Canadian couples discover sex selection loophole

It's funny how we pick our battles. While I try to focus on some of the more important social issues facing Canadians, there are some minor annoyances that will get a rise out of me every time.

One of these 'annoyances' is the struggle for parents to earn the right to select the gender of their offspring. Sex selection is currently illegal in Canada. Both parents and complicit doctors face hefty fines and potential jail terms should they break the law. I've argued on many previous occasions why I think parents deserve this right, so I'll spare you the drill.

But now it appears that Canadian couples have discovered a loophole (aside from trips to the United States where it's sanctioned).

Mail-order kits

I read with some interest recently of how some Canadian couples are using a mail-order kit to determine the sex of a fetus early in pregnancy for the purpose of selective abortion. A relatively inexpensive blood test can analyze fetal DNA for the presence of the male Y chromosome, allowing the gender to be determined as early as five weeks into a pregnancy. The manufacturer, a British company called DNA Worldwide, claims an accuracy rate around 95% (which is amazingly high).

They ship on average 2 kits to Canada per week and have no way of determining how couples use the information revealed by the test.

Ethical issues

This prompted the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to decry the use of early gender tests for 'selective abortion.'

"The SOGC remains firmly against the practice of sex selection through selective abortion," Dr. Don Davis, the group's president, said in a release. "These new technologies are finding their way to Canadian women and are opening the door to a number of ethical questions."

The group sees the procedure as being discriminatory.

Spurious claims

The SOGC's position raises the question: discriminatory against whom? In Canada, where abortions are legal, the issue of non-personhood during early gestation seems have been settled. Surely the SOGC is not suggesting that a 5 week old fetus can be discriminated against.

I realize that the argument against gender selection transcends the womb as a potential social issue. There is fear that Canadians will use selection technologies to favour one gender over the other, much like what is happening in China and India.

Of course, we don't live in China or India, nor have we retained outmoded perspectives on gender. Just as importantly, and while not yet perfect, the potential socioeconomic disadvantages of gender have been greatly reduced in the West. There is no good reason to significantly favour one gender over the other in Canada.

Without a doubt, Canadian couples would use sex selection as a means to ensure family balancing -- which in today's two-kids-per-couple Canada translates to -- *aghast* -- an equal distribution of one girl and one boy.

Going against demand

Arguments against sex selection don't hold up against deeper scrutiny. Charges of discrimination and fears of societal collapse as a result of a skewed gender ratio are hallucinatory. This is a law that most certainly needs to be reconsidered.

Moreover, Canadian couples are quite clearly showing a demand for sex selection. Even though no statistics or evidence were provided, the SOGC was clearly alerted by something -- otherwise, why the public statement?

I know from personal experience that Canadians want this. Every time I pen an article about sex selection my inbox fills up with sympathetic and supportive e-mails. Many of the letters bemoan the paternalistic nature of the law -- it's as if Canadians can't be trusted with their own reproductive choices.

In this case, where no harm is being done, and where Canadians have clearly indicated demand, it's high time that this law be repealed.

New audiocast episode posted

My latest audiocast has been posted here. You can subscribe to this feed.

In this episode I discuss in-world terrorism in Second Life, our neugenic nation, and how China is moving from the third world to a brave new world.

Neugenic Nation

Eugenics.

It is a word that has come to mean different things to different people. Some consider it a pejorative, while others use it as a powerful tool in political rhetoric. It conjures images of Nazi brutality and 20th century zealots working to sterilize the unfit. Ask anyone for a definition and you're bound to get a multitude of different answers; when you key define: eugenics into Google it spews out no less than 20 unique definitions.

When stripped of all its historical and social baggage, however, 'eugenics' can be used to describe two general philosophical tendencies: 1) the notion that human hereditary stock can and should be improved, and 2) that such changes should be enforced by the state (or other influential social groups such as cults or religions).

These two concepts are not married to one another. Transhumanists tend to subscribe to the first point but not the second, leading to the charge that they are liberal eugenicists. China, on the other hand, engages in a form of eugenics that draws from both agendas; the state is actively involved in the ongoing biological re-engineering of its citizens for ideological ends.

More broadly, eugenics is an old Greek term that means 'well born.' The general idea is that genetic constitutions can be improved, either by selective breeding or through more advanced reproductive technologies like applied genomics. Needless to say it is a highly controversial concept with no shortage of detractors.

