would you.........?

Question

Say if you have 5 sons and you really want a girl. genetic engineering has made possible for you to change the gender of the fetus, would you use this technology to change the gender. why or why not

Answer 1

That's probably the simplest genetic change to engineer, although it would be done well before the foetus had developed (as would any eugenics manipulation). You simply need to find a non-destructive way to screen sperm for X or Y chromosomes and only introduce those carrying an X chromosome to the ovum (which carries an X chromosome by default). The product of fertilisation will then be guaranteed to be female. There is no splicing of genes, no introduction of new sequences, no deletion of disease genes or anything of that nature, just sperm selection.

As to whether I would do it, I doubt it. I think a lot more work needs to be done on genetic manipulation of animals and humans before it is ever offered up as something for people to pursue. No-one seems to remember when discussing these things that a human lives for decades, and there is no guarantee that what you do in the first second of fertilisation will not have a deleterious effect later in life. Remember Dolly the sheep, who was apparently perfectly healthy when she was born, but showed severe comlications later and died rather younger than the average sheep. There can be no such data because the technology has not been around long enough to have collected such data.

IF the technology is mature, and IF it is conclusively shown that eugenics produces healthy offspring, then I might consider it, but I still doubt I'd actually do it. Until then there is no way I'd even consider it.

Answer 2

That would be wrong. There's a reason why there's a 50-50 chance of getting a boy or a girl. Procreation. If people start choosing their child's sex, we'd have a balance problem. We could end up with too many girls or too many boys. Although I'm not completely against the idea of a world where there's 2 women for every man ( lol ), it could lead to a disaster for the human race...

Answer 3

I would've thought it was too late to alter the gender genetically once a foetus had developed.

Answer 4

Yep the foetus gets a chance at life - so what if its a girl? no moral issue for me there.. perhaps having 1 lil sis and 5 big annoying brothers.....

Answer 5

No, the simplest point is this. The child will grow up. One day it will come to know the truth. What will the parents say then ?????????

Answer 6

Yes I would. Changing things like this will further mankind, it will make us evolve.

Answer 7

never, there is one thing i learned with movies and stuff, don't challenge mother nature