political, economic and social repercussions. Based on studies involving Eastern societies where sex selection has been utilized to a greater extent, we can extrapolate the possibilities for the use of such technology in Western culture. It may be too simplistic to overlay the experiences of one culture in relation to sex selection onto another culture in order to make universal conclusions. Therefore, we must rely on the future to provide any definite answers.

Notes

1. Robertson

2. Gottlieb

3. Ramachandran

4. Winkvist

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. "Doctors promote 'gender selection' services"

8. Ibid.

9. Cardarelli

10. Ibid.

11. McDougall

12. Ibid.

13. Ibid.

14. Ibid.

15. Pong

16. Ibid.

17. Ibid.

18. Ibid.

19. Ibid.

20. Pong

21. Satpathy and Mishra

22. Mudur

23. Ibid.

24. Ibid.

25. Ibid.

26. Ibid.

27. Ibid.

28. Li

29. Warren

30. Giladi

31. Pogrebin, p. 82

32. Warren

33. Ibid.

34. Rorvik and Shettles

35. Ibid.

36. Ibid.

37. Sen and Snow

38. Ramachandran

39. Ibid.

40. Ibid.

41. ASRM Ethics Committee Report (2001)

42. "Unnatural Selection"

43. Ibid.

44. ASRM Ethics Committee Report (2001)

45. "Unnatural Selection"

46. Ibid.

47. ASRM Ethics Committee Report (2001)

48. Ramachandran

49. Weaver

50. Wadman

51. Ramachandran

52. Ibid.

53. Weaver

54. Ibid.

55. ASRM Ethics Committee Report (2001)

56. Weaver

57. "Unnatural Selection"

58. Ibid.

59. Wertz

60. Ibid.

61. Ibid.

62. Leo

63. Ibid.

64. Ibid.

65. Wadman

66. Ibid.

67. Miller

68. Ibid.

69. Ibid.

70. Vines

71. Ibid.

72. Hartmann

73. Vines

74. Remaley

75. Ibid.

76. Remaley

77. Ibid.

78. Ibid.

79. Ibid.

80. Ibid.

81. Ibid.

82. Vines

83. Westoff and Rindfuss

84. Ibid.

85. Ibid.

86. Ibid.

87. Ibid.

88. "Boy or Girl?"

89. Silver

90. Smith

91. Westoff and Rindfuss

92. Ibid.

93. Westoff and Rindfuss

94. Ibid.

95. Ibid.

96. Ibid.

97. Ibid.

98. Westoff and Rindfuss

References

ASRM Website. (2002) ASRM: History and Purpose. http://www.asrm.org/history.html

Bouchard, L., et al. (1999) "Selective Abortion: A New World Order? Consensus and Debate in the Medical Community." International Journal of Health Services, Vol. 25, No. 1, pp. 65-84.

"Boy or Girl?" (1990) The Economist (U.S.), Vol. 316, No.7665, p. 16.

Cardarelli, Luise. (1996) "The Lost Girls." Utne Reader, No. 75, p. 13-15.

"Doctors promote "gender selection" services (Brief Article)." (2001) Off Our Backs, Vol. 31, Issue 9, p. 5.

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