Dysgenics and neugenics

But what does it mean to oppose eugenics? When one is anti-eugenics what does that actually entail?

There's an old truism (or is that an old Rush lyric?) which states that even when you choose not to decide you still have made a choice. A similar thing can be said about those who oppose eugenics. By consequence, detractors have unconsciously positioned themselves as being either dysgenicists or neugenicists.

Dysgenics is the notion that humans should genetically regress from an evolutionary standpoint and default to harmlessness. Yes, there are people who actually believe we should do this (which, I suppose, is not nearly as bad as the misanthropic Voluntary Human Extinction Movement). Such a standpoint can be interpreted as a kind of oxymoronic Luddite transhumanism where progress is measured not by the increase or refinement of physical and psychological capacities, but instead by their regression. The ultimate goal would be to see civilizations whither away and have devolved humans return to the jungle.

Neugenics, which is the majority bioethical opinion today (and most notably the opinion of bioconservatives, human exceptionalists, and anti-transhumanists), is the conviction that the human genome must not be deliberately altered to any significant degree. The general idea is that Homo sapiens are fine just they way they are and that enhancement will only lead to greater societal discord and/or diminished lives (i.e. a case of more being less). The underlying assumption is that God or nature has already optimized human beings; human enhancement would only knock over this fragile house of cards.

Neugenics is a new bioethical designation that has only come about through the advent of enhancement technologies (which includes artificial selection a la the old school eugenicists). This particular issue has migrated from the theoretical to the practical now that we have the capacity to enhance. It is only by becoming real (or perceived to be real) that an issue becomes political.

Human stasism

And here is where it gets interesting.

If the state sides with the neugenicists and bans the use of enhancement technologies, then it is enforcing a particular vision of humanity, albeit a fixed one. In this sense the neugenicists are similar to the authoritarian eugenicists of the past. In each case individual procreative freedoms have been trumped by the demands of the state (which, in a democracy, is supposedly the consensus opinion).

But any discussion of human reproductive rights must critically examine how the state justifies the abrogation of specific procreative choices. Fewer things are more coercive than state intervention in the reproductive practices of its citizens, especially in consideration of the presumption that parents tend to have the best interests of their children in mind.

As already noted, state control of human reproduction is one of two central tenets in the conventional definition of eugenics; the rationale behind the state’s intervention in this context is irrelevant (whether it be democratic consensus or totalitarian ideology). As the state exerts a greater interventionist role in limiting reproductive options, the greater is its commitment to 'eugenics', or in the case of limiting or denying germinal choice technologies, a commitment to autocratic neugenics (i.e. human genome stasism). One could go even further by suggesting that it is quasi-dysgenic if detrimental traits (such as genetic disorders) are permitted to disseminate and propagate unhindered in the human gene pool (but this is arguable because natural selection already works to prevent this).

Choice not chance

The parental desire for the so-called 'designer baby' is a reasonable one. It represents the next revolutionary step in human procreation and another victory over the blind forces of nature. Prospective parents will no longer have to rely on the genetic roll of the dice when it comes to determining the health and makeup of their offspring.

This said, I'm not so biolibertarian or naive to suggest that we advocate a genetic free-for-all. Enhancement technologies are monumentally powerful and have the potential to cause great social disruption. Make no mistake: state regulation and monitoring will be paramount. What's needed is a smart, non-reactive, and progressive hand.

This issue speaks to the heart of reproductive rights as it is an empowering technology that will allow for greater individual control and autonomy over personal reproductive processes. But like any new technology, it will be subject to abuse and error. And like any other powerful technology, it will need to be regulated and monitored. Child abuse laws are already in effect, for example, and they will need to be applied to those cases in which the guidelines for how parents can or cannot genetically alter their offspring are disregarded or abused.

Prudent and compassionate action

Finally, another problem with the neugenic vision is its non-interventionist position. Ethics and compassion are not passive activities; it is through our actions that we are able to help.

And what is it exactly that we are trying to accomplish vis-a-vis enhancement? It is the fostering of lives that can flourish, self-actualize, and meet their greatest potentials, while ensuring that they are free from as much suffering and undue constraints as is possible.

This is a broad vision for the future. There are no pre-determined and fixed visions of what humanity must become. Rather, it will be through our collective compassionate and common sense actions that we will unintentionally allow the human species to continue to evolve in a positive direction.