To say why not use IVF to choose the sex of a baby?

[Poppycattlepetal]

If people could save up for the IVF required, just don't see who else's business is it if they have a boy or a girl baby, really?

It seems U that we are not legally allowed to try for this in Britain. Clearly, we'd not all choose boys. See this mother of five sons in the Indy today: www.independent.co.uk/news/science/ban-on-sex-selection-of-ivf-embryos-is-not-justified-says-ethicist-8683940.html

It is allowed in US to do this, and you don't hear of a population imbalance over there. Just what seems like an incannily high proportion of celebrities who have twins, one of each!

I do get the issues about things being very different in other countries where there can be a cultural pressure to have sons of course. And i'm only talking about methods used before pregnancy begins. And obviously this would have to be genuinely freely chosen. Just feel that as the majority in the UK doesn't share any particular preference, why not let the people who do really mind, have the choice?

exotic I certainly did not mean to say there wasn't demand for Scouts by girls (wouldn't be much of a tactic if no girls had wanted to join). But pressure on troops to survive had a big impact in getting them to open their doors. Some Scout groups always took it on themselves to let in the odd girl against the rules. In the 1990s it became a choice for troops to do so within the rules. Membership fell through the 90s, and taking up the option to open up membership to girls was one way troops survived. Scouts made co-ed the default for troops in 2007, numbers have grown since then.

Entry into the movement is now around 50/50. Girls are essential to the continued success of Scouts as a large youth movement.

I think that you will find very few groups that are 50/50. They are mainly boys with a few girls.

I think it is unrealistic to imagine the relationship that you will have with them as adults. The fact that you have a wonderful one with your own mother doesn't mean that it will happen with your own DD- it is all down to uniqueness and personality. Many women don't get on with their MIL and don't seem to realise they may produce a mini MIL- her genes will be in the mix! I know many people who get on with their grandmother far better than their own mother. Lots have a wonderful adult relationship with their DS because they share the same interests, sense if humour etc.
To say you want a girl for an adult friend is the same as anything- down to luck.

Those who think they want to buy 'delightful little girl outfits' will have to hope they get a DD who wants to wear them once they get to an age they can show a preference.

I have a lovely friend who has a lovely mother. The mother never got her in dresses and they never had the wonderful adult relationship- both nice people- just nothing in common.

I looked it up- 5 boys to every one girl. 33,500 are waiting to join- the crisis is in finding leaders not in finding DCs.

There was only one other girl when dd joined and then another joined just before she left so certainly nothing like 50/50.
Rainbows is unashamedly girly. Or certainly ours is. The woman who runs it has 3 daughters and it is very geared towards society's idea of what a 6yr old girl should be.
Ds1 would not have enjoyed the girlyness but would have certainly preferred the more sedate activities such as craft, craft and um more craft!

I said entry is ~50/50 (in fact more girls than boys in 2011). Current ratio approx 5B:1G. Quite wide variation across the country.

I agree it is unrealistic to expect that the realtionship you imagine will reflect reality, but most people have thoughts about their children's futures and there is often a degree of wishful thinking that they endeavour to help (university would be another example). It's not entirely down to luck - nurture influences as well as nature. And statistically, since we do live in a gendered society, there are things that are far more likely to happen with a child of one sex than another. So parents can skew "luck".

But that doesn't mean a parent will be inclined to force an unwanted role on their child because the parents chose sex-selection. Just as genetic screening for health doesn't mean parents will be more likely to abandon their child if s/he gets sick because they chose to screen before implantation.

But that would mean you will set expectation to your child. That he/she will go to Uni, that she/he will do this and that (ie have a fantastic relationship with me as a mum because she is a girl, will get married and have children etc...).
What do you do when said child then doesn't conform to these ideas?

I remember when I did the NCT class, the leader asked us what were our aspirations for our dcs. It made me think. I have 2 boys and yes I hoped that they would get married and have dcs of their own. I also hoped they would go to Uni.
Reality? one ds will probably not go to Uni but would manage well a more hands on work and be very happy with it. (Both me and DH have done long Uni studies and both have always thought it is a V.E.R.Y. important thing).
As for getting married and have dcs of their own.... I am not so sure either, especially for one of them. He certainly will not follow the 'traditional route' and has never done so.

Now I can be disappointed and mourn what I hoped would be and will not. Or I can appreciate that I have 2 wonderful children, who are happy in their own skin and will carry their life the way they want to, not the way I wish/hope they will.

