Sex and Development Susanna Carter had been thinking for the last few months abo
ID: 88224 • Letter: S
Question
Sex and Development
Susanna Carter had been thinking for the last few months about having another baby. She was happy with her family of three boys but always wanted a girl. Already in her late 30s she should have to decide soon, before the beginning of menopause. She wanted to discuss the possibility with her husband at dinner because she had seen an article in the paper about a new medical procedure, sex selection. Using this method Susanna and her husband, Bob, could select the sex of their baby before it was even growing in her uterus.
After talking about it, the Carters made an appointment with their physician, Dr. George Leon, to discuss sex selection. Dr. Leon knew that some methods of sex selection are more successful than others. In the past, Dr. Leon had a number of patients who wanted this procedure for a variety of reasons. After meeting with the Carters, he thought about some of them:
The first patient was a color-blind male. His wife’s family had no history of color blindness. Because of the way color blindness if inherited, none of their son’s will be color blind, or will any of the sons carry the color blindness gene. All their daughters will carry the colorblindness gene they receive from their father, but because they will also get a normal copy of the gene from their mother, they will have normal vision. However, these daughters will pass the color blindness gene to their children. The grandsons of this couple will have a 50% chance of being color blind, and their granddaughters will have a 50% chance of inheriting the color blindness gene, which they can pass to future generations. The man and his wife do not want to pass this gene along to future generations of the family therefore would prefer to have only boys.
The second patient was a woman who carries the gene for Hunter syndrome. Children with this disorder are normal at birth, but around six months of age, they begin to show progressive physical and mental deterioration. Eventually affected infants become blind, deaf and mentally retarded. Few live past the age of five. Sons of this woman will have a 50% chance of getting this disorder. All daughters will be unaffected but have a 50% chance of inheriting the gene, which may be passed on to future generations. To ensure that her child is not affected by this disorder, this patient wants to know that an embryo is healthy before implanting and carrying it to birth.
The husband of the third patient believes that men are physically and mentally superior to women. He wants only sons but his wife does not agree with him. She worries how he would treat a girl.
The fourth patient inherited several million dollars from an eccentric uncle. He will receive the money only if he and his have a son and name him after the uncle. The man already has a daughter and wants only two children. Obviously he wants his next child to be a boy.
Read and understand how the XX and XY makeup of a fetus is normally developed and how sex selection works before answering the following questions.
1. Knowing how sex selection is accomplished, what do you think the Carters should decide to do? Why?
2. Which one of the Carters should make this decision—Susanna, Bob or both? Why?
3. If you were Dr. Leon, would you perform sex selection for the Carters? Why or why not?
4. If you were Dr. Leon, would you perform sex selection for the other patients? Give an answer and a reason for each patient.
5. Should sex selection be available to anyone, no matter his or her reason? Why or why not?
6. Should the ability to pay for the procedure limit access to sex selection? Should government programs like Medicaid pay for this?
7. Should insurance companies pay for sex selection? In which of Dr. Leon’s cases would this seem like a good idea and why?
8. In India and China, there are problems with the use of sex selection. Historically families have favored boys over girls, and with the use of sex selection, the sex ratio is changing. In China’s 2000 census, it was 100 girls to 120 boys with 19 million more males than females in the 0-15 age group. What social problem might this create? What social problems might this create? If everyone could have access to sex selection, would this trend continue on a global basis and affect the world population? How?
Explanation / Answer
Solution) There is nothing seriously wrong in doing sex selection unless the conditions/demands/selection process is justified.
Answer 1) Since Carters already have 3boys and now they want 1 girl. carter's wife is in her late 30s and she can't take many of the pregnancies to get a chanced girl's birth. because this may give them either additional boys in her family or 1 girl if she is lucky. but, sex selection would help the Carters to have 1 girl after their 3boys. this is neither disturbing the sex ratio nor it is immoral in this condition, so Carters can decide to go for sex selection otherwise having more boys before having a girl child (in a natural way, without sex selection) may put additional pressure on their family management.
Answer 2) Both Susanna and Bob must make this decision because they both will be the parent of the girl child after sex selection. and they both must take care of that girl child. so, it is mandatory that it is a mutual decision of the Carter couple.
Answer 3) Yes if I was Dr. Leon, I would have performed sex selection for Carters because their condition is morally and scientifically justified.
Answer 4) Case 1; In this case, there is a genetic disease color blindness. daughters will be the career for this disease but sons will be unaffected. this will be good practice to prevent the inheritance of the bad/affected/diseased gene to the future generation of this couple. so, it is scientifically justified to perform sex selection in this condition.
Case 2; This is the same case as case 1 and it is also scientifically justified to perform sex selection to prevent passing on the bad genes to the future generations.
Case 3; This is a case of the personal choice of one parent. husband wants a boy and wife worries how he would treat the girl child. only because a parent does not like a child of one sex is a very bad reason to perform sex selection. and as Dr. Leon, I would not perform sex selection for this couple.
Case 4; Here, the couple has one daughter already and they want another son because that want money from their uncle after naming this boy child to their uncle. this is a very poor representation of selfishness as the boy will be produced by the couple but the uncle will take over him and the couple is practicing it just for their greed of money. so, it is not justified to misuse any reputed scientific practice for this case.
Related Questions
drjack9650@gmail.com
Navigate
Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.