The new eugenics forges ahead with a new “home” test soon to be available to determine an embryo’s gender at 6 weeks development. (Ultrasound permits gender identification at about 20 weeks.) Why the need to know the sex—this isn’t about disease—so early? I can think of only one main reason: If you want a boy and it’s a girl—or probably less frequently, the other way around—then there is plenty of time to have a eugenic abortion and start again. From the story:
But some health authorities have already stopped revealing that information for fear of “wrong-sex” terminations…Wrong-sex abortions are more common in some ethnic minorities—with boys being more highly prized than girls.
But now with the home test, people who don’t want a little girl or boy can find out early enough to destroy their daughter or son—with no one the wiser. So much for loving the child we conceive unconditionally. We apparently are moving into an era in which we not only have a right to have a child, but to have the child we want. We should call this the solipsistic era. All that seems to matter any more is, “I want.”
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