Gender Stereotypes

Words: 1870
Pages: 8

Argument One: Sex Discrimination and Gender Stereotypes
Sex selection and PGD for non-medical purposes should be discouraged as it may contribute to sex discrimination that would result in a distorted sex ratio. According to consequentialists, by allowing reproductive techniques for such purposes, sex stereotyping and discrimination might be enhanced rather than reduced. The consequentialist perspective is that the right act in any circumstance is one that produces preeminent results by good reason and value. By undertaking non-medical sex selection, an individual is displaying some sort of preference by choosing or wanting to choose one sex over the other causing the act to be considered sexist. It ultimately validates the gender stereotype
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The deontological theory is known to assess the ethics of an action to determine whether it is right or wrong. This view holds that it is wrong to manufacture by choosing the sex and characteristics of a child due to no particular medical reason. Where individuals are not responsible for their disabilities, such as genetic disorders, the fair-opportunity rule suggests that those particular people should receive assistance to reduce or to be treated for their disability. However, those who require no such assistance to reach that level of fair-opportunity, in this case utilizing sex selection and PGD for non-medical reasons, should be discouraged from using such procedures. Further to the deontological perspective, consequentialists would ultimately fear that humans will be moving towards a eugenic world in which children are valued more for their genotype than for their inherent characteristics. Applying this view to sex selection and PGD, individuals may become prone to using the reproductive technology to create designer babies. If individuals begin choosing the sex of their offspring through PGD, there is no guarantee they will not start choosing other nonessential characteristics and evidently, allowing genetic engineering of offspring to become routine. Thus, PGD and sex selection for non-medical reasons is …show more content…
As aforementioned, special respect is to be given to an embryo as it is precisely the first stage towards being a new person and with that taken into consideration, PGD is ethically acceptable when done for medical reasons, such as preventing offspring with serious genetic disease. However, creating embryos simply for the social purpose of sex selection and destroying the ones that are not wanted is ethically inappropriate. In certain ways, it contradicts human dignity and ceases life for no proper medical reason. A couple’s desire to choose a particular sex for their child is not sufficient to outweigh the need to show special respect to embryos and thus, sex selection and PGD for non-medical purposes is ethically inappropriate and ought to be discouraged from taking