Sex Preselection

Abstract

Sex selection is the term currently used when the woman with or without her partner tries to dictate the sex of the baby to be born. The parental desire to choose the child’s sex dates from antiquity. The desire for sex selection is a reflection of cultures, traditions, religion, civilization, education, and available medical technologies in a given society or community. Traditional methods of sex selection had been practiced in different cultures for ages. Modern methods of sex selection include microsort sperm separation, PGD using FISH, CCS, PGT-A in IVF/ICSI programs. Parental sex selection can be performed after identifying the sex of the baby by ultrasonography, amniocentesis, or CVS. Prenatal sex selection will necessitate termination of pregnancy which raises additional ethical and religious concerns. Sex selection may be performed for medical indications to prevent conception in an affected child whether a male or female child. Its application for social indication has been associated with huge ethical debate, disapproval, and even condemnation. There are contrasts in the ethical approaches to sex selection for social indications in different countries. In countries where there is less or no discrimination against either sex, couples, usually do not seek sex selection. If couples decide to do so, sex selection can be allowed to assist families that want children of both sexes and to fulfill their reproductive autonomy after proper counseling. In countries where discrimination against the girl child is pervasive, dominant selection of the male child is likely to be practiced and health care providers should advise against it. It is not just to apply the same ethical and legal approaches to sex selection in their different circumstances. It is logically argued if contraceptive technology is widely practiced preventing the conception of both boys and girls, why couples should be denied the use of their procreative autonomy to choose the sex of the baby to be born to increase the gender variety in their families and not for gender discrimination?