I think it's the same with having a girl/boy. Different cultures will make having a boy or a girl as being better than the other. Some will put a lot of emphasis on the mother-daughter relationship. Others will look at carrying the name from one generation to the next.
What I would find a shame is to start with the idea that you can't possibly have a relationship as close with your ds than your dd as they get older. Because it's setting yourself up to be in that exact situation. The same way that we tell our girls that they will never be as good in maths as boys and then wonder why so few girls take A levels in maths/science.
Nature against nurture again. I personally have decided to try and have the best relationship possible with my dcs, a close one based on trust and respect rather than expectation to be a certain way.

Well quite! We had all the antenatal screening done with DC4 and if my nuchal results had not been good then we would have considered a termination partly due to the affect on the other 3. As it turns out, he does has SN (either GDD or autism) and it will probably affect the other 3 far more than if he had DS. But it doesn't mean we love him less or will fail to take care of him. He's here and he's part of our family.

I imagine it's much the same with gender; you might hope desperately for a girl as we hoped for a healthy baby but once your son is born you still love him with every fibre in the same way we do with DS2.

Well of course you may not, for example, be fortunate to have a good close adult relationship with your son/daughter. They may or may not do all kinds of things, and as a parent, my main "ambition" is for happy confident children/adults rather than any specific achievement. Though of course I would love and support them regardless of their confidence and state of mental health. But the only sure way not to have a close mother son relationship, for example (other than being an uncaring parent) is not to have a son!! Individual differences may be much more important than gender differences, but to deny gender differences altogether is surely daft. Icing on top of a very privileged cake to want to experience parenting both genders, but not the kind of yearning to warrant vilification IMO

I personally think that, in that case, nurture is stronger than nature.
So the way you are with your dcs and what you expect will have a greater influence than gender.
Saying gender has no influence would be daft.
But saying that gender has a greater influence than how we behave with our dcs (and expectation as to what a mother-son relationship is compared to a mother-daughter) isn't the reality imho.

But as stated before, I have no ethical issue with couples who already have 2 or more of one sex opting for help to conceive one of the other. It is a different experience and I'm lucky to have 2 of each so why would I want to deny anyone else that experience.

Having seeing very closely the strain that IVF puts on couples/women, I wouldn't want to go down that route unless desperate tbh. Wo talking about the cost or the health issues and risks associated with it (Again someone close to me nearly died after a third unsuccessful IVF cycle)

And there are a lot experiences that you will 'denied'. My dsis and a few friends have had twins, one of them triplets. I would have loved to have twins. Why should I be denied the experience of caring for twins? seeing them growing up and being so close. Would it be OK for me to ask for IVF just for the sake of trying for a twin?

The more science evolves, the more we can 'control' our environment, how we make babies etc.... We can get to chose a lot of things. But it doesn't mean that choosing is the right thing we can do.
Eg: a friend of mine is from a mixed race background, so is her DH. My friend very looks like from a European descend (not so much her DH). Their two children are more like their dad and do look like they come from a mixed race background. My friend was telling me she would have hoped that one of her children 'that looked like her'. Would it right to use IVF to help her chose the skin colour of her dcs so said dc looks more like her?

Resting I don't think it would be particularly wrong of your friend to do that. It wouldn't necessarily be right for them, but I think that's a decision only they can make.

No it wouldn't be right to have IVF in order to have twins.

I have twins and so does my sister.

Multiple births are to be avoided as physically we're not designed to carry them and often babies are born early with the obvious consequences.To go out of your way to choose to have twins would be wrong.

There is no risk of harm to mother or baby if gender is selected.

The two are completely different.

Everyone has dreams and expectations of their children - they don't always work out but nothing wrong with having them in the first place.

No-one has a child for the benefit of the child - you have children due to parental desire driven by biological urges.

Lots of people choose to have children close together "so they can be friends" - some will, but many will not. Perhaps it would be in the 1st child's interest to continue to receive parental attention for longer? Perhaps it's selfish for parents to hope that siblings might entertain each other?

I have a daughter - I got to choose to dress her in little smocked dresses before she was old enough to express an opinion (still wants the dresses just with more frills), I hope she'll go to a super-selective for secondary, I hope she will go to university, I hope she will eventually meet a nice man and get married and have children.

She may turn out to have no interest in academics, be a lesbian, elope and have no children by choice - or be unable to have any. However, there is at least the possibility that I might get to shop for wedding dresses with my daughter - more than likely that isn't going to happen if I'd had a son.

No harm in wishing all that- I just don't think that it is something that you take the next step for and 'buy' the increased possibility of being able to choose wedding dresses.

