Although the procedure is limited to only certain countries, including the U.S., parents have the (expensive) ability to choose the sex of a future child. Interestingly, there is no remarkable sexist split, that one is preferred more frequently to another, as may be expected for any fathomable reason (for instance, because boys traditionally carry on a family name). Boys and girls are 'requested' at similar rates.
Reasons people choose such a procedure are varied: from preventing passing on an illness in the couple's genetics that is sex-specific, to already having had one or more children of one sex and wanting one of a different sex - guaranteed on the next try.
One mother with sons was "tired" of walking down a street and seeing pink dresses in windows and knowing that she didn't have a daughter to wear them. Would her maternal urges have been satiated were her sons to decide that they preferred to wear pink dresses as opposed to the presumably non-pink, non-dressy clothing that they had been given as growing boys?
If the twin girls she had due to this procedure eventually grew "tired" of tea parties and dress-up - perhaps beginnning to imitate their brothers or do other activities not widely considered "feminine," would Mom feel like it had been a wasted effort? Would she be simply content that she got to buy a few pink dresses while the girls were toddlers?
Would she learn to love her daughters as the individual beings they are, regardless of what they wear?
Regardless of the fact that they are female?
I realize it is perhaps unjust for me to raise even hypothetical questions in this accusatory light, and I intend these families no harm. But it hurts me as a daughter to think that my parents might love me because they already had a son, or because I allowed them to have one of each. It hurts to think not only that, if my parents had preferred one sex or the other, I could have disappointed them in my very birth, but also that we live in a world in which people aim to evade disappointment rather than overcome it. It hurts to imagine this as the foundation of any child's life.
Because I was born both a girl and seven years after my brother, neither of which I could control, my parents placed us in the two bedrooms of our old apartment while they slept on a pull-out couch. When I think of that time, I think most about the sacrifices that our parents made just for the sake of our privacy, a right that everyone does not even have, let alone as children. I'm sure it crossed their minds at some point that it would have been convenient in at least that circumstance to have had two children of the same sex and perhaps closer in age, but I also like to think that it did not make them regret having the son and daughter that they had.
I'm sure one of the aforementioned article's points of greatest impact is the stunning advances we're seeing in medicine, and not only the impact on personal health but the effect on autonomy.
But autonomy means you have a choice, and I think there's a far greater one implied than determining the sex of one's child. From my perspective, these are the questions that we face in light of sex-selection:
What are we communicating to children (and to others) about the relationship between parent and child?
What notion of the relationship between parent and child have we come to believe?
Are children accessories? Can we tailor them to our liking? Can we coordinate them with our lifestyles, our decor, our pets?
Are children singularly a parent's life decision?
Or do we acknowledge the impact that every child, every person has on countless people every day?
Do we acknowledge that each one of us is a part of a greater community, and not only an isolated being in a family?
Are children to be constructed to our liking, or do they serve some other purpose beyond satisfying parental instincts?
Of course, I understand the complexity of this entire issue extends far beyond all of this, so let me be clear:
I am not speaking to the classist privilege inherent to sex-selection.
I am not speaking to the selection made to spare a child a potential ailment.
I am not speaking to the debate as to whether this is all an example of humans "playing God."
I am not speaking to the extent that God might be involved in these parental longings and scientific procedures, or whether or not it is indeed God's will that Mr. and Mrs. Jonesing go out of their way to ensure the biological sex of their baby.
Each of these topics could fill a post in its own right.
Yet I find the fact that this article could declare as its subheading (facetiously or not) "No more disappointments" to be a far more potent and detrimental point. This is the stuff of our conscience and our consciousness, folks. This is not just ("just"?) a debate about elite privilege or universal free will. This is immensely internal.
Supporting sex selection (or any fetal-specifier, for that matter) as a means of parental satisfaction has serious implications for distorting the expression and experience of parental love.
It reshapes the image of humanity that we pass along to the generations for whom such science - and more - will be a reality for the entirety of their lives.
Instead of embracing the individuals entering the world, it tells them, "We constructed you. Don't disappoint us."
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