Ethical Issues of Sex Selection

Sinauer AssociatesTopic Number Search Bioethics Help Home Link Contents for all chapters 1. Developmental Biology: The Anatomical Tradition 2. Life Cycles and the Evolution of Developmental Patterns 3. Principles of Experimental Embryology 4. The Genetic Core of Development 5. The Paradigm of Differential Gene Expression 6. Cell-Cell Communication in Development 7. Fertilization: Beginning a New Organism 8. Early Development in Selected Invertebrates 9. The Genetics of Axis Specification in Drosophila 10. Early Development and Axis Formation in Amphibians 11. The Early Development of Vertebrates: Fish, Birds and Mammals 12. The Emergence of the Ectoderm: Central Nervous System and Epidermis 13. Neural Crest Cells and Axonal Specificity 14. Paraxial and Intermediate Mesoderm 15. Lateral Plate Mesoderm and Endoderm 16. Development of the Tetrapod Limb 17. Sex Determination 18. Postembryonic Development: Metamorphosis, Regeneration, and Aging 19. The Saga of the Germ Line 20. An Overview of Plant Development 21. Medical Implications of Developmental Biology 22. Environmental Regulation of Animal Development 23. Developmental Mechanisms of Evolutionary Change

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Sex Selection: Ethical Issues

A paper to be used as background for discussion

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

Edited by S. F. Gilbert and E. Zackin

Discussions of cloning and stem cell research involve whether we should set limits on technologies that do not yet exist. However, the debate on whether sex selection is an ethical practice involves technology that is already perfected. It is possible, through prenatal genetic screening, to determine which four-to-eight-cell human embryos are male and female and to implant into the uterus only those of the desired sex.

This technology was developed for the implantation of female embryos into the uteri of women carrying X-linked lethal or debilitating diseases. For instance, a woman who is a carrier for X-linked hemophilia or Tay-Sachs disease may want to have a child and not undergo the tentative pregnancy associated with amniocentesis or chorionic villi sampling. Therefore, she could have fertilization with her partner done in vitro, and have only the XX embryos implanted. Since these diseases are recessive, the girls should not have the disease (although they will have a 50% chance of being carriers themselves).

However, if a couple have a son and want a daughter, should they not be allowed to have sex selection to get one? If a couple has daughters and the husband wants a son to "carry on his name," should they be allowed to use this technology? Once the technology has been developed, though, there are no laws (in the United States) making it illegal to have sex selection for any reason. In some countries, sex selection is not legal: see http://www.bionetonline.org/English/Content/db_leg2.htm#sex.

The professional organizations concerned with sex selection in vitro have been ambivalent about this issue. There are two groups that occupy the primary places of the preconception sex selection