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| Notice: GeekPress is back up and running, thanks to Paul! It's still a not-so-serious tech news blog, but the format is significantly looser. Diana, having given up programming for philosophy, has her own philosophical blog NoodleFood. More of her work can be found at DianaHsieh.com. |
| So you want a girl? |
| 7:13:07 pm mst / 10 February 2001 found by paul / filed in business / source Fortune 39 hits / 2 comments / 0 e-mails |
| An excellent (and lengthy) article on MicroSort, a biotech company that takes human sperm and separates the ones carrying X (female) chromosomes from the ones carrying Y (male) chromosomes, thus allowing parents to select the sex of their next child. Currently, they have a 90% success rate for parents who want a girl (73% for boys). Their waiting list is currently several months long, and as one might expect most prospective parents are very quiet about utilizing their services, often not even telling family and close friends. |
| The ethical objections discussed in the article seem to be more of the "we shouldn't go down the slippery slope to further genetic tailoring of babies", rather than being objections to sex selection per se. If the price continues to go down and if the government doesn't get involved (a big "if"), I predict a lot more parents will quietly avail themselves of this service. |
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| Comments |
| This comment board has been retired. |
| too many males? by diana 7:52:23 am mst / 13 February 2001 / # 2 / reply to # 1 |
| China has the problem of too many males, although I'm not sure of the numbers. Because of the one-child policy, many couples choose to abort female fetuses (fetii?). The result is that lots of men don't marry. (I think that situation also results in occasional kidnapping of poor girls from nearby countries for wives. I read about that in WSJ a while back, although I'm fuzzy on the details.) |
| e-mail diana |
| Which sex is more preferred? by MysteriousStranger 3:02:56 am mst / 12 February 2001 / # 1 |
| When people actively seek a specific sex for their child, it would be interesting to see which sex predominates and by how much. Needless to say, I would expect that the vast majority are looking for sons. If this became cheap and readily available, I fear for our society. What would happen if 60-70% of babies born were male? -- Steven Den Beste |