an Should Australian parents using IVF be allowed to select the gender of their children?

Good afternoon ladies. Should Australian parents using IVF be allowed to select the gender of their children? The straight answer is no. It amazes me to see how the plain selfishness seen in society today has an inept ability to overthrow our perceived sense of moral code. It is this moral code that I seek to harness within my speech today as, quite blatantly, I tell you the inhumane possibilities that gender selection in the IVF procedure reveals in mankind. Australian parents using IVF should not be allowed to select the gender of their children unless the health of the child is at risk.

For an Australian parent to make the decision, I want a boy, is sexism at its worst. Although you may not see it, effectively parents are making the decision to kill a human organism just because of its gender. Is this not immoral behaviour? You cannot tell me that this is not discriminatory. In reading up on this topic, I stumbled across a statement in which a clearly deluded individual for the argument supporting IVF gender selection stated that simply preferring to have a boy or a girl is not discriminatory any more than wanting chocolate or vanilla ice cream. I for one can also create fake analogies. Simply preferring to not employ, promote or to wrongfully terminate a woman over a man is not discriminatory any more than wanting chocolate or vanilla ice cream. Simply preferring to abandon a girl infant because a boy infant can carry on the family name is not discriminatory any more than wanted chocolate or vanilla ice cream. The process of gender selection in IVF forces parents to decide whether boys are more valuable than girls or girls are more valuable than boys. What other evidence do these parents have supporting their decisions other than personal stereotypes about gender? It is sad to see that even after centuries of evolution; there is still the issue of discrimination. Do we really want Australia to become a country where decisions involving life and death are based on gender?

For more demographic concerns we can turn to the nations in the Far East such as India and China. These two countries are currently facing a grave imbalance in terms of gender. As a whole, these two countries have expressed a widespread bias towards having boys rather than girls for reasons as simple as carrying on the family name to employment possibilities leading to future financial support. Both of these countries have produced abnormally high male to female ratios. It is believed that due to the these ratios, there is an increase in crime, demand for prostitution, mass emigration and the selling of brides due to the lack of opportunity for men to marry. For a country such as China, the gender imbalance has been further increased due to the One Child Policy. The Chinese government shows that the sex ratio for newborns in 2005 was 118 to 100 (boys to girls). This is a huge increase compared

to the average 104 to 100 in developed countries. It is expected that by 2020, there will be 30 million more men than women in China. Further instigating IVF gender selection will only prove to increase the amount of excess men in these countries. Further instigating IVF gender selection in Australia could potentially run the risk of obtaining a similar problem. We pride ourselves for making this Commonwealth of ours a country of equality and fairness. Promoting this inhumane, discriminatory process would ruin the reputation we have as a country.

Another defect in gender-selection in IVF is that of eugenics. Once parents start playing around with one chromosome, what stops them from playing around with another? In fact, why dont they just create a family of supermodel babies?! If parents are allowed to choose the gender of their children, why cant they choose their eye colour, their nose size, their height, their weight, their intelligence?! What Im saying is that there is a fine line that can be easily trampled to altering the gender of a child to altering the whole appearance of a child. If IVF gender selection becomes a huge hit, wont scientists go further? Wont this debate then turn into should Australian parents using IVF be able to select the whole appearance their children? Who are we to play God like that?! Eugenics will cause problems in the future if taken further. For one, it will encourage elitism and further distinguish between socio-economic groups. Wealthy parents will take it into their childs best interest to buy their child better genes and the difference of class between the new generations will become more evident than ever before.

In conclusion, it takes common sense to see that IVF gender selection is an inhumane act overall. Wasnt natural childbirth considered to be one of the most beautiful things? Since when did we decide to ruin that! Back in the old time, birth was achieved by a wet-nurse, a few towels and hell of a lot of patience. The greatest moment in all of that was to be able to finally hold your child for the first time, praising God for the beautiful gift He has blessed you with. Now, on top of already having a test tube baby, parents can hold their child for the first time, look into its innocent eyes, and know that they have genetically modified its gender to suit their needs. It just takes away the beauty of childbirth. Meddling with nature like that is just not right. It is discriminatory and immoral, it can harm society as it causes imbalances in gender and it can effortlessly turn into a Eugenics issue. I dont see how Australian parents using IVF would benefit from selecting the gender of their children as it only leads to more problems and imperfection in our world. Thank you.