I 'bought' the increased possibility of being able to buy a wedding dress (not something I personally wished for but the point is the same) by paying for IVF. Without IVF my chances of having a daughter were virtually zero. With IVF they became ~ (my chance of conseiving on IVF) x ~.5 x whatever percentage of girls have wedding dresses bought for them. With sex selection I'd double that chance.

In reality I didn't 'buy' my children using IVF, I bought a service that increased my chance of having a child - a child who is mine but whom I do not own. Equally, if using sex-selection I would be buying a service that would increase my chances of having a boy or a girl, who would be my child, but whom I would not own.

I do wish that people wouldn't bring in the proper use of IVF, as if I disapprove. I think it a wonderful thing to help those who can't produce a baby naturally.
It seems incredibly 'picky' to say that you want a baby but you want it to be a girl because it raises the chances of you choosing a wedding dress and having an adult best friend.
It is also highly unfair because you have to have money to do it. IVF to fit your personal wishes on gender are always going to need paying for.

I bring it up because I don't think there is a significant ethical difference. You seem to indicate here that the difference between using IVF to have a baby and using IVF to have a girl is that it makes the parents "picky". Which hardly seems like an ethical breach worthy of legal sanction. Using IVF for one thing and not another is only "proper" because it fits in with your idea of what IVF should be for. But the OP was about whether we should have a "proper" use of IVF backed up by law at all - so what is the ethical issue behind this idea of "proper".

As to paying for it - is there anything else we ban because others can't afford it? Is that the ethical issue? Because I'd point out that there aren't many places in the world where you don't have to pay for IVF; even coverage in the UK is patchy.(*) Also there are plenty of other choices parents make that cost money, from having a child in the first place, to formula feeding to holidays, to music lessons, to seperate bedrooms. Some people can't afford to study a post graduate qualification, or a car, others go without computers. Do we ban any of these things? Should we?

*Thankfully several recent breakthroughs indicate costs could come down dramatically soon, so that will be less of a barrier even if people do have to pay.

There is a huge difference. No one has yet given a convincing list of reasons other than 'I want, I can pay for it, so I should have' - or gender stereotypes. They have the 'perfect' wedding and they then want the 'perfect' family. Luckily a child is a gift-and you are not likely to ever be able to buy your perfect one- you have a unique human for a few years and you love, support and encourage the one you get- not some mythical one that fits your lifestyle as if they are a car or a dog.

Whilst I'm sure many parents have a preference for a particular gender of child, and may even feel extreme disappointment if they don't get what they wanted, the majority will love their child and have a healthy relationship with them.

However, if someone is prepared to go through the hardships that IVF can put a couple through, or have child after child after child in a hope to attain the "right" gender, I believe that person to have issues that should be dealt with by counselling or similar, not by being given what they wanted from the off.

We're not talking about being able to get a boy or girl simply by ticking a box on a form. I just think IVF is too invasive a procedure for someone to undergo to satisfy a longing that has taken more prevalence in their life than it should. Particularly if they could conceive without IVF. IVF is to help couples with fertility issues, NOT MH issues.

Exactly, comelywenchwoo.

That's incredibly patronising and without medical support. And the same could equally be argued (indeed frequently was argued) in regard to IVF for fertility issues; that people should learn to accept their condition rather than build their lives around the attempt to concieve and carry to term in an unhealthy obsession.

Thankfully those arguments did not win out and the reality of people getting what they want because they could - that despite the hardship it was worth it on the whole to those who chose to do it and did not produce social harm - has shutdown most opposition.

You have not provided one supported reason of the harm freedom to sex-select would produce. Just supposition and fearmongering over something we haven't tried. Ultimately, banning actions before they have been tried without clear evidence of harm is a lack of faith in humanity, in particular a rejection of pluralism.

I found out my DH thinks sex selection is fine....or more importantly that everyone should be selecting for high IQ....

It may be a long night.

Could someone explain why kids of different genders can't share a bedroom?

We aren't that far in time from a situation where almost all children shared a room with their parents until they left home?

Don't get me wrong, I'd like a room for each child of mine, but if finances don't allow I can't see why a boy and a girl sharing is likely to be more fraught then 2 boys or 2 girls?

emme what about the argument that it promotes sexism?

giving people the right to choose the sex of their baby is directly equivalent to rolling back the clock on gender discrimination and saying it is absolutely find to judge someone on the basis of one characteristic that tells you nothing about their actual personality, abilities or possible contribution to society.