Boy or Girl? Simple Gender-Detection Test Raises Ethical Questions

Babyblue

Babyblue

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Boy or Girl? Simple Gender-Detection Test Raises Ethical Questions | TheLedger.com
The analyzed test can detect fetal DNA in mothers' blood. It's about 95 percent accurate at identifying gender when women are at least seven weeks pregnant — more than one month before conventional methods. Accuracy of the testing increases as pregnancy advances, the researchers concluded.
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Click the link and read the whole article. I think it has its benifits but also has a risk of gender selection. Meaning a person will abort til they get the gender they want.
 
Okay, I am going to make a correction here. They can detect sex of the child. They cannot detect gender of the child. Sex is a biological concept of male, female, or intersexed. Gender is a social creation of roles associated with sex.
 
jillio said:
Okay, I am going to make a correction here. They can detect sex of the child. They cannot detect gender of the child. Sex is a biological concept of male, female, or intersexed. Gender is a social creation of roles associated with sex.
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Sex and gender are not one and the same? I thought they were interchangeable. :shock:
 
jillio said:
Okay, I am going to make a correction here. They can detect sex of the child. They cannot detect gender of the child. Sex is a biological concept of male, female, or intersexed. Gender is a social creation of roles associated with sex.
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Gender, pretty much is how they will raise that baby. As a boy or as a girl. Depending on the sex of the baby.
 
Wonder what shows up on the result when the baby is intersex?
 
Babyblue said:
Gender, pretty much is how they will raise that baby. As a boy or as a girl. Depending on the sex of the baby.
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Yeah, gender roles are connected to sex, but gender is a different concept.
 
I think early detection of the baby being a boy or a girl will lead to more abortions. Selecting the sex of the baby they want. :(
 
:hmm:

I don't know that I agree with that. If we were a country, like China, that limited the number of children that a couple can have, I could say that there will probably be a correlation. But the decision to have an abortion is not something that any woman takes lightly, and to say that more women will abort just because sex can be determined early really makes it seem like women who have an abortion make that decision easily and for insignificant reasons.

I can see where this would really be a plus, especially in the case of genetic disorders that are sex linked. It would allow one to know whether further testing would be beneficial or not.
 
Yes, as Jillio says, sex and gender are not interchangeable words... though the majority of our society sees it as such. Sex is a biological factor that currently can not change, it is the chromosomes that create a Biological Male or a Biological Female. Gender is a social identity, which involves social training, social behaviors and the way people look at ones biological sex. a person can be Biologically Male and Identify as female, or be Biologically Female and Identify as male. Gender is also a continuum, with hyper-masculinity on one side and hyper-femininity on the other. A person can identify (self identify) anywhere on the continuum. There are also those who do not identify with a gender, so they would lay somewhere in the middle. Gender, until we give it meaning, is a void word, meaning, that there is no true meaning to the word. (this is true for all words in all languages)
The unfortuante thing is that people do not understand that gender is a continuum... and very few places will allow for ambiguous gender, or allow for someone to state, or enter, the gender they see fits them.

Sociology lesson for the day DONE! (and yes Jillio, it does have a bit to do with psych too... but as a sociologist, I give soc lessons!)
 
ash345 said:
Yes, as Jillio says, sex and gender are not interchangeable words... though the majority of our society sees it as such. Sex is a biological factor that currently can not change, it is the chromosomes that create a Biological Male or a Biological Female. Gender is a social identity, which involves social training, social behaviors and the way people look at ones biological sex. a person can be Biologically Male and Identify as female, or be Biologically Female and Identify as male. Gender is also a continuum, with hyper-masculinity on one side and hyper-femininity on the other. A person can identify (self identify) anywhere on the continuum. There are also those who do not identify with a gender, so they would lay somewhere in the middle. Gender, until we give it meaning, is a void word, meaning, that there is no true meaning to the word. (this is true for all words in all languages)
The unfortuante thing is that people do not understand that gender is a continuum... and very few places will allow for ambiguous gender, or allow for someone to state, or enter, the gender they see fits them.

Sociology lesson for the day DONE! (and yes Jillio, it does have a bit to do with psych too... but as a sociologist, I give soc lessons!)
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That's cool with me. As an undergrad, I carried a double major...soc and psych with an anthropology minor. I am one who believes that the individual cannot be considered without considering the enviroment of that individual. And then, there is always that branch of psych known as social psychology.:giggle: Not my specialty, but I have done quite a bit of study of social psych. But from now on, I will defer to you on the sociology lectures.
 
jillio said:
That's cool with me. As an undergrad, I carried a double major...soc and psych with an anthropology minor. I am one who believes that the individual cannot be considered without considering the enviroment of that individual. And then, there is always that branch of psych known as social psychology.:giggle: Not my specialty, but I have done quite a bit of study of social psych. But from now on, I will defer to you on the sociology lectures.
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I did do some research into social psych... but psychology was never my specialty. I took a few pure psych classes, but I didn't understand them for a number of reasons... I love soc though!!! I always wondered how people could do the psych and soc double majors... I was always told in my psych classes not to write like a soc student... my minor was CJ. I am glad that we can compliment eachothers areas of focus!
 
I was a Soc. major in college. Soc. and Spanish. Took some Psych classes and some Anthro classes, really enjoyed the Anthro.
 
dogmom said:
I was a Soc. major in college. Soc. and Spanish. Took some Psych classes and some Anthro classes, really enjoyed the Anthro.
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it seems there are quite a few of us who were soc majors. I tried spanish... but failed miserably at it in High School... I can read and kinda write it... but me trying to speak it made me fail 2x... so I stopped and my school, because of my hearing loss, waived my foreign language requirements... I never took an anthro class though... I have so many classes planned for when I go back to school (I love to learn)...
 
:wave:ash,

well reading and writing in more than one language can be an advantage too.

I also enjoy learning about new things.

Anthropology was so intriguing to me but in the end I decided on Sociology because there seemed to be more immediate things I could "do" with a Bachelor's in that field than in Anthro.
 
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