That's a troubling road to head down. "Because we can" doesn't mean we should.
Parents throughout time have tried to influence a baby's gender. Ancient Greeks believed men should lie on their right side to conceive a boy. Medieval Danes thought having scissors under the bed would produce a girl. Folk remedies included potions, positions and physical constriction.
But for all the machinations, gender remained nature's decision.
Modern medicine has had more success. Scientists determined that certain diseases, such as hemophilia and Duchenne muscular dystrophy, were linked to the sex genes. Couples likely to pass along the genetic defect could avoid the risk by having a child of the unaffected gender.
So researchers developed gender selection. Preimplantation genetic diagnosis, which has been available for about a decade, involves creating embryos outside the body to sort for genetics and gender.
A newer method, developed in 1998, involves sorting sperm before fertilization through artificial insemination. It's less invasive, but less certain.
The availability of these high-tech methods has spawned requests to use them for nonmedical reasons. Parents want to determine the gender order of their children, seek a balance between boys and girls, or simply have a strong preference.
Most couples will continue to conceive children in the old-fashioned way. They may hope more for a daughter or a son but will accept either with joy. Not so for others.
Some medical ethicists fear gender bias as in India and China, where female fetuses often are unwanted. Worries are justified over psychological fallout, such as marital conflict or unrealistic expectations of sex-selected children. And is this the best use of our country's limited hospital beds?
