This story is “interesting”. Consider:
The science and business of sex identification took yet another quantum leap forward recently with the Pregnancystore.com’s release of the Baby Gender Mentor Home DNA Gender Testing Kit. Now, a pregnant woman can know her child’s sex shortly after she discovers her pregnancy. As soon as five weeks after conception, she can prick her finger, FedEx a blood sample to Acu-Gen Biolab in Lowell, and have the sex of her sprouting embryo e-mailed to her faster than Netflix can send her next movie.
Seems like a nice, harmless little bonus for horribly impatient people, right? That’s what I thought, until I read further, discovering one potential issue I hadn’t, and hopefully never would have, thought of. Consider:
Ultrasound and amniocentesis cannot accurately determine a fetus’s sex until at least four months into pregnancy and sometimes not until month five — a point at which virtually all expecting mothers have already chosen to continue their pregnancies to term. Since the state has no legal interest in a fetus before its viability (usually at 24 weeks), there has been a legal and technological gulf separating a woman’s choice to continue her pregnancy and any knowledge of its sex.
This is no longer the case. With the Gender Mentor Kit, a new issue enters many prospective parents’ minds: Do we want to have a child of this sex? Or should we try again?
Just what the hell is wrong with people? I understand that some cultures value male children more than female children, but, and this is an important point, we’re not supposed to be one of them. Any couples who want to choose the sex of their children should keep their zippers up and adopt.
Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhh… This topic is too disgusting; I have nothing more to say.
(Source)
Selective gender practices have been available to patients in some IVF clinics in the U.S. I’ve never understood how anyone who might have difficulty conceiving would have the sheer audacity to demand control over their baby’s sex. Unless there are people who use the science within IVF clinics to create a perfect genetic specimen. It’s all completely outside of my realm of understanding, but it happens. This gender testing kit just takes our reputation of being a drive-through culture to an entirely new level.
Anyone who knows me can vouch that I am the queen of immediate gratification, yet I’ve always said I wouldn’t want to know the sex of my baby. I’d want to wait to find out. There are very few good and true surprises in life, and I think that discovering a baby’s gender at birth must be one of them.