Stardate 20010929.2114 (On Screen): The head of the ethics comittee for American fertility specialists has stated that he thinks it is morally acceptable for parents to choose the gender of children during in-vitro fertilization. There are cases where I think that is true, but not the ones he lists. He says it's acceptable for "gender variety", i.e. parents already have children of one sex and want one of the other sex. I think it goes without saying that nine times out of ten this is going to mean parents who only have daughters will be selecting for a boy, and I think that "gender variety" is not an acceptable consideration.
There are certain genetic diseases associated with the X chromosome, which are therefore far more common in boys than in girls, most notably hemophilia. When genetic diseases of that kind are known to run in families, sometimes they will do genetic tests during pregnancies and abort any males, so as to select female offspring who would have a far lower chance of inheriting the diseases. In the case of hemophilia, if the father is not a victim then a daughter cannot be because she's guaranteed to get a clean X chromosome from him, but will have a 50% chance of being a carrier because she may get the bad one from her mother. Even if she is a carrier, though, she will not have the disease. On the other hand, a son will get his father's Y chromosome, and will have a 50% chance of being a victim because there's a 1:2 chance that his one and only X chromosome, from his mother, will be the one with the bad gene. In the case of in vitro fertilization, if the same genetic risk exists in a family I have no problem with screening for gender before implantation. Ethically speaking, I see it as being no different from having an abortion in that case.
But making what amounts to a cosmetic choice of offspring is not the same. This isn't a choice based on avoiding a crippling and horrible disease (unless you consider being a "girl" such), it's the first step on the road to designer children, where the parents are not merely using this procedure to get kids, but are using it to get kids that fit their requirements or desires. We should not design our kids. (discussion in progress)
